23-26th November 2014, Trogen
«Micropractice. Gender» «Micropractice. Gender» was an artistic research workshop that took place from the 23.-26. November 2014 in Trogen, curated by Wiktoria Furrer and Sebastian Dieterich with the help of Magnhild Fossum and Camilla Graff Junior, organized by the Institute for Critical Theory at the Zurich University of the Arts with the support of Z+. Participants were Adrian Hanselmann, Anna Frew, Betsy Lamborn, Brigita Zuberi, Christina Burkolder, Dominik Holzer, Eduardo Abrantes, Eloisa Avila, Hans Leidescher, Ilya Noe and Katrin Kolo.
Introduction In early autumn 2014 we sent out a call for potentials and invited people from different fields of work to micropractice with us around gender. In our imagination we had developed the vision of ÂŤMicropractice.GenderÂť as an interdisciplinary and collaborative format in which to explore, through movement, questions concerning the urgent topic of gender and how it effects our practices and routines. As we stated in our call for potentials, we wanted to literally move through various forms of artistic research exploring these questions: How do regimes of gender inscribe in our bodies and how can we become cognisant of them and make them visible? How can we bring gender roles into movement? What kind of micropractices, understood as exercises, can we develop to become attentive to exploitations of gender
discourses? What are potentials for our everyday lives beyond incorporated gender routines? At the same time we were more and more disappointed with some aspects of traditional academic knowledge production, such as presentations of finite results, discussions that seemed to be shallow and not affecting anybody personally, self-referential and closed circuits of theory, and a separation or even tension between theory and practice. Since we began working together, first as a theoretic-artistic duo and later at the Institute for Critical Theory, we were experimenting with new forms of artistic and theoretic production in times of permanent crisis. In this regards the development of the workshop choreography was an attempt to try out new forms of collective work. This is why we invited participants to experiment in the field of gender micropractice –
without the applicants nor ourselves knowing what this exactly could be. Therefore we have asked participants who are open to a collaborative process to apply with formats that we can try out all together during the workshop: for instance, techniques, exercises, artistic approaches, interventions, exercises and so on. Especially we encouraged performative approaches that were in the early stages of development as well as works in progress. So, fifteen people from ten countries spent three and a half days in the remote Appenzell region, leaving behind their schedules and duties to work intensely on gender micropractice. This zine, initiated and realized by Anna Frew from Manchester and Betsy Lamborn from Stockholm from Vapid Kitten gathers in an intentionally unsystematic and impulsive way some of our impressions, reflections and experiences.
We would like to thank all the participants for their trust and commitment and all the seeds and future fruits that came from you; Magnhild Fossum and Camilla Graf Junior for their artistic expertise and inspiring advice during the preparation and the workshop; Katrin Kolo for contributing her choreographic method ÂŤUnternehmenschoreografieÂť as the opener of the workshop; Anna Frew and Betsy Lamborn from Vapid Kitten for curating this zine. Thanks also to Z+, particularly Mirjam Steiner and Team and the Institute for Critical Theory for their financial support, Elke Bippus and Dieter Mersch for enabling the workshop and Katrin Stowasser, for her organizational engagement. And a special thank you to Angela Degiacomi and Adelheid Grimmer from LindenbĂźhl for their caring hospitality and the wonderful food. SD, WF
First Things First, What is Micropractice? What we call micropractice is an open field of work theoretical, artistic and existential on ourselves and in relation with others. This kind of work is crucial to us as it derives from an existential urgency, that is articulated at the same time in many critical analysis of our presence, as well as artistic interventions or collective social actions that tackle the permanent crisis. Micropractice is to be understood as a work in progress as well as an invitation to use it as a philosophical tool in different areas of engagement. The philosophical foundation of micropractice can be searched in “Aesthetics of Existence” in which speaking with Foucault “one tries to work out, to transform one’s self [and]... separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility
of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think”1, the concept of micropolitics as outlined in Deleuze and Guattari and many other thinkers at the intersection of theories of aesthetics and politics. The questions that underlie the concept of micropractice are basic: How is change possible? How can new modes of existence, experience and knowledge arise? How can limitations and norms be made visible and new practices invented, created and exercised? Of course one could seek answers to this question in many ways, through revolution, systemic transformation or political resistance, but with micropractice we are looking for 1 Michel Foucault, “What Is Enlightenment,” trans. Catherine Porter, in Paul Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader. New York/NY: Pantheon Books, 1984, 32-40, p. 46.
