[-empyre-] Joining In

Thu May 14 14:09:36 EST 2009

As a 'gravitating satellite', or a 'member-at-geographical-distance' of the Sense Lab, I have alway been inspired by one of its main creative parameters, that is: "what begins as a movement ends as a movement of thought". Without ever taking this important affirmation at metaphorical value, I have therefore been very much influenced by the suggestion that motion can actually express itself as a movement of the body, but also as a movement of thought, of the mind, of the soul or however we might want to call it. It is the reason why I would not hesitate in sending articulated conceptualizations to this list, always being encouraged by the feeling that philosophy, in its own articulation, as erin  reminds us, is a particular example of movement in itself. I would therefore like to echo a question that has already been raised several times, being obviously the main subject of this discussion: what do we really mean by 'critical motion practice'? Do we mean
 the mere physical displacement of an anatomical apparatus? Do we mean the abstract lingering of writing in a closed transcendental realm? I really think that the body-mind, in its movements,can do much more and better than enclosing itself in any of these restricted points of view, and that it cannot let itself being so easily defined by one or the other 'sides'. If it does, we might end up re-playing the old Cartesian dualism, and affirm the superiority of our intelligence over our 'animal' bodily passion or, to the contrary, affirm the 'practicality' of our most concrete actions against the empty reasonings of the mind.
I don't think that this is what is happening here. I simply feel overwhelmed by a lot of instigation to think, and at the same time eager to enter in more detailed conversation with the many exciting subjects that have been raised, and to ask many questions to all the interesting theorists/practitioners involved: never was 'critical motion practice' taken for granted in its parameters of 'what' or 'how', but it always stayed as a subject of exploration in-the-making.
I very much like Erin's idea of a practice of conceptual making that is common to all different fields and techniques. A concept, in this case, is an 'idea', or the articulation of an idea in whatever practice. I also very much like the idea of a co-creation, of the ideal link and assistance (rather than description) between artistic (or concrete) making and conceptual making when they are at their best. Ideally, this would be the aim of every kind of creation, in order to prevent philosophy from becoming purely descriptive, and art practices (such as dance) to become mere applications of a concept. Apart from a few, almost exceptional cases of philosophical and artistic practices developed in unison in the same person, I think that this 'aspiration' can only be the result of an attentive dedication to the fellow-discipline, be it philosophers taking the time to be with dancers and their work, or artists spending time with 'books and words'. Something,
 of course, must elicit our interest, in order for this to happen.
The different articulations of disciplines, their styles and their timings, is an interesting subject of discussion, since it seems that the time of philosophical articulation (or thinking motion practice) might become problematic, in the fast field of electronic information exchange. I think that every kind of work elicits a certain patience, a spending time with, that is necessary for the force and sense of the work to emerge. Time is needed for a philosophical text to be followed in its structuring, in the same way a dance performance requires its own time to be adequately grasped in its articulated detail: the in-between space of the foot joints recalled by Nora might require an awakened attention in order to be perceived, in the same way in which the connection between words and concepts as images of thought, requires our full dedication to it. I think this time and patience is something we really owe, not to ourselves, but to the expressive force
 of our works, in whatever medium we are dealing with, be it the live physical stage, the paper surface of a page, or the super-fast velocity of digital communication.
stamatia
--- Gio 14/5/09, Erin Manning <emanning at alcor.concordia.ca> ha scritto:

Da: Erin Manning <emanning at alcor.concordia.ca>
Oggetto: Re: [-empyre-] Joining In
A: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Data: Giovedì 14 maggio 2009, 04:28

For those who haven't had the pleasure of participating in one of Forsythe's choreographic objects, something on the choreographic object as inspired by Bill's work (a few extracts from a longer paper published in Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation www.inflexions.org)
“The choreographic object:
a model of potential transition from one state to another in any space
imaginable” (Forsythe 2008)

Like his choreographies, Forsythe’s choreographic objects are
created with very precise immanent conditions for movement: they insist on the
precision of parameters for movement without divesting the movement of its
potential for eventness. They are unforeseeable in their effects yet carefully
crafted toward participation. They are objectiles thrown into the world,
invitations to move-with. Forsythe speaks of seeking physical solutions to
dramaturgic propositions.The choreographic objects are designed to provoke physical solutions that tend
toward habit even as they divert toward the contrast of the new. This new
emerges relationally, activated by propositions embedded into the choreographic
objects’ potential deployment. These act not on individual will: they move the
relation. 

