SCYLLA: PASSPORT CEREMONIES
2021ONGOING
Type:
Performance-based collective
With:
Sofie Topi
Website:
scylla.works
Links:
︎︎︎Vimeo
︎︎︎CV download
‘Scylla’ is both a performance-based collective and a fictional character, co-created and embodied by Sofie Topi and myself. The project delves into the representation of identity within personal narratives, alongside an investigation of bureaucracy and conformity, particularly through our ongoing project, “Passport Ceremonies.”
In our work, we engage in exaggerated re-enactments that scrutinise bureaucratic standards and institutional validation, aiming to lay bare the underlying administrative processes. This approach examines the performative aspects of social and business operations and administration at large.
By performing as a unified entity, we (as her) underscore the tension between personal autonomy and societal norms and expectations.
︎︎︎ The inception of our collective followed our graduations, with Sofie’s background in the Critical Inquiry Lab at DAE. Inspired by official documents from local authorities and our involvement in the Dutch design scene—which often required us to define ourselves by citizen service numbers and professional practices—our project emerged from discussions about the strategies municipalities use to integrate foreigners. With support from Cultuur Eindhoven, we have since had the opportunity to perform at various venues and to explore text-based works and costume making.
In our work, we engage in exaggerated re-enactments that scrutinise bureaucratic standards and institutional validation, aiming to lay bare the underlying administrative processes. This approach examines the performative aspects of social and business operations and administration at large.
By performing as a unified entity, we (as her) underscore the tension between personal autonomy and societal norms and expectations.
︎︎︎ The inception of our collective followed our graduations, with Sofie’s background in the Critical Inquiry Lab at DAE. Inspired by official documents from local authorities and our involvement in the Dutch design scene—which often required us to define ourselves by citizen service numbers and professional practices—our project emerged from discussions about the strategies municipalities use to integrate foreigners. With support from Cultuur Eindhoven, we have since had the opportunity to perform at various venues and to explore text-based works and costume making.
Title:
Passport Ceremonies: The Stock Version
Type:
Installation, text, games
With:
Sofie Topi
Group Exhibition:
Designers From the Flatland
Exhibited at:
DOPO?, Fuorisalone, Milan IT
Date:
18th – 23th April 2023
Link:
A Slow Design Week
Scylla thinks of the Law of Accumulation. A marketing trick, that produces jobs-listings as opportunities, as good as a frayed drawer. Scylla thinks of the bid for constant job development as the distortion of human life and psyche. Scylla thinks that self-definition is a lie, prescribed by late-capitalistic conditions and work style definitions.
Scylla thinks of the applicant and wonders what’s the deal with social stratification, and why life feels so concentrated on work and as flat as the tiny apartment one can afford to live in. Scylla eats the total system 10% yogurt, while waiting in the
lobby. But Scylla is just learning to play along.
Title:
Ciàula scopre la luna /
Ciaula discovers the moon
Type:
Exhibition text
With:
Sofie Topi
Exhibited at:
ncontemporary
Date:
June 29- July 29, 2022
Link:
ncontemporary
Commissioned for Santiago Reyes Villaveces's solo exhibition 'Ciàula scopre la luna,' named after Luigi Pirandello's narrative, this text—co-authored with Sofie Topi—merges Pirandello's text with Villaveces's investigation into the moon's technoscientific depiction and its commodification into a romanticised symbol.
Title:
Passport Ceremonies: The White Shirt Case
Type:
Installation, video works, texts
With:
Sofie Topi
Solo Exhibition:
Passport Ceremonies: The White Shirt Case
Exhibited at:
Heuvel Gallery, Eindhoven NL
Date:
15th – 17th September 2022
Supported by:
Cultuur Eindhoven
Link to texts:
Document
‘Passport Ceremonies: The White Shirt Case’ is an exhibition that explores the quest for the ideal fit embodied by the classic white shirt—the classic formula piece for a job interview, social status checkup, and bureaucratic encounters. It delves into the compromise one makes in the pursuit of sobriety and uniformity. The works presented capture the tragicomedy of undergoing an application process. Through exaggerated re-enactments of bureaucratic standards and institutional validation, exhaustive administrative processes get underlined and questioned.
With this iteration, Scylla takes aim at the white-collar values that shape both professional and personal choices. Self-tailored marketing is the heart of the subject; the individual surviving as a contributor to society and political culture under generic expectations. Scylla foresees a move towards flexible identities and open-ended diversity insurrection.
Title:
Interview to the Applicant
Type:
Video
Lenght:
2’35”
With:
Sofie Topi, Alex Foradori, Erik Campanini,
James Grünfeld
Exhibited at:
Hoax Publication (online)
Date:
2022
Link:
Hoax Publication
The video develops around the idea of interviewing a fictive applicant. a fictive applicant.
Our interviewee may “live in emotional poverty”
or “imagine herself as a long series of success.”
Title:
Spunky ways for a stomach-leave
Type:
Video
Lenght:
1’00”
With:
Sofie Topi
Date:
2022
During an opulent meal in a well-groomed garden, B and S
(as Scylla) release their obsessions on voracity and gluttony,
claiming the privilege of free time.
“take it all. what a shut mouth cannot. slump on regularity and cause stupefaction. leisure or aversion. what it is to have vacations.
take it all. noble struggles. infected. forces on your insides.
vacation. leave. and impossible opinions. generally resentful.
what a shut mouth cannot. have a spite on a hanky.”
Title:
Passport Ceremonies: Cocktails and more
Type:
Installation, performance, costume design
With:
Sofie Topi
Group Exhibition:
The Foot
Exhibited at:
Studio The Foot, Eindhoven NL
Date:
19th – 23th October,
Dutch Design Week 2021
Link:
Dossier
10 designers signed a contract with an antikraak building in Eindhoven, to find out the breaking points of an anti-squat space. With the support of destruction, the Foot exhibition celebrates alternative design practices over the prevailing precarity between walls and ideas.
During Dutch Design Week 2021 – The Greater Number, ‘The Passport Ceremonies’ was featured as part of this open studio event. The performance work, consisting of four acts, delves into the themes of bureaucracy and labor.