another, very specific and autonomous form of resistance and engagement: we place this resistance within everyday practices. We are convinced that practices and habits of the everyday are those instances of the social fabric that create forms of living together in institutions, relationships and communities, and as much as they become routines, that we automatically follow, they get incorporated in our bodies. In general, practices have the tendency to become routine and thus rigid, but they also bear the potential of change, that has to be searched in ruptures and cracks, and can endanger the stability of practices. In this sense micropractice is fundamentally a work on perception, realisations and becoming permeable to microevents, that might be a starting point of change and transformation. As the normative power of practices and limitations derives from their repetitive execution, micropractice can only be an engaged practice or resistant “Lebenskunst”, if it is itself continuously and patiently exercised. These preliminary thoughts echoed in the workshop: as gender roles get
inscribed in our movements, our gestures, in the way we relate to other people and to space, they are specifically suitable for micropractical research and experimentation. So in a very first approach «Micropractice. Gender» meant to become aware of limitations and make incorporated gender norms visible, and then to search for transformative potentials of these practices. As an attempt to create a micropractical setting we saw the workshop also as an opportunity to experiment with collective processes of research creation. Our aim was to collaboratively build up an environment of trust that is open for encounter, for failure and not knowing “an environment where process is key and also the openness for micro-events and the ‘more than’ of a situation. Our aim was to create a workshop, in which a collaborative search for new modes of collectivity could take place and the participants could experiment with metastable modes of existence. An inspiration for us in this context was Erin Manning’s concept of “engendering gender” that she explores in her
book Politics of Touch2. The way she introduces the concepts of individuation and becoming in relation to gender opens up completely different and more radical opportunities to deal with the whole field of gender politics. As Manning writes, to “engender is to explore the potentialities of form and matter at the level of individuations rather than identities. To engender is to reach toward bodies that are not pre-defined as gendered, not preconstituted within static representations that befit the systems in which they operate. Engendering bodies are bodies that move, that metamorphose always in relation to their environments and to one another. Engendering bodies are relational vectors that space time and time space in an effort to re-locate themselves within systems of mutation.”3 Instead of reproducing indentity discourse, we wanted to question the concept of identity itself and to start experimenting performatively with a “reaching toward that creates chronotopes that are variable and changeable, individualizing but not individual.”4 SD, WF 2 Erin Manning: Politics of Touch. Sense, Movement, Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. 3 ibidem p. 90 4 ibidem p. 145
Enabling Constraints
In advance the workshop was structured with enabling constraints, with the aim of creating a space for collaborative action, and not one governed by assumed rules of academic or artistic discourse. Many times these kind of rules of knowledge presentation and distribution are on the contrary disabling constraints, that rather destroy the potential of an event. The philosophy of enabling constraints as “techniques for creating a shared frame for the activation of differences, as creative co-factors for what will become the multiple singularity of this event... that are put in place, not in order to impose sameness but quite the contrary to foster unforeseeable differentiations."1 is borrowed from Brian Massumi and inspired by Erin Manning's work at the Sense Lab.
1Brian Massumi, On Critique. Inflexions 4, “Transversal Fields of Experience“, December 2010, www. inflexions.org, 337-340, p .339-340.
Urgent question
Sharing practices
We gather around a collective concern, that is urgent for our existence and artistic, theoretic or other practice.
Everyday practices as eating, walking, taking a rest are also a reservoir and material of awareness and insight.
Seeds
Host without a house
Participants bring their seeds: techniques, procedures, exercises, approaches that help us to explore the question. Everybody can serve the event. All participants are part of the collaborative research process, that will grow out of the seeds and their pollination.
The workshop curators are responsible for the event and the setting, but not for what will happen during the workshop. This is in the hands of all participants. SD, WF
Mode of encounter We work in the mode of curious encounters, not in the mode of representation nor presentation of results.
