Dictionaries
An on going performance series by Lise Chevalier and Amirali Ghasemi

Contrary to a real dictionary which can gives the real meaning, the through , the signification of the words and the things, this dictionary is based on improvisation from individual and collective memory. Every word gives us an emotion, a memory, an image, an opinion, a reaction that we exchange in our language. The words are chosen by chance, face to face, during performance with real dictionaries, farsi and french. Every word will be definited 2 times : in both language. Lise speaking french and AmirAli farsi, this definition dialogue will be absurd and fails but we try to read an other form of dialogue. This dictionary is developped during our meetings, on the form of performance, the first part took place around a ping pong table in the yard of an old school in Berlin in August 2008. The second performance took part on a roof in Tehran in March 2008, for that one we decided to speak on the words we already found in Berlin. This experience showed us to see how the words interact diferetly with us as 6 month passed in between., this new improvistion changed our definition.
The process of improvisation in the definition makes a re-appropriation from the words, to make a link with them again, to accept that they can provoc us and that they act on us, in our experience and not just our knowledge. No more a tool, words became the reason to talk. This dictionary doesn’t establish new definitions but more tries to be curious to learn the meaning of words, to redefine them for ourselves, to observe what they activate in our indivudual and collective memory. Speaking in differents languages, our definition and connections to the words are really different, we speak also free because of this misunderstanding, the retranscription of performance is a intersresting step to understand the dialogue, even if a translation makes it somehow impossible.
Lise living in Berlin and AmirAli living in Tehran, the distance of these 3 cities Berlin-Tehran-Montpellier doesnt allow us to come easyly, so we decided to perform the dictionary on skype. We can connect each other on precise time on the internet connection of ALMA to make our dialogue public. This dialogue can be recorded and then shown on a cd player in the space of the gallery. The first performance can took place during the opening. We are looking fo, through this methodes experimentation, to build this dictionary that we accept as an istability form, with improvisation that makes it change, evoluate.
The exhibition Paradigm is a place and time meeting point to keep on building and sharing the dictionary.
We will send a bilanguage dictionary to the gallery which can be on a table with a computer connected to skype. For every place the project will be performed, we want to show an object, which is actually a word coming from the previous definitions.
For Paradigm, it will be a washing machine in the gallery (which funsctions or not, it can also turns temporary) This washing machine is also a metaphore from the project because she is there, as a « residu » from the performances, and it lost its originary fonction.

Dictionaries
An on going performance series by Lise Chevalier and Amirali Ghasemi

Contrary to a real dictionary which can gives the real meaning, the through , the signification of the words and the things, this dictionary is based on improvisation from individual and collective memory. Every word gives us an emotion, a memory, an image, an opinion, a reaction that we exchange in our language. The words are chosen by chance, face to face, during performance with real dictionaries, farsi and french. Every word will be definited 2 times : in both language. Lise speaking french and AmirAli farsi, this definition dialogue will be absurd and fails but we try to read an other form of dialogue. This dictionary is developped during our meetings, on the form of performance, the first part took place around a ping pong table in the yard of an old school in Berlin in August 2008. The second performance took part on a roof in Tehran in March 2008, for that one we decided to speak on the words we already found in Berlin. This experience showed us to see how the words interact diferetly with us as 6 month passed in between., this new improvistion changed our definition.
The process of improvisation in the definition makes a re-appropriation from the words, to make a link with them again, to accept that they can provoc us and that they act on us, in our experience and not just our knowledge. No more a tool, words became the reason to talk. This dictionary doesn’t establish new definitions but more tries to be curious to learn the meaning of words, to redefine them for ourselves, to observe what they activate in our indivudual and collective memory. Speaking in differents languages, our definition and connections to the words are really different, we speak also free because of this misunderstanding, the retranscription of performance is a intersresting step to understand the dialogue, even if a translation makes it somehow impossible.
Lise living in Berlin and AmirAli living in Tehran, the distance of these 3 cities Berlin-Tehran-Montpellier doesnt allow us to come easyly, so we decided to perform the dictionary on skype. We can connect each other on precise time on the internet connection of ALMA to make our dialogue public. This dialogue can be recorded and then shown on a cd player in the space of the gallery. The first performance can took place during the opening. We are looking fo, through this methodes experimentation, to build this dictionary that we accept as an istability form, with improvisation that makes it change, evoluate.
The exhibition Paradigm is a place and time meeting point to keep on building and sharing the dictionary.
We will send a bilanguage dictionary to the gallery which can be on a table with a computer connected to skype. For every place the project will be performed, we want to show an object, which is actually a word coming from the previous definitions.
For Paradigm, it will be a washing machine in the gallery (which funsctions or not, it can also turns temporary) This washing machine is also a metaphore from the project because she is there, as a « residu » from the performances, and it lost its originary fonction.