Places are fragmentary and inward-turning histories, pasts that others are not allowed to read, accumulated times that can be unfolded but like stories held in reserve, remaining in an enigmatic state, symbolizations encysted in the pain or pleasure of the body.
Michel de Certeau
This is still work-in-progress. It is aimed to be a prerecorded media for a multimedia performance piece.
Туку така под облака is a documentation of the performative action ”Microprojects on walking and waiting”. It summarizes my subjective experience of walking and waiting in a public, open space. The steps one takes- the act of walking and waiting in an open space is surelly altered by mobile phones and other portable devices. I was exploring the mobile device usage as quite literally a mode of embodiment, a way of ‘having a body’. The mobile device was attached to my body or to an object that I was carrying, while walking or waiting at the Northampton Racecourse, in the period of 6 weeks. The piece was autobiographical, referring to my own experience as women, mother and foreigner in Northampton. I was using mobile media, to map my body directly onto Northampton landscape. In my work ‘the body is not taken for granted as a fixed entity but is instead seen as having a plasticity or malleability which means that it can take different forms and shapes at different times, and so also have a geography’ (McDowell 1999, p.39).
Last week I attended the 24th International Conference CICOM, “IMAGEing Reality” at University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. I was exceptionally nervous to present my paper at such a prestigious conference, especially because my work is somehow outside the general context of what is a current tendency in the field of media studies. But the organizers were really good in programming and they had an amazing balance between experienced and significant, established speakers – stars ( Roger Odin, John Corner, Richard Kilborn etc.) and young, upcoming scholars. The conference setting was comfortable and on a small scale, so everyone had a chance to hear everything and to have a go at the amazing Navarra tapas food!!! No parallel sessions, no key note speakers, and excellent discussion after every session.
I would like to highlight that actually despise my main fear that my interdisciplinary research can be somehow out of place, it turn out that my paper is significantly contributing to what is currently stirring and changing the field of media studies. Although my research is slightly inclining towards performance, I must say that the media scholars have more understanding for the problematic that I am tackling. Especially interesting was the presentation of Prof Roger Odin from Université de Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle, in which he tried to articulate something that I am pinpointing in my research as well. He named this tendency “making of” mode and tried to articulate with a humouruous reflection on Secret Knowledge by David Hockney. Odin was above all concerned with the current impression or fascination with the market driven technology, and how it is used to produce media. The content is more often disappearing and everything/everyone is concern how they can use the tool, rather than what they can do with the tool ( “making of” rather than “making what” ). He outlined a number of examples of uncritical use, starting from mobile phones, to installation works in which the viewer is only concerned whit how actually the work is working, rather than what is the content of the piece. When I was writing of Golan Levin, I mentioned that sometimes his installation work is redundant because it becomes boring after you finish understanding the “play” part. On the opposite, the work of Blast Theory, especially “Can you see me now” is pushing this boundary and although it seems at the beginning as a well-known computer game format, it reviles creatively into a direction of exploring the virtual, reality and how the tools that we use every day are changing our perceptions. The focus on “making of” in a range of technologies and applications has not increased the importance of sensory engagement so much as made it more apparent. Here is where performance art gets into the scope. The relationship between the performance and technology is often framed as oppositional; performance engages the body, while technology supersedes it, each being defined and positioned in relation to the human physical body. Although they are commonly placed in opposition to one another, both performance and technology explore the interaction between the body (the person) and the environment by challenging the parameters of what the body can do and experience (human potential). Moreover, both operate within constantly shifting contexts, which assume that embodied experience is itself constantly shifting and cannot be frozen. Do we need to freeze our embodied experiences and become slaves of “making of”…Well, that is a question that we all have to answer!
