Mi†ra presents ‘nine-sum sorcery’, a collaborative project of Studio LABOUR,Hani Mojtahedy, Enes Güç, Zeynep Schilling, and Evelyn Bencicova.’nine-sum sorcery’ premiered at Berlin Atonal 2019 as live audio-visual performance work, later adapted as a video piece for gallery exhibition and online setting. 

‘nine-sum sorcery’ is an audio-visual piece composed of three chapters – “The Wheel”, “Cyclone” and “Xerodrome”. ‘nine-sum sorcery’ draws inspiration from Reza Negarestani’s theory-fiction book “Cyclonopedia”, which imagines oil as a sentient being. ‘nine-sum sorcery’ is a project initiated by studio LABOUR.

3rd chapter:

Xerodrome

All is one between the earth and the sky. Dust flows over the surface of the horizontal plane. Dust is a real nomadic entity, it migrates elsewhere, spiriting itself away as an elusive ground. When dust particles are composed, they combine countless terms, languages, and materials belonging to entirely different kingdoms. Dust is the unit of information. There is no line of narration more concrete than a stream of data dust particles. Breathe as deeply as you will, it will never be depleted. 

(text from: Reza Negarestani – CYCLONOPEDIA: Complicity with Anonymous Materials)

Evelyn Bencicova (b. Bratislava, 1992) is a visual creative specialising in photography and art direction. Informed by her background in fine art and new media studies (University for Applied Arts, Vienna), Evelyn’s practice combines her interest in contemporary culture with academic research to create a unique aesthetic space in which the conceptual meets the visual.

Evelyn constructs compelling narrative scenarios that blur the lines between reality, memory and imagination “fictions based on truth”. Depicting multifaceted representations as illusions, Evelyn plays with the viewer’s perception to entice them into the labyrinth of her imagination. Her disturbingly beautiful visual language and washed-out colour palette, set within curiously symbolic environments, allow for a deep exploration of the themes that take her works and images far beyond what they reveal at first glance.

Collaboration repertoire includes cultural institutions such as Frieze, Royal Opera House,
Berghain, Kunsthalle Basel, National Portrait Gallery, Institute for Molecular Biotechnology and MQ Vienna. Evelyn's work was published in international art books, magazines (Vogue Portugal, Vogue Czechoslovakia, ZEIT Magazine, Dazed & Confused, i-D, Frieze, GUP, HANT, Metal etc) and exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. She also received numerous awards for
both photography and art-direction including Hasselblad Masters, Taylor Wessing Photography Portrait Prize, Portrait of Britain, Lens Culture award, Gomma Grant, Lens Culture and Berlin Masters 2020 to mention a few.

In 2019 Evelyn completed artistic residency in Mimic Studio which shifted her practice into more immersive and experimental forms of story-telling. Audio-visual work “Next time die consciously” (2018) and “nine sum-sorcery” (2019) were premiered at main stage of Atonal Berlin, MIRA (Barcelona) and Regenerations (Amsterdam). VR installation “Artificial Tears” was exhibited at Berlin Photo Week in Kraftwerk and Synthesis Gallery (Berlin). The work was also awarded by VR Art Prize scholarship by Deutsche Bank.