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== title: '''Choreographic Languages'''==
== title: '''Choreo - Graphic Languages'''==


== Introduction ==
== Introduction ==


“For Massumi, affect is precisely a matter of how intensities come together, move each other, and transform and translate under and ''beyond meaning, semantics and fixed systems/cognitions.'' Part of the assumption here is that, even in the most reactionary circumstances, nothing happens if affective intensity has not already paid us a visit. ''This refines our understanding of why territory - spatial and temporal - is always “existential territory“. It has as much a territory that enables movement as something that keeps everything in its place, it is '''movement''' itself.''” Reading / Feeling - If I Can’t Dance Archives.
<small>“For Massumi, affect is precisely a matter of how intensities come together, move each other, and transform and translate under and beyond meaning, semantics and fixed systems/cognitions. Part of the assumption here is that, even in the most reactionary circumstances, nothing happens if affective intensity has not already paid us a visit. This refines our understanding of why territory ''- spatial and temporal -'' is always “existential territory“. It has as much a territory that enables movement as something that keeps everything in its place, it is '''movement''' itself.” Reading / Feeling - If I Can’t Dance Archives.</small>
 
[[File: Kinesphere.jpg |250px]] [[File:Captura_de_ecrã_2015-11-16,_às_08.53.43.png|250px]]


=== What do you mean by “to choreograph”? ===
=== What do you mean by “to choreograph”? ===




For my master thesis I aim to investigate the compositional processes found both in design and performance, and how movement is implied in the moment of production and its concretization/presentation/consumption.
For my master thesis and project I aim to investigate the compositional processes found in design and dance performance, and understand how movement is implied in the moment of production and post-production in both practices. I see the possibility to establish a connection and elaborate more on a multidisciplinary link between – and coexistence of – performativity and graphic design.
My intention is to embrace a holistic (mind and body) approach in design practices, and encourage the use of choreographic thought and movement beyond performance practices and towards design.
 
The project I hearby propose is process oriented, and based on the creation of a series of moments of (critical) reflection concerning our embodiment when defining different time and space circumstances. I believe processes in design can learn from processes in performance, challenging the conventional design thinking. This cross-referencing system opens the possibility to unveil new aesthetic, energetic and social dimensions of design production processes.  


When simultaneously looking at both realities what are then the bridges to establish between physical and digital models of mobilizing language, and consequently the body response in space?
By looking at diverse graphic design methods, in both digital and physical realm, as well as by analyzing a selection of choreographic approaches, I aim to research what performative qualities could be implemented and explored while designing? And what powers of invention or transformation does it set free?




"Acconci's progression from movement over a page to his own movement should not be seen as evidencing a replacement of the presence of language by performance but its extension."
<small>'''Keywords''': Transdisciplinarity, Performance, Graphic Design, Performativity, Embodiment, Physicality, Phenomenology, Spatial-Movement-Time Qualities, Function & Perception, Systems , Processual Creation</small>


== '''What moves you, Joana?''' Thesis intention ==


== '''WHY, Joana?''' Thesis intention ==


As there is no absolute frame of reference, absolute motion cannot be determined. Thus, everything in the universe can be considered to be moving.''at wikipedia.''
<small>"As there is no absolute frame of reference, absolute motion cannot be determined. Thus, everything in the universe can be considered to be moving." ''at wikipedia.''</small>




Movement. What else? (the illusion of having static elements.)
Movement (of the body) is one of the central concepts in my research, as being something that defines how human beings relate and perceive the world, how they access information, and process it. If communication stands for the transmission of knowledge, indicated as “the transition from one point to the next”, that is as one “directional destination” to the next, then the concept of movement is intrinsically connected. The question is which role do graphic designers play in this constant movement? How oneself is made conscious of the different aspects we are surrounded by.






Movement (of the body) is one of the central concepts in my research, as being something that defines how human beings relate and perceive the world, how they access information, and process it. If communication stands for the transmission of knowledge, indicated as “the transition from one point to the next”, that is as one “directional destination” to the next (at wikipedia), than the concept of movement is intrinsically connected. The question is which role do we play in this constant movement? How oneself is made conscious of the different aspects we are surrounded by.
'''1. Personal and experimental'''
(design and dance performance)




1. personal and experimental  (design and performance)
In my design practice I hope to be find new method that communicates between design and dance, a system that allows for cross-breeding. An inter-disciplinary approach, exchange of knowledge.


<small>"Constantly re‑inventing, bringing ideas and actions together, contributing to the being‑together web of relations; to Deleuzian assamblage. Deleuze’s interest can be found in bodily capacity to make us think of the unthought. Moreover bodies have active power to affect and also passive power to be affected." Deleuze, G. (1989), Cinema 2: The Time‑Image, USA: University of Minnesota Press</small>


My intention is to embrace a holistic (mind and body) approach in design practices, and encourage the use of choreographic thought and movement beyond performance practices. An inter-disciplinary approach, knowledge sharing. <small>"Constantly re‑ inventing, bringing ideas and actions together, contributing to the being‑ together web of relations; to Deleuzian assamblage. Deleuze’s interest can be found in bodily capacity to make us think of the unthought. Moreover bodies have active power to affect and also passive power to be affected." Deleuze, G. (1989), Cinema 2: The Time‑Image, USA: University of Minnesota Press</small>


As for my practice I hope to be designing a new design language that communicates between systems, find a system that allows for cross-breeding.


'''2. Embodiment / Consciousness'''
(phenomenology)


2. embodiment / consciousness / awareness -  ideology (phenomenology)


Performing, or simply moving the body, allows to articulate ideas in action, to set them in  motion. There is a higher sense of oneself, and of one's responsibility. In dance, along with similar kinesthetic experiences, the human body reaches an intense sensorial perceptual experience, composed of information from many places in the body, finding the need to have an understanding of/control over of sensory consequences of their own movement. It can be seen either as personal, depending on the case- collective, confrontation - creating great awareness. Embodiment and the idea of being present leads to a high level of consciousness.


Performing, or simply moving the body, allows to articulate ideas in action, to set them in  motion. There is a higher sense of oneself, and of one's responsibility. In dance, along with similar kinesthetic experiences, the human body reaches an intense sensorial perceptual experience, composed of information from many places in the body, finding the need to have an understanding of/control over of sensory consequences of their own movement. It can be seen either as personal, depending on the case- collective, confrontation - creating great awareness. <small>‘By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.’ _ Eleanor Rosch</small>
<small>‘By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.’ Eleanor Rosch</small>




3. relevant  (speculative realism / accelerationism / anthropocene / extreme capitalism) - ethics
'''3. Contemporary relevancy'''
(speculative realism / accelerationism / anthropocene)  




The concept of motion is also inherently connected to the development of communication technologies and by the introduction of cybernetic systems, embracing both human and non human entities into a a network of interactions. Arriving at last to the realm of contemporary philosophy, specifically the speculative realism movement, an object-oriented philosophy which arises from what Graham Harman determines to be a core fallacy in contemporary metaphysics, that the “root duality of the universe is not made up of subject and object [….], but of objects and relations. We live in times of extensive technological acceleration and revolutionary transformations in media platforms, a data-driven society that is continually sparking new forms of human interaction and social contexts.  
The concept of motion is also inherently connected to the development of communication technologies and by the introduction of cybernetic systems, embracing both human and non human entities into a a network of interactions. Arriving at last to the realm of contemporary philosophy, specifically the speculative realism movement, an object-oriented philosophy which arises from what Graham Harman determines to be a core fallacy in contemporary metaphysics, that the “root duality of the universe is not made up of subject and object [….], but of objects and relations." We live in times of extensive technological acceleration and revolutionary transformations in media platforms, a data-driven society that is continually sparking new forms of human interaction and social contexts.  
In different disciplines, ''motion'' has been the main character for developing theories around the most intrinsic questions of humanity. The same elements of time and movement matter more prominently in performance than in other traditional forms of art.
In different disciplines, ''motion'' has been the main character for developing theories around the most intrinsic questions of humanity. The same elements of time and movement matter more prominently in performance than in other traditional forms of art.




