FILUM ~ by Foad Alijani
Foad Alijani's "FILUM" was presented before live audience at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy on August 8, 2025 as one of 24 acts, (curated by Elisa Giuliani) at the occasion of the AEROPONIC ACTS 2025: CHOREIA (convened by Gabriëlle Schleijpen).
Here you will find an introduction by the presenter, video-documentation filmed by Baha Görkem Yalım and a written report by Grant Watson.The report includes a summary of the spoken, improvised comments by esteemed guest respondents Barby Asante, Sandi Hilal, and Zairong Xiang.
FILUM
Foad's question: What is filum?
Foad's intro:
Filum, from Latin meaning thread or filament, anatomically refers to slender, threadlike structures, such as the filum terminale of the spinal cord. In legal contexts, it denotes an imaginal dividing line, as in the middle of a stream or a road, establishing spatial boundaries. This concept here is used as a metaphor for how our consciousness employs a form of apprehension that touches on how we take hold of our incomplete images of memories to form a whole. Through integrating sensory and imaginal processes, consciousness dynamically reconstructs lived experiences into the speculative formation of a prospection image.
Grant's report:
The audience hears a series of chords from an organ. At the back of the stage a screen displays a yellow circle on a black ground. Theatre lights in the rigging flash on and off. There is some melodic piano music. A thin white line meanders across the yellow circle on the screen. The music continues, and as the theatre lights fade, it intensifies with a series of chords, then a single note as the space darkens and the image on the screen gets reduced to a white line on black. Then there is a shift to techno music and the colours and shapes on the screen mutate to become a grey circle on a yellow ground. A figure enters the stage and lies on the floor, remains motionless facing the audience head resting on folded arms. The figure shifts slightly as if moving in sleep. Lights in the rigging flash green, purple, yellow, blue; on and off in time to the music. The lights produce a coloured sequences on the floor. As the lights speed up the figure comes to standing and paces the stage then exits while the screen becomes molten yellow liquid and we hear the sound of running water. The light show stops. To a simple set of chords the screen turns white, then grey with a yellow circle. The figure re-enters, lies down on the floor this time facing away from the audience. The colours on the screen intensify, the yellow circle becoming brighter, a circle of light appears from a spot in the rigging, organ music sounds, the spotlight fades and the performance ends.
Barby Asante notes how the audience are invited into the installation. On the one hand there was an image that didn't mean that much, a circle with a line, then there was the theatricality of the lights, and then the performer. This raised the question of how we generate theatre because the work takes a theatrical approach. She asks about the relation to the question - what is filum? Maybe filum isn’t in the piece, maybe it’s the thin line between the artist and the audience. She had wanted the performer to move the second time that they came on. There was this epic stage and the music but the person remained still. Maybe that was the line. The expectation of what we are supposed to be seeing. Sometimes when we are abstract, we make the mistake of thinking others will get it. But particularly in the theatre environment there is an exchange. You have to consider what is going to be received. And in her case she didn't feel sufficiently connected.
Zairong Xiang says that during the piece he experienced an exegesis of time in relation to the cinematic image. That if there had been people dancing, he wouldn't have noticed the light. If there had been a lot going on in the projection, he wouldn't have noticed the sound so much. He mentions haptic cinema in film studies. How elements are highlighted, not as protagonists but as cinematic extras. How these elements come to the foreground despite themselves. That is how he tries to connect to the piece. He invites the artist to look into slow cinema but not stop there because haptic cinema has a strong politics behind it.
Sandi Hilal asks for some sympathy. Mentioning the term Filum, she says that for her there were so many lines, some of which we can connect, others we can’t. She appreciates that the artist has been working on their practice for two years but notes how in this context the respondents have to say the first thing that comes into their minds, which creates a feeling of being exposed. Because of this she almost doesn’t want the artist to take her words seriously. Behind the piece there are two years of work and all the respondents manage to see are fifteen minutes. She says she would like to be with the artist in that exposure. To be able to jump into the piece and not speak. Not knowing enough, just reading the text, and wondering how to begin. She mentions how she tells her daughters not to take the judgement of their teacher too seriously. That it is just one person.