Documenting the workshop: questions for participants Dear all, We are Vapid Kitten, a feminist zine collective based between Manchester, and Stockholm. We will be documenting «Micropractice.Gender» and making a publication, focusing on gender and intersectional representation. Before the workshop begins, we would like to get a sense of what you hope to get from the experience. Please respond to this email in whatever way reflects your practice best: be that as a text, visually, or if you’d like to call us and have a chat that would be nice too! We’ve added a few optional questions below as a starting point. Throughout the workshops we will be using a mixture of photography, film, and
note-taking to document what happens. The process of documentation is, as the rest of the workshop, open to all participants. If anyone has any questions about how we will be working, or would prefer not to be photographed, please let us know. We look forward to meeting you all soon! Kind Regards, Betsy and Anna Vapid Kitten
Thanks for your message - that leaves me in an ambivalent state. On one hand it puts me into excitement: Wow, this workshop must be “big” in some peoples mind, of they want it to be precicely documented. And somehow the thought of being able to see the process later from an outside view is “bribing”. On the other hand it raises nervosity, tension and with it questions: What is expectet by my contribution…if it must be so “big” to some of us? What do I think of a third party, a watching but not involved eye in a process like our hosts propose - it seems to be a very personal process, that can get very intimate and I hope that it will be. And from my own experience and thinking about what I am going to contribute it is going to touch a very intimate part of us: our bodys, very deeply embodied habits, that are emotionally charged. Can it get that intimate if there is a watching eye? Can it cause “problems” as for ex. mortification/shame that holds back a process step? And how will my own story, the narrative of what I am going to experience change with a documentation? I as a participant do not know yet what
the others will be contributing to the process, what specific topics they will be addressing, so it is hard to tell you exact stuff about expectations and wants and not-wants. However my concerns may be totally blown away if we meet as a group and I/ we feel it is totally “organic” to have you there with the third eyes. I just felt the urge to tell you what got to my mind. And I would like to decide then and in the ongoing process if parts of what I contribute should be happening without documentation in any other form than by stories, thoughts and notes of participants, that can be reproduced after the experience. And also how I feel about documentations during what the others bring with them. Optional Questions Before the workshop begins, how do you consider gender in relation to your practice? What practice are you referring to? My life practice? My art practice? My sexual practice? My thinking practice? Or the
practice I want to present/ work with at the workshop? How do you understand the concept of intersectionality and do you consider it within your practice? Same questions as above: What practice are you referring to? What is your preferred method of documenting your practice? Same question as above… And: Perfered method if you document or I document myself? How would you describe your gender? socialized as a woman, with a queer attitude to this socialisation - still quite content about being able to have an uterine ;). Is there anything else you think we should consider with regards to the project? see my concerns above. CB
Before the workshop begins, how do you consider gender in relation to your practice?
How do you understand the concept of intersectionality and do you consider it within your practice?
I remember a moment when I was a little child, when I was walking on the pavement and suddenly discovered my face in the side mirrors of a car, that I was passing by. The recognition of myself as myself was a shock. It was like I have forgotten about myself and allover a sudden was re-assuerd about my existence in my body. Since than I reflected my self generally as human or just alive, because the perception of the self was strong enough. But an event has changed this perspective: A few years later a persistent gaze of a man who looked at me while I was going to have a swim before a storm came, let me sense a difference: Other people have not the same sense of my self, as I have. These two events shape my own experience of gender and self. Also the questions about gender in regard to my practice is situated between this two poles: Somehow my self does not feel engenderd to me, but my gender is considered in social interactions.
