«the new normals»
What do people want most of all after this year of state of emergency? Back to normality! Most people want things to go back to the way they were. Normal life. It has been great! Yes, it was nice, it was hugging, having birthday parties, going on vacation. And it was absolutely insane. It was work, consumption, competition, ignorance, exploitation, waste, exhaustion. Can we leave behind this normal madness and this insanity of normality? Can we develop new forms of being? Being ourselves, being together, complicity, fun?
Ammann and Fleischlin invade the city with «the new normals». They appear abruptly in the everyday life of the city and give us an idea of what is now conceivable. They irritate and pervade the supposed normality with cracks through which one can perceive areas of possibility.
«the new normals» have an Instagram account on which their existence in Basel is documented. Here, a collection of images and video sequences are sent to the worldwide web, showing "the new normals" performing everyday actions. They're getting a pizza. They sit in the park. They're jogging. They're walking their puppy. They take the ferry across the Rhine. They stand in line at the post office. They sit at a Buvette in the evening and enjoy the sunset. They appear as individuals, as a couple, as a small group, also always mixed with normal people. «the new normals» are utopia, myth, and reality at the same time.
Online from May 1st, 2021
Artists' talk
Live Instagram Talk: http://instagram.com/new.normal.art
Duration: 15 minutes
Giacomo Veronesi / Barbara Weber
Diana Ammann / Beatrice Fleischlin
Natascha Moschini
Fabian Chiquet / Club für Melodien
Lorenz Nufer / Sophie Jung
Joël László / Performing Porfiry
Participants
Diana Ammann works as a costume- and mask designer in Basel. Under her label «Imaginary friends & creatures» she invents and stages imaginative beings, which she brings to life with the help of photography and video. She sees costumes and masks not as a disguise, but as a way to make the invisible more visible and to find new forms of communication. She loves the absurdities of everyday life and the unexpected encounters that can arise from them. @ammanndiana_costumes I dianammann.blogspot.com
Beatrice Fleischlin is a freelance performer, she lives in Basel and Berlin. She realizes her works mostly in complicity with other artists (among others: Nicolas Galeazzi, I-fen Lin, Andreas Liebmann). She has been working with Diana Ammann for many years and shares a common interest in „ambiguous beings“. Her ongoing collaboration with Anja Meser includes projects that combine biographical material, research regarding political and social issues, as well as fragments from both the pop industry as well as works with a view to being smart and entertaining. fleischlinmeser.com
Credits
Concept and Production
Ammann and Fleischlin
Videoediting
Anja Meser
Thanks to Eva Böhmer with Thyda and friends, Lorenz Nufer, Vela Arbutina, Maxine Devaud, Oliver Kerstholt, Barbara Ellenberger, Andrea Giovanni Käppeli, Jennifer Merlin Scherler, Winter-swimmers (Andrea, Barbara, Corinna, Daniela, Florian, Ruben & friend), Angie (the “Kulturbüro”), Priska, Abdulay, Mohammed, the Kaserne kids, Vito Pizza, Beyeler Securitas, the skater boys and all humans, creatures and plants who featured unwittingly.