Could you introduce yourselves?
PUC is a young interdisciplinary collective that unites artists of different fields to create performative, educational, and community projects. Our core team is Anna Possarnig, Amir Ahmadi, and Maria Shurkhal. We started to work together in 2018 on the piece dedicated to Bauhaus heritage and continued developing projects together ever since. Our goal is to make PUC a welcoming and sustainable platform where artists could meet and create together beyond disciplines, traditional modes of production, and established aesthetics.
What different elements do you combine in your work?
Our core team consists of two artists coming from a dance background, and a composer – this forms the foundation or a departure point of our work. Further on we collaborate with creators coming from the visual art field, dance, music, and film. In our current work, we combine the elements of poetry, light, projection, opera, and live electronics. Here we look for an equal and integrated dialog of all components.
What means subjectivity to you?
We approach subjectivity as a dynamic concept that can be accessed from different angles both in theory and practice. For instance, we study the space it takes in the paradigm of body and mind, the role it has in contemporary modes of production, the way it guides creations and interactions.
How does confession come into play in this context?
Confession plays an intriguing role when we talk about the public articulation of the private, or to be more precise the liberating and at the same time the self-disciplining effect, it carries. In our work, the body is addressed as a medium of a potential non-verbal confession, where performers are urged to articulate the private into the public, resulting in a never-ending transformation rather than an absolute destination.
How would you describe your aesthetics?
In negotiations on aesthetics, we feel very much connected to the line of sublime – an experience of great feelings that extends capabilities of the reason. Other than that we follow no other idea of beauty or visual code.
The interview was given in January 2021. Due to the current situation, the performance cannot take place as a live version. PUC has developed a film version of his project, which will be presented as an online film premiere with Artist Talk at the imagetanz Festival in March.