How to Reside – On Temporary Presence and States of Coexistence by Dmitry Paranyushkin September 2010, Berlin This text was written in response to SI residency in Gent with Les Ballets C de la B and during TAMTAMTAM residency at Direktorenhaus in Berlin.
To reside is to be present temporarily. When we reside we leave our space and time behind, opening up to the constraints and propositions that the residency proposes. These constraints are there to produce friction that makes movement possible. You need to push against something when you walk. “I like the notion of ‘walking as controlled falling’. [...] It conveys the sense that freedom, or the ability to move forward and to transit through life, isn’t necessarily about escaping from constraints. There are always constraints. [...] You move forward by playing with the constraints, not avoiding them.” [1] During my time at SI the only constraints were the time and space. The only propositions were to continue working on your project and to meet other practitioners. After a few days it felt like dancing. When the movement is determined solely by economical, political, and personal objectives it becomes about fulfilling a certain task. This can be useful, however it doesn't produce the knowledge, but results. The movement solidifies and stops there. Which is not a bad thing, but that's not what I'm looking for right now. During our time at Direktorenhaus we constantly had to negotiate and look for some sort of balance between the gallery’s desire to produce results and our own desire to explore. After a few weeks it felt like being stuck. But we let our guests move freely, as if nothing happened. What kind of constraints and propositions do we need to maintain the movement, to avoid fulfilling tasks but to generate them instead? "True creativity is all about finding a business model that makes intelligent content sustainable." [2] I found this quote while I was thinking about residencies today. Coincidence. They also talk about performance and possibility. The notion of "true" is a bit suspicious, but let's say it's the echo of economical, political, and personal. Maybe what I'm looking for has something to do with the constraints and propositions the residency offers. The question of where is solved with misplacement, the question of when is solved with temporariness. So the circumstances, the relations become more prominent than anything else. Now back to the intelligent content and sustainability. Intelligence is about knowing that you have multiple choices, sustainability is about leaving the knowledge behind and starting to move in a certain direction.