Fri 7 Jul 2006
Under threat of excommunication (followed by a slow and painful death) by Mr. Corbet, I have been digging deeply into the latest issue of Contact Quarterly (Vol 31 Issue 2).
Materials by Richard Siegal in which he describes a choreographic methodology (for work, “If/Then”) designed to envoke or foreground notions of authorship during performative activity. Ideas and concerns surrounding “networks” are almost painful in their current omnipresence and yet Siegal talks to a kind of logic-based flow chart of performative decision making that also integrates texts from filial relationships (and clearly, notions of relating and relationships are central his thinking and doing). It is stimulating stuff.
Siegal writes, “The subject of virtuosity is largely transmuted from the physical to the mnemonic. The cause and effect relationships, which set the vocabulary into motion, are a feat of extraordinary memory for which dancers are especially qualified” (p. 60). I am reminded once again of the breadth of the term virtuosity – and how it tends to represent a seeing or visual hegemony. That is, that which is visible is able to be virtuosic (stronger, faster, higher).
But I want to go back to networks (such a broad word). Siegal expresses the desire for “systemic complexity” and in dissolving individual control so that the “more qualified organizational abilities of communities” might shift and expand and improve his “If/Then” methodology.This paragraph – the second to last on p.60 – prompted a consideration of “Crevice” on my part – how might the relinquishment of individual control, and (subsequent) enabling of “systemic complexity” via networked communities, impact on a lonely man?
Pushing this idea further, what is it to not be able to assume or choose loneliness?I was thinking about the world’s last lonely man or the final lonely man. Where the viruses and organisms of community and network prevent or denature (the option of) loneliness.
A big jump I know.
But I both love and loathe literal and metaphorical networks (as this wireless one we are working on ducks in and out of being serviceable).
And I am now starting to think that it seems odd to consider sharing these ideas on that big dubdubdub network in the sky – who is this writing for? David and Paea? Or just a very public means by which I might organise my thinking?
July 8th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Q. who is this writing for? David and Paea? Or just a very public means by which I might organise my thinking?
My A. I like that to me is is a VERY public means by which you might, or might not, organise your thinking. Your collaborators are being communicated a more refined mode of communicating your thinking through your body’s process in your unit’s work.
I enjoy the reading, all the same, whatever the conscious or subconscious intention.
Thanks
Daniela
July 9th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
Indeed – by even commenting on this ‘train of thought’ you perhaps validate its very public nature. I am intrigued as to how you arrived at the site …
Simon
July 10th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
ah… Daniela is a dancer/maker friend. not such a mystery unfortunately.
one of the reasons i continue to publish proximity (despite the extraordinary effort it requires to keep going) is to provide people with a place to articulate their practice in writing. it takes an effort to transpose the transistory and embodied experience into words – and i think this process can only serve to clarify and invigorate one’s practice and processes.
anyhoo, i was going to respond to the if/then framework for performative choice. not to dismiss Siegal’s work or thinking but there’s something a little reductive about such bluntly formulated creative processes. i am interested in the correlations of writing code (such as developing functioning web/tech applications) and the decision making that occurs in a more intuitive creative physical process. i need to think about this a little more before writing on it… in the meantime…
as a syntactic system, if/then will always be limited because of syntax – that is if there is a strict adherence to computational principles. what i like about the if/then website is that it is promoting an open source model of creativity. i’m not so sure that the invitation to ‘justify’ choices is an adequate measure for sustaining and motivating communal development, but i am all for the exploration and look forward to participating when they get the site up and running.
on browsing Siefgal’s site i was interested in the rules for Episode:
1. A new system must be designed for each project.
2. The individual’s interaction with the system determines an extemporaneous structure of the performance.
3. The term extemporaneous also applies to the individual’s vocabulary in the moment of performance.
4. No pre-determined choreography can be used in performance.
5. Any sound that organizes the order of events must be intrinsic to the system.
6. Each project has a collective authorship and is to be signed as Episode.
7. Each system becomes part of the Episode collection and can be performed more than once in the same or other locations.
i was particularly interested in the use of extemporaneous. more later… got to go and watch grey’s anatomy.
July 11th, 2006 at 9:09 am
DC: it takes an effort to transpose the transistory and embodied experience into words – and i think this process can only serve to clarify and invigorate one’s practice and processes
ske: I wonder indeed if “transpose” is the right word here – is that ALL we are doing? Providing some kind of translation? Karen Bond would say/offer the idea that we are actually seeking to articulate the differences between embodied/written experience… (or at least that is my take on her thinking/advice).
I agree re reductive nature of Siegal’s proposition — I was more stimulated by his consideration of community and network as a means of expanding or improving the method. However, when I stopped over to the flips post there was something similar in the very experimental nature of your description of the process of developing/generating the flips.
Do we need to know this? How does it add to the experience of viewing/listening to the flips?
But I think I am being argumentative just for the sake of it. Not sure I feel that strongly either way!
ske
July 11th, 2006 at 10:17 am
actually i think you are right. transpose isn’t the correct term because it suggests that the words and the body are the same things – transposition is a musical sense is merely about moving notes a particular interval, which changes the sound but keeps structural elements in place – transposition in terms of logic is probably a more interesting way of using this term as it evokes inference, although this falls over pretty quickly. btw, karen bond was an early subscriber to proximity before she left our shores.
reminds me of your PhD and logocentricity – transposition to words also suggests a hierarchy of meaning.
but back to the flips. of course the process descriptions aren’t necessary to the experience of the flips. they are a reference point for looking at process. the difference between the flips notes and Siegal’s proposition above is that his are algorithmic rules that define the work whereas mine are decriptions of the process – and, i’ve got to say they’re very inarticulate descriptions. i’m not exactly sure why i put them in. for self reference i think.
ok, let’s talk.
July 11th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Well – I want to have the last word (as you sit across from me tugging on your right ear) — I offered the idea of “commenting” an idea or a process … in a coding type manner.
/* note to help us remember to consider commenting as an aid to articulating process/methodology */
July 12th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
[…] the flickbooks that Simon and I have been working on has been delayed for so long by all the other things we’ve been doing. and now i’ve started getting stuck into it again i’m remembering the sparks that got me excited. it’s surprising how some of the thoughts about the flickbooks are present in many of the posts in this blog. all the talk about Siegal’s complex community networks is very much a part of the flickbooks in terms of opening up the project to participation from anyone. also, the tiny experiments with the flips that I been doing and paea has taken to hand also has a link through the shifting of the relationship with the body and time. and of course now i’m thinking about space and the discussions brought about by the interview with Godard and the representation of space and topos in these tiny digital.analogue.digital scrapbooks. […]