“In between” (further refereed as Phase 2) was created as part of my research, and was extending the ideas of my previous practical project “Microproject on walking and waiting” (further refereed as Phase 1) . In the Phase 1, I was looking at my body and how it can be extended through the screen. The piece was almost autobiographical, referring to my own experience as an artist, mother and foreigner in Northampton. I was using ubicomp and locative media, to map my body directly onto urban topologies of Northampton. There were couple of questions which were raised during my internal performance presentation. How do I approach the concept of live/mediated body. And what is exactly framing the imagery that I use? In order to answer this, I returned to my literature and writing, and spend all summer experimenting with mediating my own body with digital technology and still keeping the presence. Theory vs. practice allover again.
I started with simple analysis of locating a site, where my body was most present during the phase one. The Northampton Racecourse was the place that came out, from analyzing my video and map materials. Racecourse have a violent (predominately male) history, although is a beautiful, open green space. I was using Authentic movement technique, I generated movements that were connected to my personal experience of the Racecourse and its history. The process was long and quite contradictory. I was trying to balance the odds of being a live performer and being mediated in the same time. Live streaming of my body was most appropriate and I embraced this idea. I took the ides of sousveillance from the last project, and choose an abstracted pattern of my regular walk over Racecourse. Then added my mediated body to it (repetitive body, body caught in a pattern). Probably the most inspirational and the most difficult part of the whole process was how to distribute the body and not lose it in the process. The work was esspecially intrigued and motivated by de Val’s analysis of how the media gets embodied and loses the presence: “When a motion analysis system is developed it is important to consider that what is being analyzed is not the moving body: it may be a threshold of light in case of the camera, and the parameters we extract have little to do with our own perception and understanding of moving and dancing bodies. It is thus important to know that we are dealing with discrete representations of the moving body, and not with moving bodies themselves, and that these representations carry along a large amount of assumptions about what the body is, of how we identify, understand and dissect movement and so on: in that respect any representation of a movement will always be arbitrary and discrete, embedded and contingent.”(del Val, Jaime. 2006. Situated Tékhne. Beyond the performative: metaformative bodies and the politicsof technology in post- postmodernism, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 2: 2, 187–207).
The performance or the live streaming bodily event happened on the 14 September, in Walgrave building, UoN, during the Annual Arts and Humanities Research Conference. It had few mischief’s. I underestimated how delayed the whole programme will be, and performed for almost an hour without audience. Which is really exhausting and unsatisfactory. But on the other hand, it gave me a chance to completely experiment with how my body is transmitted, preserved and diminished with the action of streaming. Also, it was challenging to work with the technology limitations and nonresponsiveness to the live presence. And finally, due to tiredness and lost of objectivity (doing a live performance for 2 hours), I completely screwed-up my conference presentation (lesson for the future, never do a live piece and presentation in a same day, really bad idea). Well, overall, it kind of affirmed me, that I am walking a thin line between two, quite simillar, but also, quite polar tendency. Between: ” The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment” (Dona Harraway) and ” [] not praxis but poiesis may enable us to confront the essential unfolding of technology.” (Martin Heidegger). Thin line that have to be named for the sake of this research and I just can’t come with anything rational at this point…Still “In between” 
“Our feelings will lead us to our theory, our theory to our action, our feelings about that action to new theory and then to new action.” -Kathie Sarachild of Redstockings Radical Feminist group, presented at the First National Women’s Liberation Conference, Chicago, November 27, 1968
Its just amazing how feminist research has shaped strategies of resistance and differences. Doing a practice led research is a lonely journey. It is different from what is traditionally perceived as research and on a certain way is a resistance to how art education is executed for a while. Until recently, PhD in Art was an absurd, dubious oxymoron. Unnecessary, unrealistic, and implausible.
It takes a long time and a lot of illogical steps, that have to be presented as logical. The most difficult think is though, how to explain your intuitive findings and describe improbable lines of action…Or as defined by Sir Ken Robinson: “Not all that we know can be put into words and numbers, nor is what can be put into words and numbers all that we know.” I am preparing my performance and presentation for the Annual Postgraduate Conference in the Arts and Related Disciplines.