In this link I written a text in which the ideas above are expanded and linked to my on going research:  [[Contextualization_-_for_proposal.]]


== '''Practical steps''' ==
== '''Practical steps''' ==


'''1. An Inventory.''' - How can we think performance through the lenses of both Design and Post-Modern Dance? I have been gathering examples of the methods and tools used for composition matters in both disciplines. This includes design conventional structures, choreographic scores, scripts, programming languages, and software.  I also believe that focusing on free and open source software will allow me to better grasp the implications of these tools and processes.


''Method''
<small>Here is the link: http://pzwart1.wdka.hro.nl/~jo/inventory/</small>


'''1.''' An Inventory. - gathering examples of the methods and tools used for graphic designing and performance. This includes choreographic scores, scripts, programming languages, and software.  
Both Design and Performance rely on decisions of how to organize and distribute elements in space, how these elements relate to each other and how they inherently set a specific rhythm and flow, which is then perceived in the moment which is accessed.


If designers assemble and organize different graphic elements, defining where these are set in space, positioning of such elements inherently sets a specific rhythm and flow, which is then perceived in the moment which is accessed by the readers/ perceivers. I also believe that focusing on free and open source software will allow me to better grasp the implications of the tools and processes.
In Graphic Design I so far collected examples of grid-system and typographic systems, from around the 1950s, time in which cleanliness, readability and objectivity was highly emphasized up until the present moment in which this principals were translated to algorithmic structures.. This way I embrace both print and digital technologies and methodologies.


On the performance side, my research and material collection is now focusing on choreographic systems from post-modernist dancers, which philosophies mostly looks at basic movements of the body, highlighting the essence of movement. In this there is indeed a strong move towards functionality and the body as communication tool for specific ideas. The choreographic scores developed by these different performers form a complex communication system making an extensive use of language as - graphic / numeric / alphabetic.
On the performance side, my research and material collection is now focusing on choreographic systems from post-modernist dancers, in which its philosophies mostly look at basic movements of the body, highlighting the essence of movement. In this there is indeed a strong move towards functionality and the body as communication tool for specific ideas. The choreographic scores developed by these different dance performers to communicate movement, use an extensive use of language such as - graphic / numeric / alphabetic complex systems.


Both methods and the languages used or developed for both purposes follow different parameters which are extremly interesting to analyze and compare.




'''2.''' Analysis and Experimentation. - The material being collected will help me understand how to draw a parallel between this different methodologies, and how they inform one another.
'''2. Analysis and Experimentation.''' - When simultaneously looking at both disciplines, is it possible to to draw a parallel between its different methodologies? If so, what performative qualities from dance could influence design? And how?


By looking at how different design decisions, in both digital and physical spaces produce time and affect people's movement as well as by analyzing a few choreographic approaches (methods for triggering movement), I aim to understand what movement qualities could be explored while designing surfaces? And what powers of invention or transformation does it set free?
I started to list and categorize my questions and variables to explore further (a gathering of topics and planning is being built - - - work in progress): https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Thinking_while_Moving_while_Thinking_-_Method


_


A practical study case: the workshop "Up pen Down" organized by Open Source Publishing- OSP in collaboration with the choreographer Adva Zakai, in Brussels. An experiment on "linking typography and performance", an interplay between forms of action and forms of typeface, and how both develop a dialogue between both.
<small>'''A practical study case''' : the workshop "Up pen Down" organized by Open Source Publishing- OSP in collaboration with the choreographer Adva Zakai, in Brussels. An experiment on "linking typography and performance", an interplay between forms of action and forms of typeface, and how both develop a dialogue between both.


(a more detailed introduction to workshop can be found here: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop)
<small>(a more detailed introduction to workshop can be found here: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop)</small>


In brief, starting with investigating different ways of drawing typography, particularly at algorithms based on vector drawings, we then developed a series of experiments on how the same concept could then be applied when using body movements to draw typography in space.
In brief, starting with investigating different ways of drawing typography, particularly at algorithms based on vector drawings, we then developed a series of experiments on how the same concept could then be applied when using body movements to draw typography in space.


CODE < > DECODE
CODE < > DECODE




ALL IS LINES AND CURVES, but because the coordenation of visual elements in the two-dimensional digital realm is different from the one in the third-dimensional physical space, the code systems to be used also had to be re-thought. The principle of defining points in space and a path following them, was apparently very similar in both circumstances. Although the fact that the units differed, now being body measurements, made the rules vary substantially. This experiment was overall extremely successful and most people could communicate their "type design systems" to each others. It was a great opportunity to transverse the experimental terrain between space and form, that allowed to look at graphic technology in unconventional ways.
''Its all lines and curves'', but because the coordenation of visual elements in the two-dimensional digital realm is different from the one in the third-dimensional physical space, the code systems to be used also had to be re-thought. The principle of defining points in space and a path following them, was apparently very similar in both circumstances. Although the fact that the units differed, now being body measurements, made these rules vary substantially.  


Breathing as code system - one of my interventions was based on the idea of having an internal unit (heart bits) that define our ability to perform. This way, for every breath I would take, a movement would follow.
This experiment was overall extremely successful and most people could communicate their "type design systems" to each others. It was a great opportunity to transverse the experimental terrain between space and form, that allowed to look at graphic technology in unconventional ways.


After the workshop it was clear to me that it is not about finding a direct translation from design to performance, or digital to physical as a "mimic" exercise. Instead, to understand and take advantage of the physical limitations and potentialities of one space, the other or even both.
'''Breathing as code system''' - one of my interventions was based on the idea of having an internal unit (heart bits) that define our ability to perform. This way, for every breath I would take, a movement would follow. Here is a video demonstration: https://vimeo.com/145387781




After the workshop it was clear to me that it is not about finding a direct translation from design to performance, or digital to physical as a "mimetic" exercise. Instead, to understand and take advantage of the physical limitations and potentialities of one space, the other or even both.</small>


Various choreographers and performers developed techniques tied to philosophies in how to move and perform. Being Martha Graham's fundamental use of body, exploring basic movements such as walking and breathing or Yvonne Rainer minimal approach to the expression of movement and effort. Different references and choreographic methods in performance, allow for deeper understanding of the potentiality of movement qualities. To continue finding common units, I listed questions for both practices and variables to explore:


To access a short summary of previous works and experiments under this same thematic, please access here: [[Previous_Practice_-_summary.]]


Q. The question of composition (mapping/ placing - accessibilitiy- the legibility of the built environment) and how this elements set rythm in space?


After some earlier experiments I believe that a key point of the overall project process lies on transdisciplinarity, a combined hybrid-process looking at both design and dance performance, to explore the  ''"potentials of an 'open system (Emery, 1981), hence potentials for transcultural practice." 'Open systems' as 'systems that live within a constant exchange with their environment' (Cillari in Birrringer, 2007, p.121), thus relying on interaction and on patterning de-patterning and re-patterning of clear, yet permeable boundaries through which new information and ideas can be absorbed.'' <small>(Recreating Histories: Transdisciplinarity and Transcultural Perspectives on Performance Making, Thomas Kampe).</small>


Q. How to approach mobility/stability, and tension in between? ANTI- performance?  negative of performance (stop/pause).




Q. The question of individual/collective experience.
In the theoretical spectrum, I am interested in continuing studying the culture and historicity of dance rituals, how that influenced or not the western post-modernist performative approach. The same for graphic design, I would be interested in extending this research to earlier typographic tools and graphic design craftsmanship.  


<small>''"Writing systems vary, but a good page is not hard to learn to recognize, whether it comes from Táng Dinasty China, the Egyptian New Kingdom or Renaissance Italy. The principles that unite these distant schools f design are based on the structure and scale of the yuma body - the eye the hand and the forearm in particular - and on the invisible, but no less sensuous anatomy of the human mind. (...) Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living speaking hand  and its roots reach into a living sol, though is branches may be hung each year with new machines."  The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst.''</small>


Q. And the question of active/passive (participation questions: http://www.veralistcenter.org/art-and-social-justice/conflict/12/audience-participation-spectatorship-modes-of-address/), followed by the role of author/spectator or writer/ reader? ( following the method of coding <> decoding )
This way, I would better understanding the fundamental nature of both disciplines, how the binary opposition human (physicality) vs structures (abstraction) emerged. And for better understanding of the same matters in contemporary culture and technology I would like to research further on virtual space/ human space perception /cyborg theories / computational creativity and software studies / systems theory and cybernetics.




