OUTPUTS presents Haroon Mirza & Helga Dorothea Fannon’s 'The Ancients Call It Ataraxia (OUTPUTS Mix)’, the third single from the forthcoming ‘Sampler1’ album.
Adapting audio and visual elements from an installation, the track and accompanying video are a continuation of Mirza's ongoing ‘modular opera’ project – a malleable system of interconnected sculptural, installation and performance works – in which a tea ceremony is conducted using the active ingredient of the Amanita Muscaria mushroom. Also known as Fly Agaric, this deliriant strain of mushroom is associated with toxicity, dizziness and loss of coordination, rather than with the hallucinations of the psylocibin or magic mushroom. Its red-and-white, domed cap has a rich history and mythology, both in popular folklore associated with the poisonous toadstool that shrinks Alice in Wonderland and in its ritual usage by Saami and Siberian shamans, as a healing aid or a portal to another universe.
Combining these themes of childhood make-believe and mystic soothsaying, the work intermixes vocals by soprano Sarah-Jane Lewis, a two-channel film featuring ingestion of the tea by a group of children (the artist’s included) on the night of Winter Solstice, alongside electronic tabla drums beating out a shamanic rhythm, samples from an Icaro by Olivia Arévalo (an Amazonian shaman, brutally murdered in 2018) and a sonic vocabulary derived from the sounds of techno.
Combining these themes of childhood make-believe and mystic soothsaying, the work intermixes vocals by soprano Sarah-Jane Lewis, a two-channel film featuring ingestion of the tea by a group of children (the artist’s included) on the night of Winter Solstice, alongside electronic tabla drums beating out a shamanic rhythm and a sonic vocabulary derived from the sounds of techno.
Written by Helga Dorothea Fannon & Haroon Mirza
Featuring:
Sarah-Jane Lewis - soprano voice
Helga Dorothea Fannon - speaking voice
Mixed by Jack Jelfs
Film Credits:
Appearances from:
Blossom
Heida
Kiki
Qingqing Liu
River Cao
Une
Xiaano
Zey-Nyo Platt
Zia
Ziggy
and Mischka the dog
River Cao - drone operator
Thé0 - additional camera
Zosia Shimmell - dance coach
Charlie Fieber - audio mixing and mastering
Jack Jelfs - sound engineer
Sarah-Jane Lewis - vocals
Made possible with support from:
Rosa Barba
Ben Barwise / Clacktronics
Ellen Gibbons & Robert Sheffield
Joe Morrow
Rute Ventura
Sylvia Oakeshott Flote
You stayed on in minds and in villages of the deluded an en-raged.
It is what the ancients called ataraxia - absence of disturbance.
Immortality on their faces, night at their back.
I remember what it felt like to be roots growing.
To be held by the light
You immortal soma, resurrected in three days.
it’s spores are standing separate, glittering with light
A star plunges down the slope of dreams and into the fire.
Trying to induce a sacred moment, in which time can collapse
We are seeing answers which mean nothing
I have been people other than your daughter
She was from birth entangled in imperial processes, which endowed her with split vision and multiple identities.
The moon has unfolded and burnt a gauze of the skies.
These years (lacking) of alchemy and language
Under a caustic moonlight, in an air of mycelium and saffron roots.
The visible world becomes like a tapestry, blown, and stirred, by winds behind it.
She imagined a magic based upon symphonies,
To look at myself in the eyes of a reindeer - I should have tied yellow ribbons on walnut branches
In the Traumas of memory and the little nauseas of time.
My name is Maata, I am seeking answers, which mean nothing
Summoning the snake of all breath,
Summoning the snake of all breath.
It is what the ancients called ataraxia,
It is what the ancients called ataraxia.
Under a caustic moonlight, in an air of mycelium and saffron roots,
Under a caustic moonlight, in an air of mycelium and saffron roots.
I am unravelling like a serpent,
I am unravelling like a serpent.
We are seeing answers which mean nothing,
We are seeing answers which mean nothing.
Summoning the snake of all breath.
Skin peeling back the dancer from the dance.
credits
from Sampler1,
released December 1, 2023
Written & produced by Haroon Mirza & Helga Dorothea Fannon (2023)
Sarah-Jane Lewis - soprano
Helga Dorothea Fannon - spoken word
Mixed by Jack Jelfs