mehmet ali simayli
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I May Swim Slowly
I May Swim Slowly is a modern tragedy of techno-accelerationist schizophrenia. It is a 17-minute mixed-media piece composed for video, sound, text, and a single performer. Drawing on Nick Land’s accelerationism, the CCRU, NRx theory, and William S. Burroughs’ The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar, the piece constructs an eerie, uncanny atmosphere that interrogates the metaphysical and technological conditions of contemporary existence. Through the expressive performance of an individual wearing a balaclava, it explores an object-oriented questioning of concepts such as democracy, technology, music, and loneliness.
The piece was performed at the ACT Festival 2025 at HEAD – Genève.
Courante
Courante is a multimedia piece for video, three performers, piano, gong, and harmonium, where I explore the connections between the baroque dance Courante from France and the historical development of learned behavior in society and its classes. The piece integrates concepts such as music therapy, behavioral psychology, and historical materialism from a multidimensional perspective. The work incorporates several elements, including a chopped video simulation of a Courante dance, fragmented into milliseconds, which is then reflected in the piano. This manipulation transforms it into an ambient, soundscape-like environment that resonates with a contemporary societal perception. This aspect ties into how sonic structures are perceived in society, where long, resonating sounds are often associated with healing, music therapy, and meditation. In this context, the performers take on the role of healers, with individuals lying on the floor as symbols of erotic healing and societal views on sexual normativity. Thus, the gong and harmonium not only support the fixed media musically but also contribute to the creation of an electro-acoustic simulation of a musical meditation—what is commonly referred to as "sound bathing.”