Q. The question of Ephemerality:to enhance the performative qualities of being temporally present, spatially present: I now would like to continue to reflect upon the difference between discrete definition and one's actual perception of those same time values. In this way ephemerality becomes key, as well as its ''transformative'' effects that persist afterwards.


'''3. Final Outcome.''' - In the end, I would like to present the result, a sort of "new" design logic, maybe in a form of a manual/ a platform  (Hybrid publishing / Print & Digital) which best shows the processes and experiences held throughout the research. Another option for display would be a hybrid scenery, in which the outcome would be a multimedia set up, displaying a collection of materials from the process and its results.


Q. The question of determinism / chance and randomness (to give room for the unexpected, where anything can potentially happen).
A performative utterance still remains as a possibility, maybe a showcase or a side event.


== '''A list of references''' ==


<small>ON PERFORMANCE // CHOREOGRAPHY


The project I hearby propose is process oriented, and based on the creation of a series of moments of (critical) reflection concerning our embodiment in different space circunstances. I believe processes in design can learn from processes in performance, challenging the conventional design thinking. This cross-referencing system opens the possibility to unveil new aesthetic, energetic and social dimensions of design production processes.
http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/  (readings < )


In the theoretical spectrum, I am interested in continuing studying the culture and historicity of dance rituals, how that influenced or not the western post-modernist performative approach. For better contextualizing the role of technology in contemporary culture and how it relates to physicality I would like virtual space/ cyborg theories, to contact experts and practicioners on areas - as such as multimedia performance, human space perception, computational creativity and software studies.
http://sarma.be/oralsite/pages/Strata/  (documentation / dance archive)


http://apass.be/artistic-reseach-center/archive/  (documentation / dance archive)


'''3.'''The end will come in end. - I can see for now two options: one being a performative utterance, the other a hybrid scenery, in whic the outcome would be a multimedia set up, displaying a collection of materials from the process that go back to the first question raised.
motionbank.org (documentation / dance archive)


As the performative character of my work may raise questions of documentation, I will consider to develop a platform next to the project to best support it. (Hybrid publishing / Print & Digital)
http://www.ubu.com/dance/index.html  (historical references/ dance archive)


http://contemporarydance-db.blogspot.nl  (historical references/ dance archive)


http://www.disjointedarts.com/home_xo/ressssssearches  (postchoreography ?)


== '''Relation to ongoing/previous practice''' ==
http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/?news=performing-objects-brussels-art-days      (choreographic objects)
http://uva.co.uk/work  (visual art and performance)


My interest in motion follows my performance practice, in which movement is presented as basis for the interrelation between brain - body - world, and consequently the gateway to achieve knowledge. From subliminal to more explicit approach, movement is often set under strict guidelines, both inside and outside the realm of performance. 
On Scores, Notation and the Trace in Dance, by Myriam Van Imschoot


My previous studies on graphic design and overall interest in different communication systems, made me start following a research on on choreographic scores, a particular system which stands for "writing movement". Choreographic language follows diverse structures, that enable composition and trigger action. There are multiple forms for representing it, from graphic,to linguistic, or geometrical; relying on imagery, sound, and so on. Either ways, meaning is created.
MOVING WITHOUT a BODY by Stamatia Portanova (book)


I am interested in choreographic scores as existing in themselves as notation systems, and also in its performative state.
Isabel Maria de Cavadas Valverde in INTERFACES DANCE-TECHNOLOGY: a theoretical framework for performance in the digital domain (dance-technology thesis)


Hetty Blades on Creative Computing and the Re-Configuration of Dance Ontology


TRIM1 - choreography as writing (/communicating) movement
http://www.corpusweb.net/after-dance.html


For this project I created a new choreography piece, based on found material from ancient Geranos Dance: a series of drawings part of the François vase (6th century BC), and a written description by Pollux, a Greek lexicographer from the 2nd century AD.
http://www.choreo-graphic-figures.net


I am interested in the multiple ways of communicating movement , and used different language systems to write the same choreographic piece: written words together with a geometrical and graphical representation; The geometric module served then as basis for a pattern, the ultimate abstraction of the piece, readable and understood by those who share the same code. In this project I only explored choreography as means for writing movement, leaving the  actual side of performing it apart.  
http://www.salazarsutil.net/  (Performance Art: Life of the Archive and Topicality.)


TRIM 2 - choreography as an object in space
http://openhumanitiespress.org/feedback/category/performance/  (performance responses to Anthropocene)


For the Photobook Project, I created a sculptural piece, a continual physical surface for the user to relate with.
This way, I had positioned the viewer/spectator as the performer, proposing a tighter relation between communication artifact/interface and perceiver. The piece built for this project also acknkowledged a reflection on accessibility and wayfinding experiences through built environments. This "human-environment interaction" creates a parallel towards how people behave, react to spacial elements and structures, either in regards to analogue or digital medias. In this case, the process of "wayfinding", getting acquainted with the piece by means of following very concrete physical attributes, aims to point to the same patterns in the realm of publishing.


TRIM 3 - choreography as multiple interventions in space


In this seminar I researched different choreographic approaches in the realm of performance and art, and selected three:  Chance Operations, by Merce Cunningham; Wall-Floor Positions, a video piece by Bruce Nauman and Sticks, part of a series of interventions on public spaces and later integrated in museum spaces, by Trisha Brown.
POSTMODERN DANCE
I chose these for being very diverse techniques of generating choreographic scores and consequently having a very different effect on the way people may be able to interpret it and perform it.
The first one by Cunningham was presented similar to a game structure, in which short instructions would be chosen by chance, and would serve as navigational instruments; a sequence of actions which played with re-orientation and trajectory in space. The second inspired by Bruce Nauman video art piece, aimed for a sort of solo improvisation, in which people would lean to the wall and draw an outline of their body with chalk. This way the traces of the moment remain in space. At last, Trisha Brown's re-interpretation was done by using sticks as an external body into the choreography which was simply driven by the act of walking. Contrary to the previous one, this could be seen as a collective improvisation, in which body acts as the main common language.




My interest on spatial procedures and the architecture of movement happens both in physical spaces so well into digital spaces. In between trimesters, I have also been doing small prototypes, towards an experimental use of programming tools, for this, I developed a series of webpages in which a reflection on the time (duration) and space (web interface) is raised.
"is only a term that addresses what people are doing now (at that moment)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHtSUQ-3FnI


> web - experiences that makes more tangible the notion of time.
The 1960s and '70s saw an analytic exploration of pure dance by the first generation of post-modern choreographers, such as Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, and Lucinda Childs. In the 1980s, a new choreographic impulse burst through this formal austerity. Dancers began to wrestle and juggle, dance to pop music and poetry, tell stories, play characters, wear elegant or outrageous costumes


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_dance


Other works:
Does dance makes a difference? Anna Halprin Workshop for Movement Research / NYC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2diNM6EAc0  - impact.


