Some Name Some Noun Simply

Some Name Some Noun Simply

17.09.2017

During the Berlin Art Week, the play Some Name Some Noun Simply by Nicoline van Harskamp was staged three times at Archive Kabinett. After each performance, there was a question and answer moment with Nicoline van Harskamp.

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EN
the mine nays give never given self / been enter mine nays / way hollo volume needs keeps fill / these olds, these uncover what pre-person / with which one nay a-stay turn backs / with seven nays been given me / no possiblity at me be seven peal during that same time / spite this, nays mine destinations even

DE
Ich habe meinen Namen nicht bekommen. Ich habe meine Namen betreten, wie Hohlräume, die gefüllt bleiben müssen. Die Älteren finden heraus, wer du früher warst, und welcher Name zurückgekommen ist. Ich hatte sieben Namen. Ich konnte nicht sieben Personen zugleich sein, aber gleichwohl waren die Namen mein Schicksal.

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Some Name Some Noun Simply is a short play written and directed by Nicoline van Harskamp, performed by Serge Fouha, Kenneth Philip George and Monica Reyes.

Some Name Some Noun Simply is set in a not too distant future. Global travel and global trade have disappeared and global languages have changed. Its three protagonists arrive from different parts of the world at a place they call the Onomasticon. It is a former site where names were inflicted on people, or taken away from people, such as an immigration office or city hall. To them, it is a memorial site for a redundant system where names were tools of surveillance, and a currency in data-mining industries. And although they are happy that the linguistic injury of naming has been put to an end, they each still have their sensitivities in relation to it. These come to light in their short encounter, which ends in an attempt to rename each other using nouns and verbs only.

The three performers use a link-language, a ‚lingua franca’, built up from the ruins of today’s global English. Nicoline van Harskamp created this language by applying distorting factors to existing non-standard forms of English. These ‘distorters’ include characteristics of English currently spoken between non-native speakers; rules of link languages created in fiction; and traits of Creole languages from the past and present.

Some Name Some Noun Simply is presented as a collaboration of Archive Kabinett, LET THERE BE NORM, Scriptings and the artist. Subsequent stagings will take place at Veem House for Performance in Amsterdam and Tenderpixel in London.

The language of the play departs from Nicoline van Harskamp’s short film “PDGN” (16 min 21 sec), that was screened continuously on Thursday, 14 September 2017 at Archive Kabinett.

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Nicoline van Harskamp is an artist whose current works examine the use and the properties of a future spoken global language and cultures of naming. Her previous projects include “Yours in Solidarity”, which addressed the very recent history of anarchism through a correspondence archive, and was presented in different stages of completion in Mexico City, Frankfurt, London, Shanghai, Zagreb, Bombay and Montreal. Her live pieces, among which are “Expressive Power Series” and “A Romance in Five Acts and Twenty-one Englishes”, were staged at Tate Modern, London; KunstWerke, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; New Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Arnolfini, Bristol; Serralves Foundation, Porto; and Kaaitheater, Brussels. She is a Professor for Performative Art at the University of Fine Arts in Münster.

For more information, please visit:
www.vanharskamp.net
www.scriptings.net
www.heberling.se/ltb