Isabel Lewis & Jeff Mills
Drift
2021
Drift is an encounter between the sonic composition by Jeff Mills and the choreographic compositions of Isabel Lewis. Hatsumi, composed by Mills appears on 01, the first release from Reif – the work is inspired by Masaaki Hatsumi. Lewis’ work O.C.E.A.N.I.C.A imagines human beings swimming through a social ocean- floating and sometimes drowning but surviving. How does our physical nature conform to our intentions? The collision of these two works suggests that there is no division between our interior and exterior experiences, further proving that integrated mind and body connections are totally natural and easily observed through movement. Meditating on the quality of movement through a free-flowing tango of forms, merging and moving through, swimming and listening deep, imagining new ways to reconcile one’s artistic activity in relation to the responsibility to protect nature, specifically the ocean, a tidal wave of possibility emerges.
Isabel Lewis (b. 1981, Dominican Republic) lives and works in Berlin. She is trained in literary criticism, dance and philosophy and her work takes on many different formats: from lecture-performances and workshops to listening sessions, parties (Bodysnatch), gardens, and what she calls “hosted occasions.” She has created works around open-source technology and dance improvisation, social dances as cultural storage systems, collaborative choreographic formats, future bodily techniques and rapping as embodied speech acts. Her live art works have been presented in contexts of contemporary art, music, dance, and theater at Kunsthalle Zürich (2020), Sharjah Biennial (2019), Roskilde Festival (2019), Berliner Festspiele-Gropius Bau (2018), Tate Modern (2017), Steirischer Herbst (2017), Dia Art Foundation (2016), Ming Contemporary Art Museum Shanghai (2016), and Tanz Im August (2015) among others.
Jeff Mills is a DJ who lives between Miami and Paris. Since 1992, he has been running his own record label, Axis Records. After conquering Detroit’s early Techno scene as The Wizard in the 80s, as a part of the Underground Resistance, he took up with his prime inspiration, Space and Science-Fiction. The 2000’s marked a turning point, when he started to merge his music with other artforms. He has since multiplied outstanding performances at the intersection of music, contemporary art, pop culture, design and science fiction. He notably created a new soundtrack for Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”, which introduced him to work on other film related projects. As a visual artist, Jeff Mills has shown numerous of his performances and exhibitions in art institutions such as CCCB (Barcelona), South Bank Center (London), Barbican Center (London), Cinémathèque Française (Paris) Paris, Centre Pompidou (Paris) and more.
Sonic Catharsis is a new project curated by REIF for the 5th floor of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. REIF, which began as a celebration, is a multifaceted cultural movement taking the shape of records and community activities. The primary interest of the collective is to curate events and craft multicultural happenings which include different expressions of thought, identity, play and experience – all reunited in a safe space.
For Sonic Catharsis, a group of artists who participated in the eponymous record label explore various cultural instigation strategies and form an investigation on how we, as a community, can reignite the fire of nighttime culture and create new ways to gather as the world slowly reopens. Through their bodies, new works and untold stories, the artists collectively illustrate how sound can be a means of resistance. Art becomes a vehicle to craft new realities, while movement and sound morph with contemporary club culture. In all works, sound is the chosen instrument for political catharsis and social change.
This program, built as four issues, will be released over the course of four months on the 5th floor and includes works by Karl Holmqvist x Tabloid Press, Isabel Lewis x Jeff Mills, Josh Johnson x rRoxymore and Labour x Richard Kennedy.