BINT. Photo by Nathan Tucker.
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Interdisciplinary artist and musician BINT presents her second program as an ISSUE Artist-in-Residence. This next iteration of عيب:Solve et Coagula is co-presented with CPR – Center for Performance Research in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has been partnering with ISSUE to support the work of its Artists-In-Residence since 2021.
عيب:Solve et Coagula began with the collection of shame experiences from people of the MENASA (Middle Eastern/North African/South Asian) diaspora. The processing of these shared experiences through ritualistic sound has been the focus of BINT’s 2023 residency at ISSUE Project Room. Spending spring and summer of her residency focused on a bare-bones approach, BINT has been deeply inspired by minimalist and drone pioneers Halim El-Dabh, Steve Reich, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela – finding form and methods of transportation within the loops of the simplest of drones and minimal arrangements.
Over the course of the year, BINT presents three programs mirroring the primary stages of (Arabic) alchemical transmutation. The three programs function as immersive audio-visual ritual; wherein the collected shame stories are transmuted through sound and direct audience experience. The programs are loosely based upon the structure and setting of Sufi sem’a, a traditional Sufi gathering in which a third communal space is created (often underground, hidden from orthodox authorities) for the purposes of deep listening, chanting, movement, as well as participatory acts of devotion.
Notes from BINT on Solve et Coagula → عيب, Stage II: تبييض (The Whitening):
As the transmutation process continues to unfold, we have moved into the second stage known as ‘The Whitening’ (تبييض), an inversion and growing from the dissolution encountered in 'Stage I: تسويد (The Blackening).' Through this inverse we remain amidst a-void; the white in many cultures still signifying death and mourning as we often equate with black. Here we find the naked bone, only white remaining after processes of decay. Here we find the ash of a long forgotten flame.
Alchemically, it is in this stage where silver metal is produced. To form silver requires a stripping down, a focus–a refinement of the fertile chaos in the prior stage. Silver, in its association with the moon, is a unique metal in its ability to be polished, receive and reflect an image.
Fitting to this, themes of soul polishing and repetition of holy words of power known as dhikr (translates to remembrance) are central to sem’a practices. In this, BINT will use voice, field recordings and cassette tape loops to emulate these alchemical processes of polishing and repetition, using these analog methods of memory looping as a means of receiving and reflecting collective experiences for the gathering.
BINT is an interdisciplinary artist and musician based in Brooklyn. Working across visual, performance and sound art, BINT applies contemporary methods to the traditional multicultural technologies of her ancestries (Pakistani, Egyptian, American, etc). With a focus on inherited metaphysical tech, her work is interested in the perennial role of the artist-mystic in cultural preservation and liberation work. As a musician, BINT turns to a palette of dissonance, distortion, long-form drones and noise to access corresponding emotional states in herself and listeners–most known for her unusual approach to processed harmonium and multilingual vocals, through tape, analog synthesis and pedals.
In 2019, BINT released Katabasis: Act I, an EP applying dark ambient power electronics and Arabic mother tongue to her classical Hindustani vocal training. She has shown work internationally including performance art commissions for Black Sabbath, the Copro Gallery, Atelier de Mélusine and visual work at Coachella Music and Arts Festival. BINT is founder of The Barzakh, a podcast and educational platform focused on the revival and reclamation of Islam’s rich heritage of the occult and metaphysics. BINT is an ISSUE Project Room 2023 Artist-In-Residence. Their first program "عيب:Solve et Coagula Stage I: تسويد (The Blackening)” was presented at MITU580 in March 2023.