Marika Asatiani came as last person in the project. She was invited by Maarten Vanden Eynde, who descided to make an extra exchange program in the exchange program of ERforS 3: 'Georgia Here we Come'
At the same time as the project in Tbilisi was going on, Maarten was attending an experimental school (MSA^ The Mountain School of Arts) in Los Angeles, USA. Marika changed lives for a period of three weeks with Maarten, consequently becoming part of both projects as well. She stayed in his room and attended classes in his place. Maarten lived her life in Tbilisi.
"We have never met before and will exchange lives on the 1st of march, flying simultaneously towards each other. We will keep in close contact and exchange experiences. It is very unclear what the outcome will be."
TIME OUT: MEGA TOYS
As I rode buses and cars of my friends through Los Angeles, I was overcome by the boredom; but as I moved from solitude to solitude and space expanded in all directions, the boredom vanished. I felt hidden, intense dread while absorbing empty streets of LA, continuous flow of traffic below and above in the sky, and artificiality of seemingly everything that I was surrounded by. Eventually, all of these did not suppress my spirits, but on the contrary, instilled courage in me and strengthened my enthusiasm. By the end of my stay in Los Angeles I fell the victim of the charms of this unreal or rather hyper real city; as Jean Baudrillard writes there certainly was a peculiar charm in being in transit, in between places, in no place.
Space is made infinite by the destruction of the center, in turn creating a true fictional space, the perfect setting for an orgy of indifference, disconnection, exhibition, circulation (Baudrillard, 1986). Los Angeles, California are one of the best places to feel that the essence of America is circulation: traffic flows, money flows, production and consumption cycle incessantly. Culture is space, speed, cinema, technology… in America cinema is true because it's the whole of space, the whole way of life that are cinematic. "Allora, I don't understand, LA is a movie or movie is LA" exclaimed a friend of mine, Domenico Mancini. True, the break between the two does not exist in Los Angeles.
Marika Asatiani - MSA 2006
Re mote Control, Tbilisi, Georgia
