I’MMATERIAL
Long-Durational Performance Art Series by Arda Cabaoglu Virtanen
I’MMATERIAL is an ongoing series of long-duration performance artworks conceived and performed by Arda Cabaoglu Virtanen. The series approaches performance as a condition of presence rather than representation, treating sound, time, breath, repetition, endurance, and bodily awareness as primary artistic materials.
Situated between conceptual art, performance art, experimental music, and artistic research, I’MMATERIAL examines what happens when live artistic action extends beyond conventional expectations of preparation, control, attention, and duration. The works do not seek to eliminate instability. Instead, physical and perceptual changes become part of their structure.
Artistic Framework
Within I’MMATERIAL, duration is not simply a format or measurement of length. It functions as a compositional force. As time expands, relationships among intention, experience, physical condition, sound, silence, and audience perception begin to change.
The series investigates:
Performance as material
Attunement and internal alignment
Endurance and bodily presence
Attention and perception over time
Repetition, fatigue, and instability
Relationships between artistic intention and physical experience
Each iteration functions simultaneously as an artwork and an inquiry. The series develops through live performance, practical experimentation, documentation, and reflection.
I’MMATERIAL No.1: The Musical Lie Detector (2025–ongoing)
I’MMATERIAL No.1: The Musical Lie Detector began with a literal artistic proposition: to connect the artist to a polygraph while performing trumpet and ask whether honesty in musical performance could become perceptible through the body.
During development, it became clear that a conventional commercial polygraph could not meaningfully answer this artistic question or function reliably within long-duration performance. The project consequently evolved into an artistic research process combining musical performance, physiological measurement, synchronized audio and video, and immediate self-evaluation.
The work does not attempt to use physiological signals as scientific proof that a performance is honest or dishonest. Instead, it investigates relationships—and possible discrepancies—among musical intention, lived experience, bodily response, sound, and outward performance.
Central to the project is the idea of attunement, understood as internal alignment among artistic intention, lived experience, body, and sound. Through repeated musical situations and extended duration, the work asks when these elements appear to align, when they separate, and how that instability might become part of an artwork.
Development began in 2025, and the project received support from Kone Foundation for 2026. Practical development takes place through sessions at Aalto Studios and Aalto Behavioral Laboratory in Helsinki, with advisory and technical input from specialists at Aalto University.
Relation to Earlier Long-Duration Practice
I’MMATERIAL grows from Cabaoglu Virtanen’s earlier long-duration work, particularly Forced Misophonia: BLAST BLOW PULSE (2020). Presented at Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Istanbul within a curatorial framework connected to Marina Abramović and the Marina Abramović Institute, the work was performed eight hours a day for four and a half weeks.
That experience demonstrated how duration could transform sound, physical condition, attention, artistic decision-making, and the relationship between performer and audience. It established the artistic foundation from which I’MMATERIAL developed.
Documentation
The development of I’MMATERIAL is documented through audio, video, physiological signals in specific works, immediate self-evaluation, and written reflection. These materials form an evolving artistic archive and may later become part of performances, installations, publications, and other forms of public presentation.