ABOUT NOMADICS

Nomadics is not just an art project, it’s a collaborative experiment. Though a few of us knew each other beforehand, most of the team only met for the first time this July. We work in disciplines ranging from fashion design and illustration, to set design and poetics. Because many of us travel and because two of the artists are based outside of London, we rely on several methods of communication, including email and a special web-forum and discussion board.

Although the project will culminate in a final installation environment, it adheres to the fluxus principle that the process of creation is an inherent part of the artistic experience and should not be superseded by the art object. Thus, a significant portion of this project is devoted to the creative representation and documentation of that experiment. The project is as much the conversations, meetings, emails, drawings and daydreams that give birth to the environment, as it is the environment itself. This website tracks their progress as a collaborative team as well as the progress of the installation. .

WHAT IS NOMADICS? ...a definition

Etymology- Nomad: First recorded into the English language in the 1600s.

“The Greek verb némein had a very wide range of senses. It originally meant ‘deal out, dispense,’ a signification mirrored in the derived nemesis (etymologically the dealing out of what is due and the possibly related number. It developed subsequently to ‘inhabit’ and to ‘control, manage’ (which is represented in English economy). But a further strand was ‘put out to pasture’; and from the same stem as produced némein was formed the adjective nomás ‘wandering about to find pasture for herds or flocks.’ Its plural nomádes was used to denote pastoral people who lived in this way, and the word was passed on via Latin nomades and French (singular) nomade into English.” (p. 365)

Ayto, John. Arcade Dictionary of Word Origins. Arcade Publishing ; New York, 1990.

A Modern Definition—Nomad:

Main Entry: no·mad
Pronunciation: 'nO-"mad, British also 'nä-
Function: noun

Etymology: Latin nomad-, nomas member of a wandering pastoral people, from Greek, from nemein

1 : a member of a people who have no fixed residence but move from place to place usually seasonally and within a well-defined territory

2 : an individual who roams about aimlessly
- nomad adjective
- no·mad·ism /'nO-"ma-"di-z&m/ noun

from: merriam webster online

NOMADICS:

Although etymologically, the origins of this word differ considerably from its use today, we can expand its original meaning by investigating it in a modern context. Advances in technology have allowed for a Nomadic Culture to develop. Nomadic, in this sense, does not refer to a cyclical migration as indicated in the Merriam Webster definition of the term when it describes a seasonal movement. Nor does it imply a people without a fixed locality (although I discuss the evolution of these definitions below). Rather, in this context, Nomadics refers to an increase in global travel: to our holidays in foreign countries, to the business executives that travel regularly as part of their careers and to the fact that politicians today spend a significant portion of their profession both physically and symbolically in the international arena. Thus, nemein: dispense; as we are dispensed across space and time, we dispense our own traditions and cultural objects into new spaces. On a larger scale, these movements yield Interculturalism and Globalization.

Nomadics also refers to the advances in communicative technology that have allowed us to transcend our physical locations. With a few taps of the keyboard, we can communicate simultaneously with individuals across the globe. Virtual space, then, is a no-mans land, a cultural and geographical amalgamation.

Within the realm of Nomadics, we must also acknowledge increases in migration and immigration; Nomadics explores relationships of our identities to fixed localities and how our identities may be lost or distorted as we enter new geographies— Japanese-British, a Muslim in America and a Jew in Palestine, asylum seekers and their children. It’s about existing in a space where one’s appearance and one’s language are at odds. It is the relationship of cultural tradition and ritual to geographical areas, the transportation of these practices to new spaces and the assimilation that occurs when they are brought into new cultural contexts.

Nomadics is also a metaphysical term. It explores the superposition of objects and practices as they accumulate in a given location over time. Thus, it evokes the fourth dimension. Within this understanding of Nomadics are the ideas of absence and presence, of life and death, of the civilizations and practices which have flourished and ceased, and the ones which have taken their places. Nomadics, in this sense, possesses the cyclical and seasonal nature of the term described in the definition above.

Our installation focuses on both cultural and metaphysical explorations of ‘Nomadics’. In part, Nomadics, is a no-mans land. The installation is a multi-dimensional and polysensorial geography that evokes a meditative and emotional journey within these concepts. In this space, we are made aware of our bodies and the ways in which our movements correspond to our physical surroundings. Nomadics, in this sense, embodies the more literal associations of the word. In addition, the symbolic and atmospheric elements of the installation make both intellectual and emotional suggestions concerning movement through geographical and physical space over time. The installation explores the consequences and implications of these movements.