Fred Agni & Aaron Lang – Blind Date Duo – collaborative residence
For this residence, two artists, Fred Agni and Aaron Lang were chosen from an open call to work on the theme of collaboration. They didn’t know each other beforehand and had backgrounds that were quite different from each other, but sharing certain elements (see bios here). In total, Fred and Aaron had three weeks time in January 2025. This blog entry documents their processes, their challenges and their voices.
Week 1
(Fred) It’s been nice meeting Aaron, the excitement of getting to know someone new, while knowing that there is some common interest to discover, because we both came here. We took a long walk past the lake and on our way we discovered some street gifts, random bags of street charity.it was fun to see their openness to street collection which made me feel quite warm. As we talked briefly it revealed our different relationships with the cold, while I have taken steps to get over my rejection of the cold over the years, but it’s still small steps compared to where Aaron seems to indulge in it effects.
On our return we have found a puzzle and this has shaped the week, a natural interest for both of us and also the other residents. There seems to be not a possibility to look away from it for more than an hour without it’s growth. I like this atmosphere that’s being created outside of the work, something collective but low stakes.
We’ve shared our applications with each other and a topic has picked both our interests, it seems there is a lot to say on this one subject and so much research that could be endless, so we’ve had to actively decide to make it more physical and less intellectual by creating a series of exercises we might explore each day. It’s been a little tough for, as I’ve been sick and been feeling unable to put out much physicality into some of our work but Aaron has been supportive in how we adjust some exercises to my possibility. This makes me feel quite trusting of the process we have ahead.We started recording ourselves doing very boring movements, trying to sync up naturally. The difficulty of this was incredibly irritating while fully committing to it. One exercise I deeply enjoyed involved playing with our faces for a long period of time, repeating a movement until our bodies felt finished and ready to move on. This led us to something we called “tour-guiding”—one person silently acts out an experience while the other narrates aloud. The result is some very fun, badly dubbed footage. The essence feels captivating on film, especially.We’ve explored other uncomfortable movements, like holding a position without letting it transform while the other watches (and maybe directs a bit). There’s something here worth observing more deeply. Ideas are easily flowing. I feel an openness to the exploration and by the end of the first week we seem to have a sort of set up for a possible showing. I’m easily adjusting to ideas I may of not put out there myself, and feel a fullness that this may be more interesting than either of us alone could have produced alone, I’m grateful for the differences we seem to show interest in and I’m looking forward to creating more in-depth exercises to create the filling of this rough structure.
(Aaron) On the first day of our residency, we went for a walk together and got to know each other a bit. We found a puzzle on the street, which became a small collaborative process in itself. There is one concept that I think summarizes some aspects that both the processes of doing a puzzle and getting to know each other have in common.
SALIENCE
Salience is the property by which some thing stands out. Salient events are an attentional mechanism by which organisms learn and survive; those organisms can focus their limited perceptual and cognitive resources on the pertinent (that is, salient) subset of the sensory data available to them. (wiki)
In a puzzle, most people chose to first find the pieces that delineate the image, that make up the separation of what is the image and what is not. The salience of these pieces lies in their shape, which is easily recognizable, because it differs greatly from the other shapes. What, in collaboration, are the pieces that make up the border of our image, that delineate it? Opposite to the puzzle, we do not have a fixed set of pieces, but the pieces take shape with and through interaction.
So there is an element of time and an element of chance, which „pieces of interaction“ will be the end of the image, its outside line (the framework of the artistic work). Only later we will know how/if/where this line will be relevant, but it is a first reference, something that both people in the process agree to and have shared.
They can be simple things, stories we tell, which clothes we chose, what time we chose to meet, how we categorize people (ourselves), which language we speak. It’s really not ‘going through the small talk in order to do the deep talk’ – it’s much more a hierarchy of perception. There are cascades of salience, or funnels of salience, which lead from obvious things to very specific, unexpected, obscure topics or interactions.
“BREAKUP”
We right away decided to work on a piece that we want to show at the end of our residency, in order to give an aim to this enterprise of collaborating without previously knowing each other. Working on this piece followed a „normal“ process, we talked about concepts, chose some movement tasks and explored in the studio. At the end of the first week, I felt tired and frustrated, partly because of personal reasons, partly because of how the collaborative process went. I realized I no longer wanted to put my energy into creating a piece together, as I didn’t see any future for this creation. I don’t think it’s necessary or fair to spell out the exact reasons that led to this view. I was not ready to be so invested in a project that is a mere exercise, and I was also not ready to not be invested, to not care, to distance myself, to play it cool. I am fully aware that I rejected Fred as a direct collaborator, but the reaction to this rejection is her process and I am glad that I managed to communicate my needs, especially because I have a history of not doing that, of putting my needs second in order to please another person.
Here are some thoughts I had at the end of the first week. They are directed towards myself as well as towards the person I’m working with.
I lost my interest in compromise.
Don’t hide, show yourself.
Don’t be ashamed of how you move, be proud that you do.
Don’t try to please the other person, be honest with yourself.
Don’t want, do.
Don’t pretend to be interested, show when you’re bored.
Am I brutal? I hope so. (Like a child)
Right now, I don’t care and I think it’s the right thing to do. Let me not see.
I don’t have time for uncertainty, I don’t want to waste my energy on something half-hearted.
