Those bloody mermaids drawn the fish again.

Happy 1 april

I can die happy

"I can die happy" is an original song composed and written by a single improvisation, on "Love walked in" from George Gershwin, performed in its instrumental version by Joe Loss and his orchestra (1954).

Ignoring this song, during summer 2008, I found  the record of Joe Loss & his Orchestra  in the street and because I had no turntable,
I kept it three years before to listen to it.

It is on december 2011, at the occasion of a radio show on Radio Campus Bruxelles, that I discovered  its content for the first time, without knowing that I was listening to Georges Gershwin.
I decided to create a song on it, still ignoring it was from him, because the DJ identified the track as one of another composer (the record having no FACE A/FACE B)

At the moment of my intervention, totaly ignoring the lyrics that Ira Gershwin wrote for the"Goldwyn follies" (first film in technicolor directed by Samuel Goldwyn) and pretty ignoring  the original singing line
I should extract from the composition, I consequently created a new melody and a new text on the original composition of Georges Gershwin, born in 1930, without lyrics.

Discovering the track before its use by Goldwyn entertainment in the late 30's had been the occasion for me to have more freedom in my re-interpretation, the only indication in the mood being given by Joe Loss orchestra mid-fifties style.







The freedom to rethink the piece at the time of its re-interpretation by Joe Loss and his orchestra, in 1954, London,  in between english puritanism and cold war atomic paranoia, Alan Turing suicide, on june the 7th.

"I can die happy"  is on the way to re-embodiement in a fresh 7 inch on Gagarin Records.

Yeah I'm still searchin'

Documentary essay 40'  (DV Pal 4/3)

Book (19,5x13,5) 12 pages 
Non commercial use only / unlimited edition
Dissertation / Master 2 Art & Media.
Ecole de Recherche Graphique
Bruxelles 2011



With the participation & the support of Guillaume Désange, Loraine Furter, Annik Leroy, Hannah Geise/Moemlien, Juliette Mélampyre, Jonathan Boutefeu.

"Yeah I'm still searchin '" is a documentary essay taking as its starting point In search of the miraculous last aborted performance work of Bas Jan Ader, dutch conceptual romantic artist.
As a quest of the metaphysic that led the artist to his loss, In search of the miraculous was a performative work splitted into three  "acts".

PART I consisted in a night walk in Los Angeles streets in the direction to the sea. It had been reported by photographies  taken by Mary Sue Ader (his wife) and had been exhibited successfuly at Claire Coppley Gallery. PART II consisted in the solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. known as a trained and experimented sailor, Bas Jan, unfortunatly never came back and was lost at sea, after several weeks of radio silence in between Cap Cop (U.S.A) and the british coasts.

In between his disappearance during summer 75' and the early 00' Bas Jan stayed more or less ignored by art circuits, not exhibited and presented and absolutly unknown from larger audiences. But in the early 2000, when his memory suddenly reappeared, Bas Jan inspired a lot of artists who gave tributes and tryed to walk in his shoes.

For my research, I questioned the issue of continuity and validity of a continuum, while considering the fact that the only existing documentary film existing on Bas Jan Ader, "Here is always somewhere else" (2008) had been directed  by Rene Daalder and co-produced by Aaron Ohlmann at the initiative of Mary Ader Sue Anderson, widow and former collaborator of Bas Jan.  

Bas Jan last aborded work, In search of the miraculous PART I  exhibition at Claire Coppley Gallery,  from which the postcard above had been the invitation (photo taken from another travel on sea) included two sets of photographs, referring a walk in the streets of Los Angeles, between dusk and dawn, in the direction of the beach.

Two sets of black and white prints on which the artist then wrote the lyrics of a popular song entitled "Searchin" performed  by the band The Costers.

The image above had been taken from this first part, it allowed me to enter the work of Bas Jan Ader in a positive way, by titling my work,  "Yeah I'm still searchin'."

The booklet coming with my documentary essay is to be taken as an attempt to think about this third part he never did. A rambling at night that was scheduled in Amsterdam after his Atlantic cross, echoing the first rambling, in Los Angeles streets.


My booklet  contains some photographs I took last September, two nights long, visiting Amsterdam with my friend Hannah Geise/Moemlien, Amsterdam based musician and fine artist.