I did not here about it before you asked. Hope to learn more. What is your preferred method of documenting your practice? My work with Sebastian is based on participative events, workshops, collaborative settings. How to share an unique experience is a question that bothers me a lot. The first thing is a reflection process and the search and creation of a language with specific, sometimes invented notions. Then a text is more than a documentation and becomes rather a textual transfer of experiences - fragments, stories, poems. This transfer and transformation is slow practice, many times it cannot happen instantly, but has to grow. How would you describe your gender? As above: On one hand I consider myself as a beeing or maybe rather becoming
that is alive and connected to my environment. On the other I find myself as a woman confronted with expectations and limitations. Since my childhood I have lived in many places, so that my identitiy was always in a fight, always in difference. Is there anything else you think we should consider with regards to the project? For me the zine is not obliged to document the reality of the workshop. The zine can inspired by the workshop develope own questions and contents. I call an process like this a „future oriented archive“, because we rather collect seeds and discover new plants instead of dislpaying existing ones. Also perfectionism shoud not hinder us from experimenting. WF
Silent Agenda As already mentioned the workshop started by purpose without a preset program and schedule. Instead of this we wanted to create a space in which the seeds – exercises, methods, interventions that the participants brought with them – can develop further and cross with seeds of the other participants in a more natural way. Therefore we invented a specific proceeding. At the beginning of the second day we asked all participants to sketch on a poster their seed title and main characteristics and explain to the others in 3 minutes the questions they are driven by. After that we asked everybody to collaboratively and in complete silence create a schedule for the next days. On the ground there was a time-structure prepared, where participants started organising in a visual way their posters. There was only one rule, that everybody
can arrange and re-arrange their posters and the posters of others as long until everybody stops his activities. After a couple of minutes of intense activities, writing comments, adding post its with new ideas for outside the sessions, the movements of the group became slower and smaller and finally everybody sat on the ground around the structure. This was the moment that made clear that each seed found its place, time and also companions in the silently created intercropping structure. SD, WF the workshop.
During the workshop we used automatic writing to record immediate feelings to exercises without over-thinking or analysing our thoughts. We did this several times a day to keep notes of our reactions. The following automatic writing has been reproduced from original notes, and has not been edited or corrected.
The power of silence has surprised me – the silent collective work on the workshop choreography happened in a flow. The seeds have been arranged and rearranged until the schedule found its final form, a form that works combining the context and the time. A simple procedure with a clear task and did not force people to act, show off, and so on (egalitarian). Amazing how it worked. In silence we built a wonderful choreography, we communicated on a very intense level. Great that it worked out so well.
Image on left John Cage’s rules for students and teachers, which we tried to remember throughout the workshop.
Arriving I was really happy to arrive in the space, the sunlight and the wooden floors looked great. I also like the large amount way that we are nestled on a hillside in some woods. The workshop began with us pegging a piece of paper onto ourselves with our name. Something with long hair which means can see may name. I most enjoyed mimicking Eduardo, following Dominic’s rule to imitate and exaggerate. Collapsing on the floor at the end was great he had really got me to work up a sweat. Working on a composition with Ilya and Camilla was my most focussed time. Our performance involved a slowing down, and lingering in each position. This lingering whilst the others watched I found peaceful. A very dear thought formed in my mind about how that had been the most silent part of the workshop and perhaps the most still. Images on right of instructions for movement written in Sunday’s arrival workshop.
Micropractice Magnhild get visible. Only one task, one opposite person separates me from the world of thoughts, that go or.
Body parts I like feeling the most: Knees (pumping movement) Neck (turning to look around) Back (ing away from each other) The concentration on a simple task – just become a looking existence, look the person sitting opposite into the eyes opens up an infinite space of possibilities. Suddenly the gaze gets full of meanings and changes again. The perception in them so focussed, that micro changes
First Magnhild, looking into Camilla’s eyes for five minutes, warmth, sometimes laughter or just smiles, start to get a very precise feeling for her, not with words, words sometimes come and go, but just about last or start real thinking, then, when we let go of our gaze the first ten seconds I felt lost, I didn’t know where to look and it all felt strange, I wanted to go back to Camilla’s eyes Diving into the universe Loosing, Diving into the ocean, Finding No thoughts No mind
The last session as all about bodies, lots of contact with one another. As Camilla led me around I felt as if I was in the film Pan’s Labyrinth. I had my eyes closed and she guided me around the room. I quickly felt as if I was lost the space just kept moving forever. The sound of others moving around and their laughter became sinister. As if I was walking around in a very dark forest and they were evil nymphs. That would pluck out my eyes if they knew I was there. Almost Alice and Wonderland in style. Childlike. The little boygirl got housed by the forest. The forest of heartbeats. The beats were light but steady. One never knows how long they will go on. They go on, and on, and on, and Body loosening and opening up. Becoming more and more sensitive to the ecology and its changes. Can’t remember right now the particular exercises but rather the sensations. Got tingly chest at some point. Did not scare me.