I can give so much. Either we’re in this together, or we’re not.
I won’t do the work for you. I can’t do the things you have to do. I want to hold the space for your process, if you are willing.
Don’t waste my time, please be brutal.
I am happy that I took this decision, first of all for myself. I know I could have easily continued the common cretive process, but I had the intuition that I would continue being unhappy in it, not being able to fully commit to what I am able to do, losing myself in diplomatic conversations and bending my vision in compromises for nothing.
Week 2
(Fred) (text)
(Aaron) As it is now (in the second week), we support each other in two separate processes in different ways. I get the impression that I can support Fred in the rehearsal process by simply being there, joining in in some movement tasks, sharing observations, supporting her belief in herself and pointing it out when I perceive things to be dishonest. I also see, that we are giving a frame to each other, which for me is necessary in order to get things done. For me it is helpful to just (try and) explain or show my ideas to Fred and then just by doing that I realise what works and what does not.
The original proposition I had for this collaboration (non-verbal work, silent agreement) did not materialise, but it does happen in other ways: By initiative of a co-resident, Cinzia, every other morning, we gather to do yoga, qi gong and other practices in silence, next to each other. I find it immensely helpful to hold the space for each other, to share some kind of vision or desire by just being there. Through this, I have learned that I don’t need a teacher or anyone to guide me through my practice. It might seem like a small thing, but I think this is an essential skill as an artist, and so many people don’t even realise how much they depend on external motivation („being a good student, doing it right“). Generally, I still depend too much on external confirmation and I want to nourish my intrinsic motivation.
Here are some thoughts about this.
CLARITY
When someone proposes something and the other person doesn’t go with it, but also doesn’t say they don’t want to go with it, something is lost. I think what is lost is a powerful simple-heartedness, a feeling of „everything is possible“. Losing this is not necessarily bad, even though this original feeling can be quite a rush (honeymoon). To know that not everything is possible is also part of the process of demarcation, a process of finding, by setting limits (like in the puzzle mentioned above). But the fact of not really actually rejecting, but indirectly rejecting can start a kind of communication that relies on cues and the interpretation of each other’s cues. (Because nobody ever said: No, I don’t want to do that.) It is not easy though, to be right away so frank with yourself and others. We don’t want to hurt each other, we are not sure (yet), etc. – in my experience, often when I actually ended up hurting someone it was because I originally tried to not hurt them. We say we are open but we are actually not. I’m not interested in this kind of communication. I’m interested in a communication in which we coexist, like happy dogs or ducks in the pond. (That sounds too cute for what I imagine…I imagine clarity.) But I have to accept that in the beginning, nothing is clear. Maybe it won’t ever be.
Or it will be clear that nobody cares. This is the worst scenario I could imagine. Then we can just let everything be and rot.
I have to be patient, with myself and with other people. And I have to be clear within myself, give clear proposals, communicate what I want. To be honest: If someone is unclear, I lose interest. Figure it out yourself and then come back. (I’m not a good „midwive“, other people do have a calling for that. I’m often unclear myself, confused. I want to say I’m sorry for that, but that would just make it worse.) When someone is clear, it is the most natural thing to listen, and to understand is just another small step. Tonight the sky is clear and the moon’s surface reflects the sun’s rays into my eyes.
Week 3
(Aaron) Fred disappeared into her room. There is not much creative interaction between us. I am worried, yet I don’t feel like I can (and should) take care of this. I continue to prepare for the showing, waiting for her to resurface.
Two days before the showing, she starts working in the studio again. A day after the showing, she asks me and another resident for feedback. I don’t know what to say, where to start. Our differences are so big: Where we are at in our lives, the artistic vision we have and most importantly the physical approach towards dancing and working with our bodies. I have given up on trying to connect.
(Fred)
My body has fixated in particular shape, not one I’m proud of. I’m at the same time searching and not looking for resolve. I want it and yet I can see how quickly I can escape it. There is some deep sadness appearing in me about feeling of not being seen, while I hide myself in having to deal with this process alone. There is this coldness about Aaron, that feels like protective layer, and this feels more separating. I think it’s not the sadness I fear but the anger of ‘I did not choose this situation and yet it’s here’, it’s ironic how well it matches my subject of research. Hell. Have I created this? The logical answer says no, but the emotional one suggest I may be as responsible as the person who put me in this place. I try to breathe and allow myself to be, even in a state of not wanting to feel, I’m confused, and sadly it all feel outside of my body.
I recycle the feeling of the beginning of the week. The same movements, those that now tainted my new process. It’s more internal that what I would have planed but I’m giving it space to be that. I’m being honest, and throwing out old ideas and expectations. It’s hard to know if I go for this it will be a failure, but one I wish to express.
I’ve had asked for kindness, but due to no fault, I didn’t receive it. It was clear there was no want to actually collaborate here. I see through the lie, in the small interactions where someone says they are fine and clearly they are not. Something had been taken away from me. The trust in the project being something together in the end, it made me questions whether any of the warmness I had felt had been anything but my own.
It has been hell for me, and I got what I wanted out of it, or at least it’s a version that I’m working with for now. We’ve now both performed and I asked for feedback, I got brutality. That’s it, the last shutter I needed to reveal I wasn’t mad, there had been dishonestly at the start.
My body knew, I didn’t. And this has been a process of me finding that out.
