Interview: Isabelle Schiltz

Isabelle Schiltz: October, 2008. Video still from performance.		Isabelle Schiltz: October, 2008. Video still from performance.

In few words, how will you describe the way you make art and what it is that makes it unique?  

I put myself into a chosen space and attempt to rediscover the relationship I have between my body and its physical surroundings. In that way my performances discloses a certain way of being in the world.  A way more innocent, a way far from learned behaviour and judgement.  In my case, I needed vocal sounds to establish this new relationship to the space, I was in.

Do the different objects/places have different ”language” connected to them, that you use to communicate with these objects/places?  

Yes, every place has its own details, structure of surfaces, colours, temperature, and position in relation to the body.  And the body itself feels and reacts differently at every moment. You cannot perform twice exactly the same way, because the way you will perceive and use the information of the space will always be different. Where you will be looking, what  you are going to touch, how  you will place your  body and how your body will feel. So each translation will be unique and a registration of a unique moment in time and space.

How do you use your body as a instrument in your work? Do you use your body as the ”language” – as the core of the communication between you and the material world? Or is the body simply the reciever of impulses and information from the material enviroment that surrounds it?  

The sounds are extracted from the deepest core of a body’s organs. I try to realize the body as a tool of flesh. To do so, I search for its ultimate neutrality of rationality as possible. I try to shut off my consciousness, that little chattering voice in my head. Then I can see, what happens when I let go of all rational control, learned patterns, my own judgement, the lure of aesthetics. Having escaped from my conscious self I can reach a space that no longer follows society's choreography. A place which I consider more free, more surprising. The body then goes back to the primitive, to the uncensored, to the real. Taking on the identity of a newborn who has just arrived in this world and does not know this reality yet, he/she tries to find a way, in my case with the use of vocal sounds, to relate to the surroundings. The body responds to what surrounds it, to what this looks like, how it feels to touch, how the space feels to be in, the light and so on. The body thus deprived of learned patterns can be used as a instrument, as neutrally as possible. The choice of sounds will depend on me, who I am, as it is the creator of the performance’s language. I will be the source of the language as well as a receiver of the impulses from the material environment. The environment inspires the sound from out of me and I return it. The surface gives life to me and I give it life too, through means of the sound, creating a sort of dialogue.

Isabelle Schiltz: The Boat, 2008. Video still from performance.

In your artist statement at Kaganofs blog, you say that it is more confronting to be silent than to make sounds? Why is silence more confronting than noise?

In many of my performances, I translated the space into sounds, thus adding my vocal sounds to all the existing sounds, which then created a space of both human and surrounding materiality. It was very confronting for me to be present in the space, to remain silent and let the sounds do their job and fill up the frame. It was very interesting to discover how many interesting crazy sounds surround us and constitute our space. They almost sounded humans. (see ‘The Boat’ video: HYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/user/ischiltz" \l "p/u/6/rUep_FGgh8c" www.youtube.com/user/ischiltz)

What is it that you, as a physical body, is being confronted with, when you talk/doesn't talk with selected material objects?

It is difficult to exist without the chattering voice in your head that tries to control how you behave physically. The moments when I manage to really let go are really short, but they are wonderful in the sense that I don't know what is going to happen. I need the video to discover what my conscious self has missed. I feel I uncover a certain unconscious, an uncensored way of being, in a way a certain essence of being a human being.

A dialogue is fundamentally based on feedback. What kind of feedback do you recieve in your dialogue with obejcts and places?

The feedback from my sounds is very abstract, is sensorial, it is what the space ‘tells’ me to voice, ‘shows’ me to voice or, i could just say, ‘guides’ me or ‘inspires’ me to voice. When I do these performances I really feel that a real interaction is created between my human body and the seeming inanimate surface of my surroundings.

Isabelle Schiltz: Sous la Chaise, 2008. Video still from performance.		Isabelle Schiltz: Sous la Table, 2007. Video still from performance.

How much does it affect your dialogue that it is recorded on video? How does the visual medium affect the confrontation between body and material world?

I am aware of being looked at by the video camera, but only until I cease be aware of it anymore, because all my focus is on the object or the space i am trying to relate to. It feels like I become one with the materiality I'm trying to translate, I plunge into it with my whole body and voice.

How does your artwork relate to the theme of Aryan Kaganofs exhibition Noisewomb at Netfilmmakers?

I focused on the idea of a protecting world filled with noises. As I have said, I translate materiality into vocal sounds. We already live in a world of sounds, but what if everything physical become, at the same time, transformed into the human voice, or into sounds? We would create a chair by voicing it and sleep on a vocal bed. This idea is very poetic, but I really like it.

Thanks. 

Isabelle Schiltz: Kitchen, 2008. Video still from performance.