> sound
http://tamalpa.org


== '''Relation to a larger context''' ==


- Minimalism;


- Conceptual Art;
DANCERS / CHOREOGRAPHERS:


- Fluxus;


- "Instructions" avant gard movement;
Yvonne Rainer: http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/rainer/index.html


- Happenings;
Trisha Brown: http://www.trishabrowncompany.org/?section=72


- Neo-concrete;
Simone Forti: 


- Gutai;
Merce Cunningham: http://dancecapsules.mercecunningham.org/?8080ed


- Lettrism;
http://wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/thinking-with-the-body/?video=4    (Thinking with the body: Mind and Movement by Wayne McGregor / Random Dance)


- Video and installation art from the 70's;
William Forsythe:  (choreographic objects)


Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Rosas danst Rosas - Le vocabulaire du deuxième mouvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clNjBM3QVbY


As part of my theoretical research I have been investigating on different philosophical strands that focus on experience, such as empiricism, a fundamental philosophical position that claims all knowledge arrives directly from sense experience; and most lately phenomenology the study of our experience — how we experience.
Pinna Bausch: http://www.pinabausch.org/en/archive


As for the study of how different disciplines deal with experience, I have been looking at the fluxus group and the "instructions" avant gard movement, happenings, conceptual art, minimalism, video and installation art from the 70's until now, as well as performance art, and choreography in dance. It is of my interest how in these practices the role of the body in human experience and perception is emphasized, the techniques and technologies applied.
Tino Sehgal at Tate Modern : https://vimeo.com/54314537


Sasha Waltz: http://www.sashawaltz.de/en/productions/


Movement (of the body) is one of the central concepts in my research, as being something that defines how human beings relate and perceive the world, how they access information, and process it. If communication stands for the transmission of knowledge, indicated as “the transition from one point to the next”, that is as one “directional destination” to the next (at wikipedia), than the concept of movement is intrinsically connected. The question is which role do we play in this constant movement? How oneself is made conscious of the different aspects we are surrounded by.
JUDITH SENG  http://www.judithseng.de/projects/acting-things-iv/


In regards to movement of the body, one of my main references is Alva Noë, one of the theorists that inspired the EEC programme - Embodied Embedded Cognition. Noë investigates the structures of experience and consciousness (phenomenology); Presenting experience as the "basis of accessibility", allowing humans into "achieving access to the environment".


In an interview with Marlon Barrios Solano, part of the Embodied Techne Series (2012), Noë discusses "Dance As A Way Of Knowing". He explores the idea that human consciousness is something we enact or achieve, in motion, as a way of being part of a larger process. Motion as "sensory motor understanding is what brings the world into focus for consciousness." Noë highlights the fact that motion relies on a "temporally extended involvement", which enhances sensorial perception and consequently produces sensorial change: "transformations that happens in you while you go across the process; what is that transformation? Is understanding, is seeing connections, is knowing your way around." Presenting dance as a way to enact experience, thinking in motion - "dance in a sense of performance is an enactment or modeling of this fundamental fact about the world around us, which we dynamically interact with.".


In dance, along with similar kinesthetic experiences, the human body reaches an intense sensorial perceptual experience, composed of information from many places in the body, finding the need to have an understanding of/control over of sensory consequences of their own movement. It can be seen either as personal, depending on the case- collective, confrontation - creating great awareness.
DESIGN (type/graphic)


Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, started her career as dancer/choreographer, and is now an independent scholar, philosopher, which part of her research focus on the primacy of movement in perception and our fundamental understanding of aliveness. Sheets-Johnstone defines movement as the foundation of Being and consciousness by ‘‘articulating a metaphysics true to the dynamic nature of the world and to the foundational animated nature of life’’. According to Sheets-Johnstone, ‘‘movement is our mother tongue’’ as we make sense of our own bodies and understand the world. As we move, we discover a sense of aliveness and of being grounded in movement. Movement is the source of our senses,in space and time, subjectively in ‘‘felt time’’. Sheets-Johnstone shows uslife as movement, sensing as motion, interaction, imagining and meaning-making as action. at https://www.academia.edu/5207361/Maxine_Sheets-Johnstone_The_Primacy_of_Movement


The question concerning corporeity connects also with Merleau-Ponty's reflections on space (l'espace) and the primacy of the dimension of depth (la profondeur) as implied in the notion of being in the world (être au monde; to echo Heidegger's In-der-Welt-sein) and of one's own body (le corps propre).
Action to Surface by Tereza Rullerova.


Another reference on sense experience and human perception is Brian Massumi's reflection on Feeling, Emotion and Affect on his book Parables of the Virtual, Movement, Affect, Sensation. “For Massumi, affect is precisely a matter of how intensities come together, move each other, and transform and translate under and beyond meaning, semantics and fixed systems/cognitions. Part of the assumption here is that, even in the most reactionay circumstances, nothing happens if affective intensity has not already paid us a visit. This refines our understanding of why territory - spatial and temporal - is always “existential territory“. It has as much a territorry that enables movement as something that keeps everything in its place, it is movement itself.” Reading / Feeling - If I Can’t Dance Archives.
http://juerglehni.com/


<small>"One night not long ago, I dreamt I was explained the main difference between classical physics and quantum physics. It became perfectly clear to me that where classical physics is deterministic and assumes that the world is constant, ruled by the same laws on all levels, quantum physics looks at statistical, normative movements. In quantum physics there is not one standard way for an object to behave. The state of the phenomenon one wants to observe, take light as an example, can only be determined in the instance it is being observed: Light can be both wave and particle simultaneously. I recognized that in order to explain a single phenomenon, one needs two mutually exclusive theories." http://www.toriljohannessen.no/Nonlocality_page7.html
Compression by Abstraction: A Conversation About Vectors: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jul/30/compression-abstraction/


http://luigiamato.net/post/101345820032/volume


"The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind and its physical extension has proven problematic to dualism and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body. These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology, and the neurosciences." at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_problem
http://www.werkplaatstypografie.org


In different disciplines, ''motion'' has been the main character for developing theories around the most intrinsic questions of humanity. In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time. Motion is typically described in terms of displacement, distance (scalar), velocity, acceleration, time and speed.  
http://www.typeradio.org


<small>Our "shadowy" apprehension of reality in terms of flux, so graphically parabled by Plato in his Republic, has made its greatest impact through Einstein's theories, which demonstrate that energy and mass are interchangeable in the inseparable continuum of space and time. Quantum physics actually refers to subatomic partides, the shadowy stuff of which the universe is made, as “tendencies to exist.” These findings, affirmed by Heisenberg’s principle of “indeterminacy,” indicating how the nature that we seek merely to observe cannot help but be altered by man’s presence, confirm Renaissance man’s largely intuitive recognition of his own personal sense of spatialty, thus making it possible for Leonardo and Bramante to conceive of an art of performance and for us to recognize it as such today. The Art of Performance, A Critical Anthology - 1984 Edited By: Gregory Battcock and Robert Nickas</small>
http://typotalks.com/videos/




The concept of motion is also inherently connected to the development of communication technologies and by the introduction of cybernetic systems, embracing both human and non human entities into a a network of interactions. Arriving at last to the realm of contemporary philosophy, specifically the speculative realism movement, an object-oriented philosophy which arises from what Graham Harman determines to be a core fallacy in contemporary metaphysics, that the “root duality of the universe is not made up of subject and object [….], but of objects and relations.</small>


ART MOVEMENTS


== '''A list of references''' ==


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettrism  (time-based media works < check )


(Remember that dictionaries, encyclopedias and wikipedia are not references to be listed. These are starting points which should lead to more substantial texts and practices.) As with your previous essays, the references need to be formatted according to the Harvard method.) See: http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/wiki/A_Guide_to_Essay_Writing#The_Harvard_System_of_referencing
http://www.walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/  


<small>ON PERFORMANCE // CHOREOGRAPHY
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it/manuals/0_manual.html


http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/  (readings < )
Briony Fer in the book The infinite line (geometry and conceptual artists)
http://sarma.be/oralsite/pages/Strata/  (documentation / dance archive)
http://apass.be/artistic-reseach-center/archive/  (documentation / dance archive)
motionbank.org  (documentation / dance archive)
http://www.ubu.com/dance/index.html  (historical references/ dance archive)
http://www.disjointedarts.com/home_xo/ressssssearches  (postchoreography ?)
http://wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/thinking-with-the-body/?video=4    (Thinking with the body: Mind and Movement by Wayne McGregor / Random Dance)
William Forsythe (choreographic objects)
http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/?news=performing-objects-brussels-art-days      (choreographic objects)
http://uva.co.uk/work  (visual art and performance)
On Scores, Notation and the Trace in Dance, by Myriam Van Imschoot
MOVING WITHOUT a BODY by Stamatia Portanova (book)
Isabel Maria de Cavadas Valverde in INTERFACES DANCE-TECHNOLOGY: a theoretical framework for performance in the digital domain (dance-technology thesis)
Hetty Blades on Creative Computing and the Re-Configuration of Dance Ontology
http://www.corpusweb.net/after-dance.html