For the exhibition of PART I "In search of the Miraculous" at Claire Coppley Gallery Los Angeles, a choir of students were asked to sing some sailor songs, including "A life on the Ocean Waves" written and composed by Henry Russel (1838), which also is the official hymn of the british navy.

I choised, for one sequence of my work to make a new cover of that track, with several voices of mine, like a choir, and to edit the track with Yuri Gagarin first flight in space footage, on April the 12th 1961. Yuri G. who unlike Bas Jan, came back from his solitary travel (in spite of some technical problems), with a now a day famous statment :"I see no God up there"

This video is the long cut version of an extract of one sequence of « Yeah I’m still searchin" which is not actually online, but visible on demand at me.hardt@hotmail.com, for non commercial diffusion contexts such as seminars, free diffusions, school/research.

Der Reflex Des Defekt

Directed,performed, texts and music by Meryll (s) Hardt United.


ERG Ecole de Recherche Graphique - 2011
Thanks to Annik Leroy, Alain Géronnez, Sammy Del Gallo

Der Reflex des defekt / the reflection of the defect is a semi-improvised / semi-directed piece that was shot in the raw context of Ecole de Recherche Graphique's deserted garage.
It is a secondary and subjective reading of a space in between random limbos and functional restructuring.


(english translation)


Opening CHOIR
Malevitch is dead
He died at school
He died here



PART I
I help a painter to hang his paintings on the ceiling
He painted black geometric shapes on white background
But the white is dirty and I cannot wash it
Last night I had a nightmare
Brother was dead
A bullet between the eyes
I wore his uniform and went to fight to front
Nobody noticed I was a woman
There was a cease-fire
On the edge of the trench stood a nurse
holding out her hand to me
I refused to take it
The red cross on her uniform was painted with her blood


PART II

Ladies and gentlemen,
Ziegfeld is not dead and his spirit is rambling around
Welcome in the megalomania of a man who could be satisfied with one woman
only if when reflected in a thousand mirrors
infinite schizophrenic...
Ladies and gentlemen!
Welcome in the wonderful world of Ziegfeld Follies!


CLOSING CHOIR

We are the colors
we are the colors
we are the colors
of Meryll Hardt

She can't hide that we stay here as brilliant and strong possibilities
As winding paths we try everyday to get along with her
She ignores that in her dreams we design her chromatic futur

seule

"Female solitude is often seen as guilty while solitary man is seen as an hero,

concerned about his business, his destiny, his hard work.

The woman always has company.

First we born from a mother, then we detache, and look for the other.

We are then supposed to become the woman of a man.
But sometimes, this is not hapenning".

This video had been shooted one week long in the house of some people who allowed me to push them out in their garden for lunch time.

Thanks to :

Le Pacifique, Marie, Sarah, Antoine et Salomée.

Searching for the twins

LIGNE OBSCURE

Already presented in the context of a garage for exhibition Pas de rapport : Morceau choisi, Ligne Obscure involves the confrontation of body and obscurity and augmented sound induced by performativity.

Soles of shoes are covered of Velcro on its hook side and the contact with the line creates adhesion of the foot to the line on its velvet/soft side. The extraction is producing a sound that we usely name : “scraaatch”. 

This accoustic sound is amplified via wireless tie microphones patched on my shoes and amplified. 

It is for me the only way to walk the line, blindfolded and leaded by my ears, my ears into my feet, the Velcro being a perverse material, both helping to keep balance and puting myself in danger of falling, by the constraint it creates on my feet, locking them to the ground. 

For its presentation at Trinity Church / L’Eglise de la Trinité (Bruxelles),  the sound had been broadcasted into the space via the church speakers  that the priest uses.

A decision assumed as a questionning on the reapropriation of transmission tools of a context of religious worhsip. A confrontation of art and religion through the common point of performance. The transition from cultual performance to artistic performance.

Outfit and line were thought in relationship with statues and the teal pale curtain in the background, seperating the right chapel from the rest of the building. The performance began some meters behind the curtain in order to insist on the sound and its independant presence into the space.

A decision emphasing on the sound generated by an absent performing body, on the point to appear as a part of the track, the long white obscure line.

Eglise de la Trinité - 15h- 27 juin 2011

FINAL SHOW MASTER 2 Art & Médiation 

Ecole de Recherche Graphique Bruxelles

Photos : Adrian Limoni / ERG