In these exercise I was more concerned with the question of perception and connection, but less with gender. It is heretic to say, as the one who has initiated the workshop, but the motion of gendered stopped interesting me. Just as I discovered new questions and concerns that become more important.
Photobooth
A red wig A red mask A Mexican wrestling mask my eyelashes rubbed against unbearably My female eyelashes? Long eyelashes in a mans mask. But men can also have long eyelashes surely? I have my fathers eyes.
Felt shame for our silliness and our reproduction of stereotypes... Liked the idea to think about relation of room and corporal practices. Playfulness that winded down slowly. Needed the hearty laughs. Did not dress up as much as I wanted. Lost interest at some point. Became more of an audience. Felt no guilt. Fun! I wish there had been some more structure: Like: "Now prepare for [this space] maybe that would've worked. I felt awkward when people were padding their bodies to be 'hunchbacks', or padding their bums and wearing the afro wig... it felt akin to blackface. We should be more aware of intersectionality and be more respectful. Photo booth was nice dressing up and playing around, but it was all in stereotypes, I noticed once again the danger of just following stereotypes, if one needs to seek rules, and doesn't find new answers just reproduces the contrasting stereotype. I found here the core to be a word on the norm of beauty. How establish another way of looking? Other ways of perceiving beauty. It reminds me of this performance work I'm doing with my father.
Who do I see?
I was given a puma I swapped it for a Panda as it’s a kind of bear. Ilya asks is it a bear? I change for a brown bear I couldn’t see. I chose a friend for it. A squirrel So that they are woodland creatures together. For me the animals were not gendered. Loved the technique. Want to explore. Like the idea of animal as a third (not male/female). Liked the silence you worked with, the will to create presence connection with our selfs and beginning many questions still… A question still to ask you: Why this animal for me? Special method to feel identity in an other way. Emotional. Curious.
Contrast between how a stranger sees me and how I see myself. How do I project? Other people see animals differently – other cultures. Camilla’s silence was very powerful, question: which animal do I see in you – sometimes fitting the obvious, sometimes contrasting. The goal would be to include as many animals as possible. I see the many sides of me. The partial bits. Deer protecting porcupine between its antlers. Schopenhauer, Freud but more Aesop tale. Still scared to be the clueless guest. Deer seems more hospitable than the mole in the story. Partnership, restrictive, sensorial, trust, surprise.
The animal session felt very personal but in a good way. I think we mostly were confronted with very strong features of ourselves. Powerful moments. The most interesting things happened when the chosen animals didn’t fit. To confront yourself with the other within you and embrace it is a powerful exercise. Deleuzian “becoming� anthropomorphisms, meeting the inner token animal, narcissistic conflict, territory.
What does a body say?
Getting close, I feel secure but also a bit ashamed. I enjoy it, the encounter, the movement, the touch. A lot of things happening in-between, not loud, under the surface, minor gestures. Bodies shouldn’t be compared or categorised by male/female but by other perameters BMI/height/weight/age? Can we are we is there how do we be ourselves why do we have to become ourselves aren’t we already why is there the need to be more of ourselves why do we believe that there is an inner core self the unique self. Inside of us that we have to live out that unless we find forms of ourselves it’ll be dead forever, gone, lost, lost, lost for all eferuities why do we need to become ourselves why are we so afraid to just be why do we have to think of ourselves as self. Hidden inside our bodies why would thinking about self. In our bodies that is self. Physical be helping to make it real?
The Activist Club Touching always feels kind of awkward even in a place where everyone is nice. What is an appropriate reaction? In any other context all of this would be so weird in another context it would be easier to say “no”. It’s better when other people laugh, then I realise they’re uncomfortable too. I hate closing my eyes in public. Hate it, but I did it anyway. Is that an achievement? Gin helped. I like how everyone joined in. Good sounds. Very loud, but playful, silence, restriction is creative than just free and random flowing. Discussion afterwards necessary. Focus on gender. Question: Where am I confronted with gender in everyday life?
It was a moment of shared sound. First a moment of finding the courage to make sound together, and thereafter the individual voices played out. Piano keys and strings. Felt in a cave of sounds from the back of the piano. Collectivity, supriseful, ludic Out of common behaviour The activist club ended with a pretty nice little opera. It was sweet. As a community we could achieve a lot. Really love the idea of the activist club. To do what you cannot do!