Tino Sehgal at Tate Modern : https://vimeo.com/54314537


JUDITH SENG  http://www.judithseng.de/projects/acting-things-iv/
_


ARTISTS


POSTMODERN DANCE


"is only a term that addresses what people are doing now (at that moment)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHtSUQ-3FnI
Sol Lewitt


The 1960s and '70s saw an analytic exploration of pure dance by the first generation of post-modern choreographers, such as Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, and Lucinda Childs. In the 1980s, a new choreographic impulse burst through this formal austerity. Dancers began to wrestle and juggle, dance to pop music and poetry, tell stories, play characters, wear elegant or outrageous costumes
Vito Acconci (http://acconci.com/movable-floor-1979-2004/)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_dance
La Monte Young - Sobre El Minimalismo - Composicion 1960 #7


Does dance makes a difference? Anna Halprin Workshop for Movement Research / NYC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xyT_b6ngA


"- mind informs the body; body informs mind."
Henri Chopin; Guy de Cointet and Channa Horwtizt: Signs,Rules, Processes - Indetermination and deconstruction.  


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2diNM6EAc0  - impact.
http://www.marcellealix.com/artistes/oeuvres/1743/marie-cool-fabio-balducci
http://tamalpa.org


_
http://www.collectivemagpie.org/work/


Performance Art: Life of the Archive and Topicality.
http://www.stuartbrisley.com/section/27/Works


http://www.salazarsutil.net/
-


?further readings::::


http://occasionalpapersshop.tictail.com/product/the-artist-as-instigator
THEORISTS (on language/ media)


http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1514&l=en&bookId=408&sort=year (Chantal Pontbriand (Ed.) Per/Form  How to Do Things with[out] Words)
http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1601&l=en&bookId=495&sort=year (Mathilde ter HeijnePerforming Change)
http://www.mottodistribution.com/site/?p=35486  (THE VISUAL EVENT : An Education In Appearance. OLIVER KLIMPEL (ed.). SPECTOR BOOKS.)
http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/?tx_commerce_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=2259&cHash=67d7697a2f
http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-05-spatial-aesthetics-art-place-and-the-everyday-nikos-papastergiadis/
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/748_reg.html    (The Roots of Thinking - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone)
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2368_reg.html  (Phenomenology of Dance - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone)
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/motion-and-representation  (Technology and Motion Representation)
http://realdancecompany.org/writing.html
http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/assign-arrange-methodologies-of-presentation-in-art-and-dance-2
http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/space-as-membrane


a list: http://www.independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Gill-Clarke-Embodied-Library-selection-13-Dec-2014.pdf


https://www.bookdepository.com/Body-Space-Image-Miranda-Tufnell/9781852730413  (a narrative of discovery that sets the mind loose from the rut of everyday perception. From a starting point in movement, improvisation is extended to include groups working together and the physical setting of performance - space, light , sound, objects...)
Method by Dick Raaijmakers


https://www.bookdepository.com/Human-Movement-Potential-Lulu-Sweigard/9781626549449  (medical approach)
Deleuze and Guatari
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-body-dance-and-cultural-theory-helen-thomas/?K=9780333724323  (dance as a social and artistic (bodily) practice as a means of generating insights into the politics of identity and difference as they are situated...)
_____


DESIGN (type/graphic)
Umberto Eco


Action to Surface by Tereza Rullerova.
Guy de Cointet


http://juerglehni.com/
Lev Manovich, Database as a Symbolic Form.
Compression by Abstraction: A Conversation About Vectors: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jul/30/compression-abstraction/
http://luigiamato.net/post/101345820032/volume
http://www.werkplaatstypografie.org
http://www.typeradio.org


____
Meta-communication, by Gregory Bateson to refer to "communication about communication" "Mind, Nature, and Consciousness: Gregory Bateson and the New Paradigm.


ART MOVEMENTS
Blaeuer, D. M. (2010), An Ecology of Performance: Gregory Bateson’s Cybernetic Performance, USA: University of South Florida  (In the book, Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson explained actions in terms of being performative within the complex system which they are part of. 13 I understand this system as human interactions, relations and reactions to patterns. Bateson’s patterns are acts of human perception and respond to the world which is in the process of constant change - a flow of life.)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettrism  (time-based media works < check )
‘History’ of Search Engines: Mapping Technologies of Memory, Learning, and Discovery ¬ Richard Graham
http://www.walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/


Briony Fer in the book The infinite line (geometry and conceptual artists)
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone: The Primacy of Movement at https://www.academia.edu/5207361/Maxine_Sheets-Johnstone_The_Primacy_of_Movement


http://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/brecht_chance.pdf


ARTISTS
"Art and Language" exhibition at MacBa.


Sol Lewitt
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/15/2    (ask Steve help to access! <)
Vito Acconci (http://acconci.com/movable-floor-1979-2004/)
La Monte Young - Sobre El Minimalismo - Composicion 1960 #7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xyT_b6ngA
Henri Chopin; Guy de Cointet and Channa Horwtizt: Signs,Rules, Processes - Indetermination and deconstruction.
http://www.marcellealix.com/artistes/oeuvres/1743/marie-cool-fabio-balducci
http://www.collectivemagpie.org/work/
http://www.stuartbrisley.com/section/27/Works


THEORISTS (on language/ media)


Method by Dick Raaijmakers
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought is a 1995 book by Douglas Hofstadter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_Analogies)
Deleuze and Guatari
Umberto Eco
Guy de Cointet
Lev Manovich, Database as a Symbolic Form.
Meta-communication, by Gregory Bateson to refer to "communication about communication" "Mind, Nature, and Consciousness: Gregory Bateson and the New Paradigm.
Blaeuer, D. M. (2010), An Ecology of Performance: Gregory Bateson’s Cybernetic Performance, USA: University of South Florida  (In the book, Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson explained actions in terms of being performative within the complex system which they are part of. 13 I understand this system as human interactions, relations and reactions to patterns. Bateson’s patterns are acts of human perception and respond to the world which is in the process of constant change - a flow of life. <)
‘History’ of Search Engines: Mapping Technologies of Memory, Learning, and Discovery ¬ Richard Graham


http://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/brecht_chance.pdf
Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, By Janet H. Murray (https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=books/hamlet-holodeck)


"Art and Language" exhibition at MacBa.


http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/15/2    (ask Steve help to access! <)
PHENOMENOLOGY




PHENOMENOLOGY


Brian Massumi's reflection on Feeling, Emotion and Affect on his book Parables of the Virtual, Movement, Affect, Sensation.
Brian Massumi's reflection on Feeling, Emotion and Affect on his book Parables of the Virtual, Movement, Affect, Sensation.
Brian Massumi's  Archive of experience.
Brian Massumi's  Archive of experience.
Interview with Marlon Barrios Solano, part of the Embodied Techne Series (2012), Alva Noë discusses "Dance As A Way Of Knowing"
Interview with Marlon Barrios Solano, part of the Embodied Techne Series (2012), Alva Noë discusses "Dance As A Way Of Knowing"
Merleau Ponty, phemenology of Perception
Merleau Ponty, phemenology of Perception
Eric Shouse, “Feeling, Emotion, Affect”, MC Journal, Vol. 8, No. 6 (December 2005), http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php
Eric Shouse, “Feeling, Emotion, Affect”, MC Journal, Vol. 8, No. 6 (December 2005), http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php


Line 346: Line 306:
SPACE
SPACE


Pattern: Ornament, Structure and Behavior, by Andrea Gleiniger and Georg Vrachliotis </small>
Pattern: Ornament, Structure and Behavior, by Andrea Gleiniger and Georg Vrachliotis  
 


