THREE WHITE SOLDIERS pt I-III
by Anders Paulin & Johan Forsman
Gothenburg, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Cairo, Malmö, Skövde 2014-2019
Trailer 1: https://vimeo.com/141959157
Trailer 2: https://vimeo.com/868707745
The earth is the first economy
Connect with people
Keep doing what you´re doing.
Think in patterns.
Track the sky.
Use aspects
to see how it unfolds
There is a 528 hz chime
that is pretty wonderful
It resonates with the note F in the heart
We could share that with you
THREE WHITE SOLDIERS is an archive of stories, collected by Anders Paulin and Johan Forsman through a series of pilgrimages following the material as well as virtual relations of symbolic orders and value production in contemporary economy. Neither a critique nor capitulation towards the networking super speed of neoliberal semio-capitalism, rather an attempt to travel along its patterns and linguistic figures: A journey accompanied by the fetishes of the financial market, algo-spoofers, astronauts, bitcoin miners, ancient gods and japanese rice traders.
The performance starts in the server halls of contemporary stock markets, where robotized traders operate in velocities challenging our concepts of time and space. From here Anders and Johan departs on a journey studying the relations between material and immaterial values, various ”time- spaces” operating beyond the human perception, and the use of patterns and images to visualize worlds and events impenetrable to the human horizon. As they go, they collect stories and respond to associations. To avoid already known financial narratives, they start to follow the directions given by shamans and spiritual guides they meet along the way.
Through the trilogy, their focus wanders from the surreal speeds of high frequency trading to the extreme gravity of mining. Initiated as a documentary research, the work gradually begins to challenge the borders between fiction and facts and the process starts to intervene in their personal life. Following a protocol step by step defined in co-operation with the shamans Charlyn, Åsa and Janne we follow the duo’s continuous journey. A parallel universe unfolds, as they walk the Mojave desert and suburbian New Jersey, travel along the Vittangi River on a quest for magical items, interview the mountain spirit in the mines of Kiruna and investigate paleolithic burial rites in the desert of Egypt.
In the final part the previous pilgrimages through server halls, mines and deserts the path arrives at a point zero of transcendent values and symbolic systems: A sonic-visual ceremony aiming for the impossible leap – to tear a fissure in the financial web of signs and peek into the other side; a passage of stillness in the midst of the speeds and seemingly unstoppable static noise of modern finance.
THREE WHITE SOLDIERS is a travelogue through the human history of symbolic thinking. Join us for a story in which Economy, Language and Magic join forces as administration of Passage, and where fiction is not the opposite of knowledge but its fundamental condition.
JOURNEYS/RESIDENCIES/PRESENTATIONS
March-April 2014
Research trip Los Angeles/Joshua Tree/New York
June 2014
Performance TEATER SORT/HVID, Copenhagen
November-December 2014
Performance Three White Soldiers, version 1 + Academy Platform SKOGEN, Gothenburg
February 2015
Performance Three White Soldiers, version 1 at WELD, Stockholm
Research trip Bitcoin Mine Boden/Iron Ore Mine Kiruna
March 2015
Academy Platform SKOGEN, Gothenburg
Guests: Annika Lundgren, Niklas Persson, Kanslibyrån, Leif Elggren, Marja-Leena Sillanpää, Chiara Giovando, Love Enqvist, Ewa Majewska
April 2015
Research trip Luxor, Egypt
Performance Three White Soldiers, part 1 at RAWABIT THEATRE, Cairo
August 2015
Research trip Kiruna, Sweden
3 weeks Research, Workshops and Performance Three White Soldiers II/Rock This World, Academy of Performing Arts, Copenhagen
November 2015
Performance Three White Soldiers II/Rock This World + Academy platform SKOGEN, Gothenburg
Performance Three White Soldiers, I & II INKONST, Malmö
December 2015
Publication co-operation with GLÄNTA, Gothenburg
February 2016
Performance Three White Soldiers II/Rock This World at WELD, Stockholm
October 2016
Performance Three White Soldiers II/Rock This World at FICTION/REALITY, a conference program at DANSEHALLERNE, Copenhagen