Heja Bamse! Making a piece together where only inexperts can use the instrument. All loud at once. Taking a second attempt and allowing space. Like the idea of doing something, this idea I take as a feed or a memo – random with me. I never did or believe I cannot… But for me that would have been to record a song. Thought a lot about the want of being able to feel anger and aggression in public instead. Collaborative working. Ups and downs. Dynamic moments.
The Acoustics of Gender Elo – I use my voice, high excuse me mister officer. Or with children, more masculine. Christina – With micropractice, I look for a way to change my practice. Wiktoria – Discovered that I appreciate the male voice. I dismissed the female and young male voice in terms of relevance to me in a conference. I want to be aware of my attitude and listen more.
resonate more and take up more oral space.
Eduardo – Microphones are made for low voices, high voices sound tinny.
Christina – link your voice to presence.
Wiktoria – Maybe its not a low voice, but a full round voice.
Brigitte – A male voice of authority in advertisement. The little mouse is always the loser. Eduardo – A lower frequency you can hear from far away.
Magnhild – I was really disappointed that my voice could not go deeper. I struggle to make myself heard in a male dominated panel. If I am deeper maybe people will take me more seriously.
Camilla – I don’t think we only have one voice, I have different voices when I speak in the other languages. I noticed my bias for deep male voices when I heard an artist whose work I loved and it was high. It made me disappointed.
Eduardo – Men allow their voice to
Hans – Listen to female voices in politics
Gendered Walks
Following &Leading The workshop is a process of slowly coming to insights or experiences. In this getting they are not served by anybody but need to be created in a slow way there is no fast/instant insight. Experiments cannot be forced. Free space, improvisation in most cases leads to falling back into known patterns reproduction of norms. A collective from the pressure to be creative or expressive is very difficult and takes a long time. It seems to me that the terminology of the workshop – seeds, coming seeds, growing was not a metaphor. As there are no instant, elaborated ready-made insights it is hard work to first establish a setting that allows us to overcome our own limitations expectations and so on. The more boring and simple a task is, the better the effects show. End of automatic writing.
Reflections on the Workshop The workshop was curated - understood literally from latin as 'curare' meaning caring - by the help of some concepts and techniques, as affective infrastructures, micropractical exercising and silent agenda, that we have developed through the theoretical work on micropractice and a series of workshops. Affective infrastructures A very important question for us was how to orchestrate a collaborative event such as this workshop. How could we prevent representative manners of speaking and thus enable a process of collective individuation? Therefore the whole workshop was based on the idea of affective infrastructures. The term infrastructure refers etymologically to a subconstruction, which means in this context an
arrangement of the workshop as a platform, where relationality may occur - knowing at the same time that affectivity, relationality and collectivity, always withdraw themselves from control, discipline or planning. Affective infrastructures describe at the same time the nutrient media, for instance an environment of security and basic trust, as well as the collective procedures and ecological techniques, that altogether facilitate modes of tuning in into a collaborative process, resonating with space and other people, while being receptive and responsive to the environment. With that, we mean specifically ways of relating to each other, that are not (if this is at all possible) predetermined by concepts, identities and ways of (re)presentation and also not driven by guild, fear and insecurity.
