REWINDING INTERNATIONALISM

Villa Arson, Nice, 17 June – 17 September 2023

Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 19 November 2022 – 30 April 2023

Netwerk Aalst, Belgium, 19 February – 1 May 2022

REWIND / REPLAY 

REWIND / REPLAY (2022-23) is a 5-channel site-specific installation with sound, video, light and tape, 50 mins loop, composed, directed and edited by susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san.

REWIND/REPLAY was commissioned by Van Abbemuseum for Rewinding Internationalism: Scenes from the 1990s, Today, a collaborative research exhibition curated by Nick Aikens. First staged at Netwerk Aalst in spring 2022, the earlier iteration featured remote recordings and live rehearsals of REWIND/REPLAY (I): A Script/Score in One Act, Five Rounds and Five Scenes (repeat ad infinitum).

REWIND/REPLAY evolves out of an earlier residency focused on the Gate Foundation archive (1988-2006) as part of Van Abbe’s Deviant Practice research programme. The residency led to a text essay and video, Through the Gate / an(g)archivery (2017), which considers the archive within an archive (and the artist as, and in, the archive), while following dispersed traces of Tiong Ang between catalogued and un-catalogued dimensions of the museum. Although the Deviant Practice research influenced the museum’s subsequent decision to inventorise the Gate archive, uncatalogued video and audio materials remain.

REWIND/REPLAY continues to explore archival relations, opacities and activations. The earlier script/score arranges lyrics from Western pop songs found on two unlabelled mixtapes and rehearses them with ‘players’ in the present. The later script/score further layers and expands these surreal and fragmented scenes with voices from the past, recorded in public discussions on art from ‘first’ and ‘third’ worlds and notions of ‘development’. Bringing disparate conversations from the 1990s into the present, the multitude of voices come into political and poetic tension, amid deconstructed tapes and deteriorated images, while the open script/scores underline the potential for reconstruction and reinvention.

PUBLICATIONS

REWIND/REPLAY (2022) is a script/score for 10 voices in the form of an A3 concertina multiple with 38 panels, by susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san.

‘Through the Gate / an(g)archivery‘ (2017) is an essay and embedded video by susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san in Deviant Practice (Van Abbemuseum e-publication).

‘Further through the Gate: The Gate Foundation archive‘ (2019) is an essay by Jessica de Abreu and Michael Karabinos in Deviant Practice (Van Abbemuseum e-publication).

Rewinding Internationalism (2022) is an extended exhibition booklet with a conversation between Didem Pekün, susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san and Nick Aikens, which accompanied the exhibition at Netwerk Aalst.

Rewinding Internationalism – Scenes from the 1990s, Today (2023) is a forthcoming publication with contributions by Nick Aikens, Sara Buraya Boned, Pablo Martinez, Bojana Piškur and Grace Samboh as well as images from the Van Abbemuseum exhibition. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Remote rehearsals of REWIND / REPLAY (I): with Juan Ayala, Lucy Hopkins, Tomoko Komura, Charl Landgreuvd, Apostolis Psychramis, David Ka-Shing Tse and Julia Yevnine.

Live rehearsals of REWIND / REPLAY (I) at Netwerk Aalst: with Nick Aikens, Juan Ayala, Tessa Bracke, Paris Helene Furst, Paul Nieboer, Apostolis Psychramis and Julia Yevnine.

Voices from the Gate Foundation archive: Hou Hanru, Robert Lodder, Sebastian Lopez, Marilyn Martin, Everlyn Nicodemus, Els van der Plas, Jim Supangkat, and numerous unidentified speakers.

Translations: with Nychenda Fecunda, susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san, Sophie Guo and Wenny Teo.

Sound mixing and mastering: with Oliver Payne.

Netwerk Aalst: thanks to Dries Boutsen, Ludo Engels, Piet Mertens, Jeniffer Vansteyvoorrt, Dietger Vanwynsberghe and Pieternel Vermoortel.

Van Abbemuseum: thanks to Nick Aikens, Inge Borsje, Nychenda Fecunda, Bart van der Geldrop, Diederik Kopplemans; and also to Jessica de Abreu and Michael Karabinos.

Images: susan pui san lok / susan lok pui san, REWIND/REPLAY (2022). Site-specific multichannel installation with sound, video, magnetic tape, mics, stands and live rehearsals at Netwerk Aalst.