FRArt Witching Interferences. Connecting to other frequencies, creating alternative paths
- is created by Aline Fares
- is created by Luce Goutelle
- is created by Camille Lamy
- is created by Emmanuelle Nizou
- is created by Fabrice Sabatier
- is created by Désorceler la finance/Unbewitching Finance
1. Witching Interferences: introduction
- has as creator Aline Fares
- has as creator Luce Goutelle
- has as creator Camille Lamy
- has as creator Emmanuelle Nizou
- has as creator Fabrice Sabatier
- has as creator Désorceler la finance/Unbewitching Finance
- type: Article
- ref: DOC.2021.213
Witching Interferences
Connecting to other frequencies, creating alternative paths
Unbewitching Finance
The collective Unbewitching Finance formed in 2017 “around a shared desire to look at the relationship between finance and witchcraft.” This entailed explicitly walking in the footsteps of anthropologist Jeanne Favret-Saada and the philosophers Isabelle Stengers and Philippe Pignarre, who, in their respective works, rendered the language of sorcery current and, more importantly, operative. The collective proclaims itself to be “a wild laboratory for experimental research”; it adopts a multidisciplinary, multiform, highly committed approach to its investigations, which lie at the crossroads of art, activism, and the social sciences.
The research project Witching Interferences was conducted along three main axes. The first consisted of foundation research into the origin of the words and images that the collective had been using for two years in its rituals, workshops, and other public events. The second centered on the Slow Frequency Walk, a collective walk along the High-Frequency Trading Line connecting stock exchanges from London to Frankfurt, which took the form of a series of experiences of strolling and even wandering through the midpoint metropolis of Brussels. As a corollary to the second area of research, the last one involved a study of the geographic areas traversed by the walk, one that took the form of data collections and the creation of maps.
However, the pandemic changed how things would play out. First, it compelled the researchers to relocalize the issues they were exploring. A line of research undertaken in the workshop From Diagram to Cosmogram, conducted in the fall of 2019 with graphic design students at the St-Luc School of the Arts in Brussels, restricted its initial scope of investigation to the capital city and its housing issues.
The health crisis also compelled the collective to focus on the project’s premises. After two years of engaging in unbewitching practices, its members decided to take a step back for a moment to consider the language used in the various formats. Thus, a part of the research centered on the compilation of a Glossary, which proved a way of taking stock of the work as they went along, and an opportunity to produce a guidebook to be distributed and reappropriated widely. A version of the Glossary has already been presented at the Biennale de l’Image Possible in Liège, and another one, in the magazine Papier-Machine, with yet others to follow.
Lastly, since the lockdown and its aftermath halted the projects that involved the movement of bodies through walking, the radiophonic medium became a new terrain of exploration, a “medium” in the fullest—that is, including the spiritual—sense of the term. This was also an opportunity to revisit the issue of “interferences” that lent their name to this project.
2. Radioactive ritual, Pôle Nord Center, Brussels, October 15, 2020. Photo credit: Fabrice Sabatier.
- has as creator Aline Fares
- has as creator Luce Goutelle
- has as creator Camille Lamy
- has as creator Emmanuelle Nizou
- has as creator Fabrice Sabatier
- type: Image
- ref: DOC.2021.217
![](http://db.art-recherche.be/media/arca/images/4/97327_ca_object_representations_media_446_large.jpg)
- Radioactive ritual, Pôle Nord Center, Brussels, October 15, 2020. Photo credit: Fabrice Sabatier.
- 05.jpg
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3. Scouting photo from the search for High Frequency Trading antennae for the Slow Frequency Walk. Photo credit: Luce Goutelle.
- has as creator Aline Fares
- has as creator Luce Goutelle
- has as creator Camille Lamy
- has as creator Emmanuelle Nizou
- has as creator Fabrice Sabatier
- type: Image
- ref: DOC.2021.218
![](http://db.art-recherche.be/media/arca/images/4/33279_ca_object_representations_media_447_large.jpg)
- Scouting photo from the search for High Frequency Trading antennae for the Slow Frequency Walk. Photo credit: Luce Goutelle.
- 06_1.jpg
- image/jpeg
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4. Cabinet of Economic Curiosities, Biennale de l’image possible (BIP), Liège, September 19 – October 25, 2020. Photo credit: Grégory Edelein.
- has as creator Aline Fares
- has as creator Luce Goutelle
- has as creator Camille Lamy
- has as creator Emmanuelle Nizou
- has as creator Fabrice Sabatier
- type: Image
- ref: DOC.2021.219
![](http://db.art-recherche.be/media/arca/images/4/49008_ca_object_representations_media_448_large.jpg)
- Cabinet of Economic Curiosities, Biennale de l’image possible (BIP), Liège, September 19 – October 25, 2020. Photo credit: Grégory Edelein.
- 03.jpg
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- 1.65 MB
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5. Installation of the Glossary in the Cabinet of Economic Curiosities, Biennale de l’image possible (BIP), Liège, September 19 – October 25, 2020. Photo credit: Fabrice Sabatier.
- has as creator Aline Fares
- has as creator Luce Goutelle
- has as creator Camille Lamy
- has as creator Emmanuelle Nizou
- has as creator Fabrice Sabatier
- type: Image
- ref: DOC.2021.220
![](http://db.art-recherche.be/media/arca/images/4/81675_ca_object_representations_media_449_large.jpg)
- Installation of the Glossary in the Cabinet of Economic Curiosities, Biennale de l’image possible (BIP), Liège, September 19 – October 25, 2020. Photo credit: Fabrice Sabatier.
- 01.jpg
- image/jpeg
- 3.2 MB
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