Forsythe is interested more in the folding of space than the
form-taking of bodies. His choreographic propositions begin with this
folding, activating a creative tension between the virtual extensity of a
durational rhythm and the actual intensity of a moving in time. From creating environmental
conditions for performance to creating propositions for relational movement,
Forsythe’s work remains an activity that folds forward into a complex
ecological nexus. As a choreographer of missiles of movement, Forsythe’s work
makes felt movement’s relationality as a force of matter itself.

“You don’t need a choreographer to
dance." (Forsythe) What you need is a proposition. Propositions are ontogenetic: they emerge as
the germ of the occasion and persist on the nexus of experience to take hold
once more through new occasions of experience. Forsythe’s choreographic objects
are propositions in just this sense. 

On 13-May-09, at 5:26 PM, Sally Jane Norman wrote:
Hi Norah,

great to see you in this mix of movements, body and concept. I'm still trying - very happily - to integrate the intense dose of work gleaned from the Sadler's Wells panel session on the choreographic object, and was delighted by Stamatia's posting on Monday (reproduced below) about Bernard Cache's "Earth Moves", which seems to offer a fantastic evocation of One Flat Thing. Wondering whether you'd followed this and whether you could be lured to rebound (fully tracked in 3D of course)?

very best
sjn

ps - Alan, your contre plongée avatar tandem brought to mind another of those weird "period" dances, the Jitterbug, maybe because I (fortunately) can't forget the joy of seeing Forsythe dance the Mashed Potato... wondering when we'll come up with specific, sufficiently lagful, juddering terms for these deportmental/ comportmental cinematic gesticulations of our second lives - which background words endow with a scary poignance...

Sent:  	 12 May 2009 03:57
In "Earth Moves", Bernard Cache defines the point of inflection as an intrinsic singularity which is not yet related to a particular development of coordinates and, like every 'solid' work of art for Deleuze and Guattari, is neither high nor low, neither on the right nor on the left, neither in progression nor regression, because it is in absence of gravity. Inflection is the pure event of a line or a point, a virtuality, an ideality to be actualised into a well-defined curve. In this case, the virtual inflection point of the videos appears as the idea of playing with the malleable folds of time, in more than two simultaneous directions at once.
A whole choreographic and causal geometry of sensations is consequently developed, or folded, after the idea, when the constructivism of drwaing, of the camera or of the technology transforms the point of inflection of a gesture into a fully formed curve. By following the formation of the movements in their continuing-forward from past to present and vice versa, and by revealing the serpentine line of these movements as a vector of symmetric exchanges, technology here seems to transform bodily movements into two-fold or circular structures. And it is surprising to see the artist's own transformation into a reverse-performer, together with objects and movements folding into a continuously renewed dance. I wish I could see this piece.

stamatia
________________________________________
From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Norah Zuniga Shaw [zuniga.11 at osu.edu]
Sent: 12 May 2009 18:58
To: soft_skinned_space
Subject: [-empyre-] Joining In

Joining in to the critical motion practice conversation by first offering up
my work as a frame of reference for my subsequent comments.

We created

http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu

from the initial concept of a generative motion trace. Creating a trace not
for preservation, not for repertory or reconstruction, not as an
etymological, archaeological, historical exercise, not to recreate the
experience of the piece or its genesis but to create a trace/traces of
choreographic principles or what we started calling a choreographic object.
Bill wrote an essay on this that might be of interest:

http://www.wexarts.org/ex/forsythe/

The interactive moving animations reflect on, work on, re-invent the
choreographic structures in a dance. They were generated at the intersection
of choreography, animation art, geography, architecture, theory (maybe) and
even I suppose a form of activism in that they are reaching out to invite
folks in to the dance and into some ways that we see patterns in complexity.
Are they a technological approach to movement? A critical one? They are a
mix of analytical and creative. They seek to generate new creativity while
representing a form of it (namely counterpoint in William Forsythe's One
Flat Thing Reproduced). They seek to invite a certain kind of "dance
readership." Counterpoint itself suggests some pretty radical ideas about
ways to relate and find agreement in motion that don't require unison (or
unity). The work is created in a complex community of practice that requires
both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practices for creation...

That's enough for getting started.
N

_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

 ----------------------------------------------------------Erin ManningConcordia Research ChairFaculty of Fine ArtsConcordia University1455 de Maisonneuve W.Montreal QC H3G1M8
http://www.senselab.cahttp://www.erinmovement.comhttp://www.inflexions.org

-----Segue allegato-----

_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20090514/9f46b04c/attachment.html 