The very basic elements of an affective infrastructure are time and space as the fundamental parameters for any collaboration. We have been very careful in creating a suitable working environment: We located the workshop in Trogen, far away from the everyday hustle and bustle, placed in the foggy landscape of the Appenzell region, and only invited a small amount of participants, so that every person and seed gets the attention it needs and time to cross and develop. Also, we did not set an agenda of goals or expectations, but took the risk to encounter the richness of nothing. This simple choreography of time and space allowed us to create an atmosphere of intensity, concentration and focus; it also enabled us to become aesthetically present, which means to become open for perceptions and relations as well as permeable to micro-events. These kinds
of infrastructure build the ground for a collective process of becoming and experimentation, out of which something can emerge that is more than the sum of its parts. At the same time its results are unpredictable, as affective infrastructures do not operate in a causal logic and can bring about as well conflicts or dissens, depending on the tensions and problems that are involved. Another example of an affective infrastructure was the kick off of the workshop. Our experience was, that a key moment for the whole event is the very first beginning - when participants encounter each other for the first time and the hosts of the workshop introduce themselves and their ideas. Therefore we decided not to start with an input or a formal round of introduction but directly with the first 'seed' - in this case with the workshop method ÂŤUnternehmenschoreografieÂť by Katrin Kolo. Coming from dance and choreography her method is based on movements in space, simple collective tasks, that have to be completed without speaking and exercises for perception. The workshop is organised around a
question or topic, as for example in our case gender, that is investigated within the vocabulary of the body. The method follows the simple pattern of research, rehearsal and performance, with breaks for short verbal reflections. Some of the instructions that Katrin gave us in the workshop where: "Walk around in the room. What do you see? Try to find traces of the groups that had been here before...Now try to walk a little bit faster and get as close as possible to each other without touching each other...Walk around again. If someone stops, stop as well. How fast can you walk without losing a feeling of the movements of the others.... Try to walk altogether to the other end of the room". In response to these instructions, people started to explore their movements and the space, became infected by the gestures of others and playfully interacted with them. While trying to accomplish a given task the first attempt is full of exaggerated expressions and the group is drifting into a spectacle. But after a moment of frustration and dissatisfaction
with the self-involved movements of the individuals the group finds its focus again and becomes very sensitive to even minor gestures of the neighbours and a moment of concentrated and relational work begins. All of these exercises are dealing with perception and allow the participants to explore a way of thinkingfeeling-acting that can become unbiased and relational without being indented. Working with body and movement is so powerful because it avoids abstract discussions and the tendency to master a subject by looking at it analytically from an outside perspective. Instead it searches in and through the body for its own epistemic potential.
Micropractical exercising In order to sustain the process of creating effective infrastructures and to tune into a collaborative process of experimentation, repetition is key. Otherwise our everyday perception and state of mind recaptures us very quickly. The everyday perception is deeply integrated and habitual and altering it is a question of slow and patient practise. With this in mind, a key part of the workshop was a daily ritual, proposed
by Magnhild Fossum. An experienced dancer and choreographer, she works with body and movement. Every morning and after lunch we began the workshop with one hour of intensive micro-bodypracticing. Magnhild introduced the group to exercises which were developed for working with dancers to build awareness between individuals. Several exercises were constructed specifically for this workshop. The aim was to make the group think beyond the individual and form a collective identity: a new community together. This demanded trust, ease and focus.
In one exercise, we were instructed to sit in facing pairs, in rows of three or four. The task was to have constant eye contact and to just look at each other, while moving slowly and mimicking the actions of the person opposite. There was no designated leader, only a flow of movement created within the group. Initially, there were awkward giggles as the groups explored unfamiliar ways of being and moving together, but as we began to let go of the idea that this was anything special - it turned into a situation where the divisions of bodies faded away, and allowed for being surprised with our movements together. Just by being present
in the moment and what is between us. Another exercise was to be lead by your partner while blindfolded. A simple and common exercise for dancers to develop trust, spatial awareness, and sensitivity other than visual reference. While blindfolded, you must learn to trust your other senses and to hand over some responsibility and control to your partner. This exercise may make one feel liberated, or a little nervous. It also invites communication by touch and gesture, not only within the pairs, but while blindfolded one begins to feel and touch the environment in a different manner:
an almost childlike exploration in the not knowing. This physical communication became playful and allowed a complete different experience of the environment. This opened us up to question how gender or identity defines how we interact and experience the world, and how we all can have so many more ways of being and interacting other than we would do automatically. During another exercise we worked in pairs one sculpting each other by touch. A light touch was the signal for a small movement, melting the body into a different shape. This is a similar principal to the tango: one touch or gesture from your partner means you have to react with another movement. This action/reaction is a game and what keeps the game is interesting, is being surprised by the other player and what is created together. Two bodies are replaced by a pure becoming together: a dance of being in the moment beyond representation of two individuals. These exercises became a very important force for the whole day. In order to do some exercises participants had to leave their comfort zones, and perhaps get very