_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Line 358: Line 317:


https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop
Attending the http://www.playgroundfestival.be , in a conversation with Kristof Van Gestel and the performance COMME IL EST BLOND! (OU: DE TOUTES LES COULEURS), 1982, 2013 - GUY DE COINTET. </small>




==== keywords ====
==== Keywords - Expanded ====


<small>Objects (in) Space (in) Time.
<small>Objects (in) Space (in) Time.
Line 393: Line 355:


-Performance = hybridization of the body and technologies in a both real and speculative approach.
-Performance = hybridization of the body and technologies in a both real and speculative approach.
'''Patterning'''
- Design, structure, or configuration of a form, style, or method.
'''Process'''
- A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result.
- A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product.
'''Structure'''
- The arrangement and interrelationship of parts in a construction.
- The way in which parts are arranged or put together to form a whole.
'''System'''
- A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.
- A network of structures and channels, as for communication, travel, or distribution.
- An organized and coordinated method; a procedure.
- A naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena.
''(selection from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com)''
====¿ future readings ?====
Writers whose work is often characterised as post-structuralist include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, and Julia Kristeva.
TOP : : : : : : : :
/    http://www.versobooks.com/books/511-the-politics-of-time /  http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1601&l=en&bookId=495&sort=year (Mathilde ter HeijnePerforming Change)
/    http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2368_reg.html  (Phenomenology of Dance - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone)  /    https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/motion-and-representation  (Technology and Motion Representation)
/    http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/space-as-membrane    /  http://occasionalpapersshop.tictail.com/product/the-artist-as-instigator    /
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2543056.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents  ( Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History by William H. McNeill )
http://www.versobooks.com/books/542-postmodern-geographies    /    http://www.versobooks.com/books/547-brecht-and-method   
Joan Jonas. Scripts and descriptions 1968-1982
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=17478798539&searchurl=tn=process&an=alfred%20whitehead
http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1514&l=en&bookId=408&sort=year (Chantal Pontbriand (Ed.) Per/Form  How to Do Things with[out] Words)
http://www.mottodistribution.com/site/?p=35486  (THE VISUAL EVENT : An Education In Appearance. OLIVER KLIMPEL (ed.). SPECTOR BOOKS.)
http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/?tx_commerce_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=2259&cHash=67d7697a2f
http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-05-spatial-aesthetics-art-place-and-the-everyday-nikos-papastergiadis/
http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/748_reg.html    (The Roots of Thinking - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone)
http://realdancecompany.org/writing.html
http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/assign-arrange-methodologies-of-presentation-in-art-and-dance-2
Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkraisby Elizabeth Beringer, Moshé Feldenkrais
http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Motion-Simone-Forti/dp/0919616038
a list: http://www.independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Gill-Clarke-Embodied-Library-selection-13-Dec-2014.pdf
https://www.bookdepository.com/Body-Space-Image-Miranda-Tufnell/9781852730413  (a narrative of discovery that sets the mind loose from the rut of everyday perception. From a starting point in movement, improvisation is extended to include groups working together and the physical setting of performance - space, light , sound, objects...)
https://www.bookdepository.com/Human-Movement-Potential-Lulu-Sweigard/9781626549449  (medical approach)
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-body-dance-and-cultural-theory-helen-thomas/?K=9780333724323  (dance as a social and artistic (bodily) practice as a means of generating insights into the politics of identity and difference as they are situated...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Encyclopedia_of_Systems_and_Cybernetics
http://www.publicbooks.org/nonfiction/a-global-neuromancer

Latest revision as of 18:08, 11 January 2016

title: Choreo - Graphic Languages

Introduction

“For Massumi, affect is precisely a matter of how intensities come together, move each other, and transform and translate under and beyond meaning, semantics and fixed systems/cognitions. Part of the assumption here is that, even in the most reactionary circumstances, nothing happens if affective intensity has not already paid us a visit. This refines our understanding of why territory - spatial and temporal - is always “existential territory“. It has as much a territory that enables movement as something that keeps everything in its place, it is movement itself.” Reading / Feeling - If I Can’t Dance Archives.

Kinesphere.jpg Captura de ecrã 2015-11-16, às 08.53.43.png

What do you mean by “to choreograph”?

For my master thesis and project I aim to investigate the compositional processes found in design and dance performance, and understand how movement is implied in the moment of production and post-production in both practices. I see the possibility to establish a connection and elaborate more on a multidisciplinary link between – and coexistence of – performativity and graphic design. My intention is to embrace a holistic (mind and body) approach in design practices, and encourage the use of choreographic thought and movement beyond performance practices and towards design.

The project I hearby propose is process oriented, and based on the creation of a series of moments of (critical) reflection concerning our embodiment when defining different time and space circumstances. I believe processes in design can learn from processes in performance, challenging the conventional design thinking. This cross-referencing system opens the possibility to unveil new aesthetic, energetic and social dimensions of design production processes.

By looking at diverse graphic design methods, in both digital and physical realm, as well as by analyzing a selection of choreographic approaches, I aim to research what performative qualities could be implemented and explored while designing? And what powers of invention or transformation does it set free?


Keywords: Transdisciplinarity, Performance, Graphic Design, Performativity, Embodiment, Physicality, Phenomenology, Spatial-Movement-Time Qualities, Function & Perception, Systems , Processual Creation

What moves you, Joana? Thesis intention

"As there is no absolute frame of reference, absolute motion cannot be determined. Thus, everything in the universe can be considered to be moving." at wikipedia.


Movement (of the body) is one of the central concepts in my research, as being something that defines how human beings relate and perceive the world, how they access information, and process it. If communication stands for the transmission of knowledge, indicated as “the transition from one point to the next”, that is as one “directional destination” to the next, then the concept of movement is intrinsically connected. The question is which role do graphic designers play in this constant movement? How oneself is made conscious of the different aspects we are surrounded by.


1. Personal and experimental (design and dance performance)


In my design practice I hope to be find new method that communicates between design and dance, a system that allows for cross-breeding. An inter-disciplinary approach, exchange of knowledge.

"Constantly re‑inventing, bringing ideas and actions together, contributing to the being‑together web of relations; to Deleuzian assamblage. Deleuze’s interest can be found in bodily capacity to make us think of the unthought. Moreover bodies have active power to affect and also passive power to be affected." Deleuze, G. (1989), Cinema 2: The Time‑Image, USA: University of Minnesota Press


2. Embodiment / Consciousness (phenomenology)


Performing, or simply moving the body, allows to articulate ideas in action, to set them in motion. There is a higher sense of oneself, and of one's responsibility. In dance, along with similar kinesthetic experiences, the human body reaches an intense sensorial perceptual experience, composed of information from many places in the body, finding the need to have an understanding of/control over of sensory consequences of their own movement. It can be seen either as personal, depending on the case- collective, confrontation - creating great awareness. Embodiment and the idea of being present leads to a high level of consciousness.

‘By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.’ Eleanor Rosch


3. Contemporary relevancy (speculative realism / accelerationism / anthropocene)


The concept of motion is also inherently connected to the development of communication technologies and by the introduction of cybernetic systems, embracing both human and non human entities into a a network of interactions. Arriving at last to the realm of contemporary philosophy, specifically the speculative realism movement, an object-oriented philosophy which arises from what Graham Harman determines to be a core fallacy in contemporary metaphysics, that the “root duality of the universe is not made up of subject and object [….], but of objects and relations." We live in times of extensive technological acceleration and revolutionary transformations in media platforms, a data-driven society that is continually sparking new forms of human interaction and social contexts. In different disciplines, motion has been the main character for developing theories around the most intrinsic questions of humanity. The same elements of time and movement matter more prominently in performance than in other traditional forms of art.


In this link I written a text in which the ideas above are expanded and linked to my on going research: Contextualization_-_for_proposal.

Practical steps

1. An Inventory. - How can we think performance through the lenses of both Design and Post-Modern Dance? I have been gathering examples of the methods and tools used for composition matters in both disciplines. This includes design conventional structures, choreographic scores, scripts, programming languages, and software. I also believe that focusing on free and open source software will allow me to better grasp the implications of these tools and processes.

