B.Base – a body based space with Kivanç Tatar and Maria Pisiou

Written by Emilija Berga April 2022


In the last weekend of March, Bbase (a Body-based space) took place in 4bid Gallery. It

was a weekend in which two artists, Kivanç Tatar and Maria Pisiou, participated by sharing their

performances with an audience. 

In the first evening a live audio-visual performance ‘’Plastic Biosphere No.2’’ was presented by Kivanç Tatar. It

involved contemporary dance, and it was produced and performed using artificial intelligence

technologies. Kivanç Tatar is a multidisciplinary artist from Turkey. He started out with

studying electronics and electronic engineering in Turkey, and during his bachelor’s degree he

started playing trumpet, and took additional courses in music. Throughout his studies of 

music, he got involved in visual arts, and developed his interest in an interdisciplinary career.

He deepened his knowledge in music and interactive arts during a master’s degree in Istanbul

Technical University, after which he got a PhD in Vancouver. In Vancouver he acquired knowledge in machine learning and artificial intelligence, in live electronic music

performances.

The work shown in B.base, ‘’Plastic Biosphere No.2’’, is a second edition of an interactive

art work. The first version of this piece was made in 2019 in a virtual residency in Romania.

It was produced and installed remotely. Later it developed further into an audio-visual

performance, which he performed live. The second edition of ‘’Plastic Biosphere’’ is a

collaboration between Kivanc and Tamar Tabori joining this edition as a dancer. The work

talks about how humans are leaving traces in nature with plastic through their existence. The

plastic is everywhere around us in our everyday lives, and we see so much of it, that at some

point it even becomes unnoticed and accepted as a normality. It may have not happened as a

conscious decision, but it is nevertheless having an impact on the environment. The piece consists of short videos depicting landscapes which he shot during his travels, stylized by AI technologies that copy the

look, colour schemes and stroke styles from images of plastic, brought together with a

silhouette of a human body leaving traces in the scene, as well as music which Kivanç performs in real-time with a musical AI software.

On the second day of B.base ‘’Metaphor, Not a Metaphor’’ was presented by dancer and choreographer Maria Pisiou, followed by a discussion with the public. ‘’Metaphor, Not a Metaphor’’ is a solo performance created by performance artist Julyen Hamilton and Maria Pisiou, and performed on this occasion as a solo by Maria. It consists of a dance composition in which she creates instant memories in relation to space, time, and movement. The piece was generated by focusing on how memory works. During the research process of this piece, the choreographers were researching

different types of memory, and creating choreographic scores through dance improvisation.

The performance was first created and performed as a duet in Athens, and now recreated as a

solo. In the work Maria completes different choreographic scores, and then revisits the movement and traces in space through the memory of her body and her mind. The concentration in the piece is high, in the moments of revisiting these live-composed memories. Through seeing the dancer

trying to remember what has happened in the last moments, the viewer gets to go along in

this journey with her. Memory is crucial and very present in this performance – the atmosphere is intimate. It feels as if having a close look into someone’s archive of memories.

On the third day of B.base there was a showing of a video dance work ‘’Piano Voices I’’, also by Maria

Pisiou. The video gives the viewer an insight of movement inspired by the quality of water,

and the music of the composer Sakis Papapidimitriou. It takes the is into a meditative

state following the movement consisting of waves, impulses that resonate in the body,

repetition, and fluidity.

Although the performances shown this weekend were brought together with no evident common denominator, some connections appeared during the conversation with the audience. Both works performed live had in common the making of archives and in such way leaving of traces. Each of the performances approached this theme differently: there were traces left – on the screen, in space, in time, and in our memories.

This was the first B.base of this year 2022, and it felt very much alive – full of the joy of meeting

up again in person, performing, having discussions, and being in the same place at the same

time with each other.

From an interview with Kivanç Tatar and B.base discussion with the artists