Born in Turin (IT) in 1995, Twee Whistler (she/her/it/its) obtained an MFA at Brera's Academy, Milan (IT). Fascinated by artist Jon Rafman from a young age, she inevitably plunged into relational aesthetics. By ranging from fanart to identity theft to gender-bending, Twee intends to question the norms at the very foundation of the current socio-economic system. She mainly produces colourful animated videos, often including references to more or less disputed cinematic masterpieces, mythological tales, and internet folklore. Since 2018, she has covered a variety of roles, from curator to editor to research consultant at Harlesden High Street Gallery in London, which has gradually shifted its focus to the exclusive representation of Black and Indigenous people of colour. Beyond the boundaries of the gallery, Twee expresses her enthusiasm by facilitating other artists' search for funding or by providing useful materials for their research. She has recently become one of the moderators for Lucas LaRochelle's project Queering The Map and she is an active member of both the artists' platforms Do Not Research and 0xSalon. Twee exhibited both nationally (State Of in Milan, Das Bologna, Milan Machinima Festival...) and internationally (to name a few: Tbilisi Architecture Biennale in Georgia, Leipzig's Showroom in Germany, Toronto's Pleasure Dome in Canada and Harlesden High Street in the UK).
Website: https://tweewhistler.tumblr.com/
Project:
In my video "1by1" I examine an abandoned shopping mall, a contemporary submerged version of the abandoned Atlantis, where people are seeking an alternative activity to leisure. The work is partially based on and purposely quotes the Chilean author Diamela Eltit's book "Mano de obra". In it, supermarket workers become participants in a reality show admitted to a house thanks to their job, which determines their permanency and power status. As time passes different dynamics appear mimicking those of contemporary capitalism. Objects once identifiable by their functions become sensors and eyes reading any micro-expression and posture of the body of the workers; until they ultimately assume an indecipherable divine symbolic meaning.
During my residency, I would like to capture this sound of things coming into being in our world. In the Christian Bible angels are given a certain appearance only to be visible and identifiable by humans, similarly, sounds have mutated in my work to be more identifiable and domestic, post-industrial or technological to appeal to the human's ear.
They create dissonant memories, closer to a conceptual interpretation rather than a realistic reproduction of what is presented on the screen.
This could be paralleled to Russell’s five minutes ago paradox, which states that the content of our memories is not derived from mechanics, therefore "successful retrodictions
can be false memory-beliefs, the falsity of which is a matter of logical tenability" according to philosopher Negarestani.
A neoliberalism lecture of our times has characterized my latest works in a bigger perspective frame, inglobing religious interpretation of surveillance, allegedly being omniscient and omnipresent (both in time and space).
In my video where past, present and future collide maybe I attempted to demonstrate how a "genuine self-consciousness turns out to be the view of ourselves from nowhen" (from Reza Negarestani "A Case of a Critique of Critique: Boltzmann’s time-drift").
It would be interesting to experiment with sounds on the verge of the duality of real and unreal, on what is possible and full of possibility. How to capture the sound of the Nymphe Daphne transforming into laurel? Or of Zeus turning into a bull or a swan?
At the first moment, my proposal would be to recreate these sounds realistically or just picture them this way, then to abstract them, slowly creating more indistinct equivalent rumours playing with their tempo depending on the situations happening in Greek myths.
I would like to also give sound to a fallen ophanim, descending through the atmosphere as light and transforming into its human-decipherable appearance.
How would the clapping of a thousand wings and the blinking of a thousand eyes sound?
Giving sound to these metamorphoses, this state of uncertainty would be my ultimate goal, trying to conceive a sound that is not linear but can be interpreted in both senses and practicable infinite times.
This obviously springs a question on the practical instalment of a sound that takes no place and kilometres of space at the same time.
Furthermore one could consider the metamorphosis of the caterpillar that transforms itself into a butterfly. The latter, having nothing in common with its previous form, not even sharing the same space (the sky as opposed to the ground) still share the same life.
So I would embrace philosopher Emanuele Coccia's vision, which affirms that there is a relationship that binds all species together and unites the living with the non-living. Everyone being a step in the Darwinian evolution is nothing but part of a bigger indefinable being.
Although in this all-where and all-when of sounds, some forms prevail momentarily, the unity and singularity we are living in are undefiable so that is where I would like to point forward in my research.