Here is the link: http://pzwart1.wdka.hro.nl/~jo/inventory/

Both Design and Performance rely on decisions of how to organize and distribute elements in space, how these elements relate to each other and how they inherently set a specific rhythm and flow, which is then perceived in the moment which is accessed.

In Graphic Design I so far collected examples of grid-system and typographic systems, from around the 1950s, time in which cleanliness, readability and objectivity was highly emphasized up until the present moment in which this principals were translated to algorithmic structures.. This way I embrace both print and digital technologies and methodologies.

On the performance side, my research and material collection is now focusing on choreographic systems from post-modernist dancers, in which its philosophies mostly look at basic movements of the body, highlighting the essence of movement. In this there is indeed a strong move towards functionality and the body as communication tool for specific ideas. The choreographic scores developed by these different dance performers to communicate movement, use an extensive use of language such as - graphic / numeric / alphabetic complex systems.


2. Analysis and Experimentation. - When simultaneously looking at both disciplines, is it possible to to draw a parallel between its different methodologies? If so, what performative qualities from dance could influence design? And how?

I started to list and categorize my questions and variables to explore further (a gathering of topics and planning is being built - - - work in progress): https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/Thinking_while_Moving_while_Thinking_-_Method


A practical study case : the workshop "Up pen Down" organized by Open Source Publishing- OSP in collaboration with the choreographer Adva Zakai, in Brussels. An experiment on "linking typography and performance", an interplay between forms of action and forms of typeface, and how both develop a dialogue between both.

(a more detailed introduction to workshop can be found here: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop)

In brief, starting with investigating different ways of drawing typography, particularly at algorithms based on vector drawings, we then developed a series of experiments on how the same concept could then be applied when using body movements to draw typography in space.


CODE < > DECODE


Its all lines and curves, but because the coordenation of visual elements in the two-dimensional digital realm is different from the one in the third-dimensional physical space, the code systems to be used also had to be re-thought. The principle of defining points in space and a path following them, was apparently very similar in both circumstances. Although the fact that the units differed, now being body measurements, made these rules vary substantially.

This experiment was overall extremely successful and most people could communicate their "type design systems" to each others. It was a great opportunity to transverse the experimental terrain between space and form, that allowed to look at graphic technology in unconventional ways.

Breathing as code system - one of my interventions was based on the idea of having an internal unit (heart bits) that define our ability to perform. This way, for every breath I would take, a movement would follow. Here is a video demonstration: https://vimeo.com/145387781


After the workshop it was clear to me that it is not about finding a direct translation from design to performance, or digital to physical as a "mimetic" exercise. Instead, to understand and take advantage of the physical limitations and potentialities of one space, the other or even both.


To access a short summary of previous works and experiments under this same thematic, please access here: Previous_Practice_-_summary.


After some earlier experiments I believe that a key point of the overall project process lies on transdisciplinarity, a combined hybrid-process looking at both design and dance performance, to explore the "potentials of an 'open system (Emery, 1981), hence potentials for transcultural practice." 'Open systems' as 'systems that live within a constant exchange with their environment' (Cillari in Birrringer, 2007, p.121), thus relying on interaction and on patterning de-patterning and re-patterning of clear, yet permeable boundaries through which new information and ideas can be absorbed. (Recreating Histories: Transdisciplinarity and Transcultural Perspectives on Performance Making, Thomas Kampe).


In the theoretical spectrum, I am interested in continuing studying the culture and historicity of dance rituals, how that influenced or not the western post-modernist performative approach. The same for graphic design, I would be interested in extending this research to earlier typographic tools and graphic design craftsmanship.

"Writing systems vary, but a good page is not hard to learn to recognize, whether it comes from Táng Dinasty China, the Egyptian New Kingdom or Renaissance Italy. The principles that unite these distant schools f design are based on the structure and scale of the yuma body - the eye the hand and the forearm in particular - and on the invisible, but no less sensuous anatomy of the human mind. (...) Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living speaking hand and its roots reach into a living sol, though is branches may be hung each year with new machines." The Elements of Typographic Style, Robert Bringhurst.

This way, I would better understanding the fundamental nature of both disciplines, how the binary opposition human (physicality) vs structures (abstraction) emerged. And for better understanding of the same matters in contemporary culture and technology I would like to research further on virtual space/ human space perception /cyborg theories / computational creativity and software studies / systems theory and cybernetics.


3. Final Outcome. - In the end, I would like to present the result, a sort of "new" design logic, maybe in a form of a manual/ a platform (Hybrid publishing / Print & Digital) which best shows the processes and experiences held throughout the research. Another option for display would be a hybrid scenery, in which the outcome would be a multimedia set up, displaying a collection of materials from the process and its results.

A performative utterance still remains as a possibility, maybe a showcase or a side event.

A list of references

ON PERFORMANCE // CHOREOGRAPHY

http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/ (readings < )

http://sarma.be/oralsite/pages/Strata/ (documentation / dance archive)

http://apass.be/artistic-reseach-center/archive/ (documentation / dance archive)

motionbank.org (documentation / dance archive)

http://www.ubu.com/dance/index.html (historical references/ dance archive)

http://contemporarydance-db.blogspot.nl (historical references/ dance archive)

http://www.disjointedarts.com/home_xo/ressssssearches (postchoreography ?)

http://www.enoughroomforspace.org/?news=performing-objects-brussels-art-days (choreographic objects) http://uva.co.uk/work (visual art and performance)

On Scores, Notation and the Trace in Dance, by Myriam Van Imschoot

MOVING WITHOUT a BODY by Stamatia Portanova (book)

Isabel Maria de Cavadas Valverde in INTERFACES DANCE-TECHNOLOGY: a theoretical framework for performance in the digital domain (dance-technology thesis)

Hetty Blades on Creative Computing and the Re-Configuration of Dance Ontology

http://www.corpusweb.net/after-dance.html

http://www.choreo-graphic-figures.net

http://www.salazarsutil.net/ (Performance Art: Life of the Archive and Topicality.)

http://openhumanitiespress.org/feedback/category/performance/ (performance responses to Anthropocene)


POSTMODERN DANCE


"is only a term that addresses what people are doing now (at that moment)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHtSUQ-3FnI

The 1960s and '70s saw an analytic exploration of pure dance by the first generation of post-modern choreographers, such as Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, and Lucinda Childs. In the 1980s, a new choreographic impulse burst through this formal austerity. Dancers began to wrestle and juggle, dance to pop music and poetry, tell stories, play characters, wear elegant or outrageous costumes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_dance

Does dance makes a difference? Anna Halprin Workshop for Movement Research / NYC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2diNM6EAc0 - impact.

http://tamalpa.org


DANCERS / CHOREOGRAPHERS:


Yvonne Rainer: http://www.getty.edu/research/exhibitions_events/exhibitions/rainer/index.html

Trisha Brown: http://www.trishabrowncompany.org/?section=72

Simone Forti:

Merce Cunningham: http://dancecapsules.mercecunningham.org/?8080ed

http://wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/thinking-with-the-body/?video=4 (Thinking with the body: Mind and Movement by Wayne McGregor / Random Dance)

William Forsythe: (choreographic objects)

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Rosas danst Rosas - Le vocabulaire du deuxième mouvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clNjBM3QVbY

Pinna Bausch: http://www.pinabausch.org/en/archive

Tino Sehgal at Tate Modern : https://vimeo.com/54314537

Sasha Waltz: http://www.sashawaltz.de/en/productions/

JUDITH SENG http://www.judithseng.de/projects/acting-things-iv/


DESIGN (type/graphic)


Action to Surface by Tereza Rullerova.

http://juerglehni.com/

Compression by Abstraction: A Conversation About Vectors: http://rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jul/30/compression-abstraction/

http://luigiamato.net/post/101345820032/volume

http://www.werkplaatstypografie.org

http://www.typeradio.org

http://typotalks.com/videos/


ART MOVEMENTS


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettrism (time-based media works < check )

http://www.walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/

http://www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it/manuals/0_manual.html

Briony Fer in the book The infinite line (geometry and conceptual artists)


ARTISTS


Sol Lewitt

Vito Acconci (http://acconci.com/movable-floor-1979-2004/)

La Monte Young - Sobre El Minimalismo - Composicion 1960 #7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9xyT_b6ngA

Henri Chopin; Guy de Cointet and Channa Horwtizt: Signs,Rules, Processes - Indetermination and deconstruction.

http://www.marcellealix.com/artistes/oeuvres/1743/marie-cool-fabio-balducci

http://www.collectivemagpie.org/work/

http://www.stuartbrisley.com/section/27/Works


THEORISTS (on language/ media)


Method by Dick Raaijmakers

Deleuze and Guatari

Umberto Eco

Guy de Cointet

Lev Manovich, Database as a Symbolic Form.