close to one another. In the evenings we had long discussions, and realised the experiences of the micropractical exercises raised important questions for the whole workshop. The exercises brought a general awareness of the limitations we place on ourselves and made us question the mechanisms behind them. We discussed the point at which we tried to regain control over the exercises and why we blocked what could have become a starting point for something new: why and how do we try to defend static representations and images of our “self”? We realised that “to reach toward bodies that are not pre-defined as gendered, not pre-constituted within static representations that befit the systems in which they operate”, as Manning puts it, is a difficult task. Becoming more aware of ourselves was a process that could be difficult or irritating, making us question our very identities. From here a process of individualisation and engendering may occur, and we are aware that the workshop was only the beginning. SD, WF, MF
Epistemology of the Workshop
One question that is raised regularly when we talk about our workshops is about the output. One could answer to this question by analysing and questioning the implicit neoliberal logic in it, but that has already been done several times. On the other hand the issue of the effects of this kind of events and even more the question of the epistemic status of artistic research practices in general is crucial to us. We are confronted with the fact, that it is sometimes really difficult to explain someone who has not been a participant what we actually did and why it was so intensive. Furthermore the shared intensity and the high level of energy that can arise in the workshop is very much bound to a certain locality and ecology. A workshop is an alter space and allows us
to leave everyday routines, schedules and commitments behind, and to concentrate on questions and processes within the group. Once back in the everyday life the shared intensities volatilize and everyday routines will overlie them quite fast. So are there any sustainable effects beyond an ephemeral experience? And if yes, how can the insights of a workshop be described? Slow practice What we do in our workshops is working on perception and a ‘redistribution of the sensible’ (Rancière). The way we perceive the world and ourselves, the way we feel, think and act is something that has been practiced and incorporated over a long period of time and therefore it needs again a long process of practice to undo certain habits and patterns. This process is hard to measure and first of all to be characterized as an iterative process of trying out,
failing and trying out again. This means, that one of the most important resources is time: People that come together donate their time to the process. As there are no presentations of previously finished works or finished papers in our workshops, the process of insight is based on experience, exchange and discussion. Very often we have to start from a very basic level where, as described above, affective infrastructures and a culture for experimentation and discussion have to be worked out. There are no assumptions, state of the art, nor results that can serve as a stable fundament or paved way. Instead the process rather resembles a walk through the desert with few orientation points, where walking on unstable sand dunes is troublesome and dangerous. Sometimes we lose track, move in circles and follow mirages, but sometimes in the less expected moment, we are rewarded with the view on an oasis. Beyond that we understand slow practice also as a performative practice. Aesthetic practices such as the micropractical body-exercises we did in our workshop can indeed give new insights through
(‘per’) the body, but that doesn’t mean that these insights can always already be linguistically reflected, even if reflection and discussion is an important part of the process. A new insight can be described as a microevent, something which punctures or affects us. It opens up a new potential that is not fully glimpsed but rather felt, while the actualisation of the felt potential can take a long time, if it ever happens. The discussions and short reflections we had in our workshop after almost every artistic practice, intervention or body exercise helped indeed to articulate some experiences and to create a vocabulary for what have just occurred, but still many important parts of the process operate initially invisible and can’t be articulated strait on. Only by repetition the whole potential of the research process can be unfolded. Micro-events leave traces in our bodies, they inscribe themselves and these inscriptions can be activated again by repeating the exercises or a variation of them over a longer period. So if we imagine a series of workshops, where each workshop builds on the other and something that was perceived as a flash feeling in the first workshop, maybe expresses itself as a series of gestures
in the second and as a concept in the third. So altogether the epistemological processes of research creation that had been activated in the workshop are slow, insecure and not at all predictable. The values they produce are gifts and ‘useless’ in the best sense. Last but not least the effects of a workshop like in Trogen can also be seen in the creation of alter ways of researching together, of thinking-with people in perhaps more sustainable and autonomous ways. A very local and situated event as a workshop can become a starting point for cultivating affective infrastructures also between certain events. Creating a zine, regular skype sessions, new collaborations or collective readings are just a few examples of techniques that can help to develop a temporary and local constellation of people from a workshop into a community of practice – a community, that is based on politics of friendship and trust and thereby differs from many networks and scientific communities in academia, that are often driven by strategic, representational and economic reasons. SD, WF
This publication was edited by Vapid Kitten’s Betsy Lamborn and Anna Frew. With special thanks to Maaya Lad for her contribution to the design.
Consciousness Awareness Presence Now leave prepared.