First of all, I somehow relate my situation to my feeling about Levin’s presentation. How can you describe in 20 minutes something that have such a reflective methodology. How can you explain a journey between practice and theory. Also, I am planing to give/transmit my body, my flesh to the viewer. And later it will be dispersed, dissected and distributed through different theories and views…Most certainly quite different than my own perception (both bodily and theoretical)…And probably, that’s why I enjoy doing this degree so much. Because my body becomes distributed body- theoretical body- mother body- body without organs.
Finally, one big thanks to my supervisors. I find their patience, advices and time the most valuable resource.
I love Golan Levin ! I first saw him talk at The MIT Media Lab during my Fellowship and immediately got hold on his work. Its surprising, funny and groundbreaking. I really like his recent TED talk and method of communication with audience. He is at ease with all the difficult technology terminology and he can translate really complicated concepts to obtainable level. But, more interesting was the forum discussion after his talk on TED. It kind of spin-off into a direction about what art is and how art is defined. And its amazing that he is trying to justify this at the same opening of his talk with a simple, heartily confession: “I’m an artist and an engineer. Which is, increasingly, a more common kind of hybrid. But I still fall into this weird crack where people don’t seem to understand me.“ The sentence that actually prompted huge discussion is the following: “The purpose of artist is to explore the expressive potential of the new tools.” Some of the viewer/commentators find it offensive, some of them shallow and some of them cutting-edge. I found his talk a bit problematic as well…Not because of the content, but because of the delivery. Its just project after project, each one amazing on its own right, but kind of linked in a really depthless way. And I wonder if this is due to the conference format or to the fact that in order to make things valuable we always have to support them with something visual and easy to grasp. Probably both of them. I think that there is much more in Levin’s work, especially about interactivity and performativity as crucial elements of experiencing new technologies. I am interested in his art works because its interactive in a really deep & gripping sense, ‘a sense much deeper than that of picking from a menu and clicking on something’ (Szpakowski 2009, p.10). I am looking at his work in my current research, which is focused on exploring integration of body-centered performance practices with motion tracking software. Moreover, its fascinating how through some of his pieces he explores the interdisciplinarity of technologically mediated motion engagement in the production of embodied being (Eyecode, Reface or Interstitial Fragment Processor). And although his aesthetic is sometimes too much “MIT clean” , I admire his ability to developed projects with the explicit goal of helping people develop as creative thinkers or as stated by Resnick:”designed to support what I call the ‘creative thinking spiral.’ In this process, people imagine what they want to do, create a project based on their ideas, play with their creations, share their ideas and creations with others, and reflect on their experiences—all of which leads them to imagine new ideas and new projects.” (2007, p. 18)
“The new interactive media, however, require acts of performance. We must physically interface with them in order to activate them, in order to get them to respond. ” – Carolyn Guertin
Such a lovely summary of my research And I love Extensions: The Online Journal of Embodiment and Technology.
Scenes of Provincial Life is the most recent project of Michael Szpakowski. I came across it just recently, when he received the Jury Prize for Incident at the Pocket Film Festival (for movies made with mobile phones) in Paris. His work captured my attention for two reasons: his subtle work with camera (especially mobile phone cameras) and his determination to use generative processes while creating his art, both connected on many levels with my current practice and research. Continue reading ‘Scenes of Provincial Life’
This post is triggered by a recent edition of Culture Show on BBC2, that was reflecting on Manchester International Festival. Esspecially because it was commenting on two performance events: Marina Abramovic presents… and It felt like a kiss, by Punchdrunk. I will not talk about the performances, since I haven’t seen them, but I will talk briefly about burning issues raised in the show. And also, tackeled (quite problematiclly for now) in One and Other. Issue that is reverberate description of performance (or maybe in genearal, just) art for more than 40 years now. Continue reading ‘On performance, technology and participation’