Meta-communication, by Gregory Bateson to refer to "communication about communication" "Mind, Nature, and Consciousness: Gregory Bateson and the New Paradigm.

Blaeuer, D. M. (2010), An Ecology of Performance: Gregory Bateson’s Cybernetic Performance, USA: University of South Florida (In the book, Ecology of Mind, Gregory Bateson explained actions in terms of being performative within the complex system which they are part of. 13 I understand this system as human interactions, relations and reactions to patterns. Bateson’s patterns are acts of human perception and respond to the world which is in the process of constant change - a flow of life.)

‘History’ of Search Engines: Mapping Technologies of Memory, Learning, and Discovery ¬ Richard Graham

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone: The Primacy of Movement at https://www.academia.edu/5207361/Maxine_Sheets-Johnstone_The_Primacy_of_Movement

http://www.ubu.com/historical/gb/brecht_chance.pdf

"Art and Language" exhibition at MacBa.

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rdis20/15/2 (ask Steve help to access! <)


Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought is a 1995 book by Douglas Hofstadter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_Concepts_and_Creative_Analogies)

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace, By Janet H. Murray (https://mitpress.mit.edu/index.php?q=books/hamlet-holodeck)


PHENOMENOLOGY


Brian Massumi's reflection on Feeling, Emotion and Affect on his book Parables of the Virtual, Movement, Affect, Sensation.

Brian Massumi's Archive of experience.

Interview with Marlon Barrios Solano, part of the Embodied Techne Series (2012), Alva Noë discusses "Dance As A Way Of Knowing"

Merleau Ponty, phemenology of Perception

Eric Shouse, “Feeling, Emotion, Affect”, MC Journal, Vol. 8, No. 6 (December 2005), http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0512/03-shouse.php

http://sensatejournal.com


SPACE

Pattern: Ornament, Structure and Behavior, by Andrea Gleiniger and Georg Vrachliotis

_______________________________________________________


It was also important for me to visit If I CAN'T DANCE archives, for introducing me to contemporary art initiatives dealing with the concepts of performance and performativity. Some recent and relevant field trips, may include the Tino Sehgal at Stedelijk Museum, Cool Britannia - Het Nationale Ballet | Dutch National Ballet, the performance/exhibition from Anne Theresa at Wiels, the video art exhibition "Dancing Light / Let it move you" at Huis Marseille and a "Art and Language" exhibition at MacBa. Besides assisting a few performances, a workshop with Simone Forti's team was very useful as to better support my recent projects and deepen my knowledge on my exisitng interest towards choreographic methods and its further pratical use under performance. On a weekly basis I attend ballet and modern/improvisation dance classes at Dansateliers in Rotterdam.


workshop: http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/blog/news/inscriptions-for-up-pen-down-huppe-plume-tonne-open-now

https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/OSPworkshop

Attending the http://www.playgroundfestival.be , in a conversation with Kristof Van Gestel and the performance COMME IL EST BLOND! (OU: DE TOUTES LES COULEURS), 1982, 2013 - GUY DE COINTET.


Keywords - Expanded

Objects (in) Space (in) Time.

- OBJECTS - as human and not human bodies.

- SPACE - physical & digital. virtual too?

- TIME - different rythms.


Choreography

= something, such as a series of planned situations, likened to dance arrangements. (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition)

= the representation of these movements by a series of symbols.

= the notation used to construct this record. (from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License)

= the art of composing dances for individuals or groups, including the planning of the movements and steps;

= the planning and coordination of activities for an event, especially one to be held in public. (from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.)


Performance

“performativity is derived, of course, from ‘perform’, the usual verb with the noun ‘action’: it indicates that the issuing of the utterance is the performance of an action – it is not normally thought of as just saying something.” — Austin, J. L. (1975), How to do things with Words, UK: Harvard University press, 2nd edition, p6-7 *2 Derrida, J. (1977), Signature

-Performance = language /communication.

-Performance = factor for social harmonization and cohesion.

-Performance = hybridization of the body and technologies in a both real and speculative approach.


Patterning

- Design, structure, or configuration of a form, style, or method.


Process

- A series of actions, changes, or functions bringing about a result.

- A series of operations performed in the making or treatment of a product.


Structure

- The arrangement and interrelationship of parts in a construction.

- The way in which parts are arranged or put together to form a whole.


System

- A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole.

- A network of structures and channels, as for communication, travel, or distribution.

- An organized and coordinated method; a procedure.

- A naturally occurring group of objects or phenomena.


(selection from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com)


¿ future readings ?

Writers whose work is often characterised as post-structuralist include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, and Julia Kristeva.

TOP : : : : : : : :

/ http://www.versobooks.com/books/511-the-politics-of-time / http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1601&l=en&bookId=495&sort=year (Mathilde ter HeijnePerforming Change)

/ http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/2368_reg.html (Phenomenology of Dance - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone) / https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/motion-and-representation (Technology and Motion Representation)

/ http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/space-as-membrane / http://occasionalpapersshop.tictail.com/product/the-artist-as-instigator /


http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2543056.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ( Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History by William H. McNeill )

http://www.versobooks.com/books/542-postmodern-geographies / http://www.versobooks.com/books/547-brecht-and-method

Joan Jonas. Scripts and descriptions 1968-1982

http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=17478798539&searchurl=tn=process&an=alfred%20whitehead

http://www.sternberg-press.com/index.php?pageId=1514&l=en&bookId=408&sort=year (Chantal Pontbriand (Ed.) Per/Form How to Do Things with[out] Words)

http://www.mottodistribution.com/site/?p=35486 (THE VISUAL EVENT : An Education In Appearance. OLIVER KLIMPEL (ed.). SPECTOR BOOKS.)

http://www.booksonthemove.eu/en/shop/books/english-books/?tx_commerce_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=2259&cHash=67d7697a2f

http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-05-spatial-aesthetics-art-place-and-the-everyday-nikos-papastergiadis/

http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/748_reg.html (The Roots of Thinking - Maxine Sheets-Johnstone)

http://realdancecompany.org/writing.html

http://www.lugemik.ee/en/book/assign-arrange-methodologies-of-presentation-in-art-and-dance-2

Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkraisby Elizabeth Beringer, Moshé Feldenkrais

http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Motion-Simone-Forti/dp/0919616038

a list: http://www.independentdance.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Gill-Clarke-Embodied-Library-selection-13-Dec-2014.pdf

https://www.bookdepository.com/Body-Space-Image-Miranda-Tufnell/9781852730413 (a narrative of discovery that sets the mind loose from the rut of everyday perception. From a starting point in movement, improvisation is extended to include groups working together and the physical setting of performance - space, light , sound, objects...)

https://www.bookdepository.com/Human-Movement-Potential-Lulu-Sweigard/9781626549449 (medical approach)

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/the-body-dance-and-cultural-theory-helen-thomas/?K=9780333724323 (dance as a social and artistic (bodily) practice as a means of generating insights into the politics of identity and difference as they are situated...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Encyclopedia_of_Systems_and_Cybernetics

http://www.publicbooks.org/nonfiction/a-global-neuromancer

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