User:Inge Hoonte/Masterclass Tino Sehgal at Sonic Acts

February 23, 10-16

Group of about 20 people. Sehgal's interested in the liveness of the live. As a way to introduce ourselves, we immediately went into game structure, in which "the creator sets up a rule or system in advance, then hands it over to the player," whether that's in a museum, theater or everyday setting. Certain things are prepared, the rest is adaptable to change. In 2004, his work was represented in Art Basel Miami by two different galleries. In order to sell the work, Sehgal had imposed a rule on the two: they were only allowed to say one word at a time. Although they were competitors, they had to collaborate, and at the same time outsmart each other to make the sale.

The introduction game went as follows: In pairs of two, you maintained a short conversation, but were only allowed to say one word. The other restriction was that as some point, you had to say your name. The different pairs solved this very differently, and it was interesting to see the pattern change over time. The first couple, Aukje and Catarina started with something along the lines of

Aukje: hi
Catarina: my
Aukje: name
Catarina: is
Aukje: Aukje
Catarina: and

As you can see from the development of this sentence, when Catarina says "my," she's actually referring to Aukje. Now, by saying "and," Catarina tried to direct the sentence in such a way, that she could introduce herself. Aukje immediately added "her," which startled Catarina. Receiving the word her, and adding a word to it aimed at Aukje, who she was facing, directed both "her" and the next word at Aukje again. Although the sentence could have developed as follows

Catarina: and
Aukje: her
Catarina:name
Aukje:is
Catarina:Catarina,

the conversation swayed into talking about Aukje, until Catarina smartly gained back control by finishing the sentence that Aukje seemed to set up to talk about her profession, by saying "theater," which is part of the field that Catarina works in, and Aukje isn't.

Six other couples played the game, ranging from a carefully constructed dialog in which both people thoughtfully chose words that set up the sentence so they could both say their name, to people who upkept a swift improvised conversation about a whole different topic. When the game reached Layla and Tamara, the couple before me and Veerle, who I'd briefly introduced myself to prior to the game, the tactic changed. One of the girls used the word "we." Veerle and I picked up on that, which allowed us to introduce ourselves, while keeping the sentence open to talking about either one of us. Having learned from previous couples, ours was a very brief and quick sentence in which we both said our name.

This very simple exercise brought up some ideas. I wondered if this was in some way a Markov chain, but a chain of which you don't fully know the outcome. More a Markov chain of the mind, with efforts to make it a chain of both minds. While getting to know the other person, and their playfulness, you dared yourself and the other to be creative, and navigate each other's brain. Tino Sehgal brought up the importance of individual <--> mass/group, as this was after all, a performance in front of other people. Prior to the game, he talked briefly about a flock of birds, and how they're organized according to three basic rules: go into the same direction as the others around you; don't collide; keep a certain distance. Although a flock of birds undoubtedly contains more complexity than that, the rules seemed to apply to our conversation couples as well. You really had to work together to help each other introduce yourself, and with some form of survival of the fittest aspect to it, you were able to steer the conversation away from that as well. This is already where some individuals' personality came out... Team player? Or self-involved competitor?

We then split up in groups of five. (report of this will follow soon)