Deniz Unal & Olivia Dunbar
‘‘‘O R A L S and O R A L S TV’’’
10 May 2012: 2pm, 11pm Broadcast on SALTO 1 – Publieke Omroep Amsterdam / 13 May 2012, 1am: Live! at de Club Up, Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 26-1


Video: Deniz Unal & Olivia Dunbar, O R A L S TV, 2012, video bу Deniz Unal & Olivia Dunbar, courtesy of Deniz Unal & Olivia Dunbar

The Mouth and Tongue performance draws on the formal elements of lecture, music video, cabaret, recital and dance in a work that separates the formal qualities of movement and speech. The artists' experience of listening and moving to contemporary popular music informs their ongoing investigation into speech, desire, and development of the self through the oral.

In thinking about the speaking subject, the verbal becomes confirmation of the Truth of the self, confession as the development of separation between body and soul, sensing self and thinking self. This piece is working towards an understanding of the mouth as a site of desire rather than identity, the products of the mouth – speech and language, blood and spit – as products of pleasure and the soul, rather than as affirmations of the truth of the coherent body – the self.

Image: a series of performances O R A L S. Performance at Master Fine Art, Piet Zwart Institute Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University, 25 minutes, 2012.

More about DENIZ UNAL & OLIVIA DUNBAR

DENIZ UNAL

Current: 
The relationship between the everyday and the fantastic
The destruction of the familiar
Youtube performers
My tongue
The domestic
My mum 
Investigating desire
Photobooth as everyday art
Understanding The Self
Moving bodies 
Being absurd
How language is not enough and more than enough

Deniz Unal (1983 Turkey) lives and works in Rotterdam. Deniz Unal is currently in her final year, studying at Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam. She holds BA in Fine Art from London Metropolitan University and a BA in English Literature/ Media Studies from Sussex University. Recent exhibitions include I’m in This Weird Part of Your Tube Again, Telephone Booth, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2012); You aren't anything, you are everything, The Duchy Gallery, Glasgow, England (2012); Art Rotterdam, PZI Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2012); Hello to the People, Artblog Cologne, Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany (2011) and Kunsthuis SYB, Friesland (2011); Directors Cut, Rotterdam Plaza, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2011); Life of an Artist, Live In Your Head, Geneva, Switzerland (2011); OYABORA, Kismet Projects, London, England (2010); Etat D'ames, ENSBA, Paris, France (2010); 19th Istanbul Art Fair, Tuyap, Istanbul, Turkey (2009); and I am Alone But… Daire Sanat Gallery (Istanbul Biennale), Istanbul, Turkey (2009). 

www.denizunal.org


OLIVIA DUNBAR

Flesh fade and mortal trash
The speaking subject
Work flow
Smoking
The soul
The self
Desire
Language
Coming into signification in relation to
Circulation or
Objects as nothing other than
Objects when
Total systems die destructed or
Orders occupied
Towards nothing

Olivia Dunbar (1988, Canada). Lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands.Holds BFA with Honours, Visual Art from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada). She currently studies MFA, Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam, The Netherlands). Her recent solo shows include Power Passes Slowly, The Crying Room, Vancouver, Canada (2012) and HE SHOOTS HE SHOT, Cutty Contemporary, Vancouver, Canada (2011). Olivia has recently participated in Video Handel, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2012), JEEKA, Beukelsdijk 44A, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2011), I Could Be Wrong, Audain Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2011), Sooner or Later, 714 Jackson, Vancouver, Canada (2010)and others. She is a laureat of the  Bice Cable Award (2010), Simon Fraser University Undergraduate Research Award – ‘I Know Where the Summer Goes: Nature, Authenticity and Liveness in the work of Ryan McGinley’ (2010) and Takao Tanabe Award (2009). 

http://oliviadunbar.tumblr.com/