alchorisma – queering optimisation

mineralmatter Alchorisma-stitching by Peter Westenberg. More stitchings.

From 2 – 8 December 2018 I had the pleasure to participate in a workshop organised by Constant Brussels. The worksession called Alchorisma* took place at Z33, House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt, Belgium.

trees, spirits, algorithms, stones, rituals, ghosts, witches, codes, analytics, AI’s, things,  shamanism’s, optimisations, walks, songs, propagations, meditations and queerisations
ᗶ = but gate = stop and raise a concern

I applied for Alchorisma, because during the residency Autorama / Exposition et automatisation with OUDEIS in July I learned to look at my use of protocols in research and performance as also related to automatisation. A kind of automatisation that didn’t determine outcome, but ruled behaviour – giving it constraints, while leaving complete freedom to interpretation. I saw alchorisma as an occasion to go further in these thoughts and to open myself up to other than failing rational and artistic approaches of ecotech problematics.

We were divers, of all ages and backgrounds and our first meeting in Hasselt was mediated by shamans. At the start I felt as if I was seeking solutions in concepts I never believed in, that were of the middle ages …, but … There are no solutions, only paths. For 6 days we all together, crossed, stiched, unraveled, mixed,  …

The best way to find out more about the special atmosphere  we were in is to watch Peter Westenberg’s stitchings and to read or listen to the Alchorisma Daily Reflections send to us from Japan by FoAM.

I have been touched, nourished, I changed (a bit), …

a spirit is not a thing, nor is it of the imagination, it’s all encompassing, everywhere, it relates things, trees, humans, stones and whatever … it is a consciousness of entanglement, of interdependence – if you experience it, everything becomes related – it is a mysthical feeling and I, Annie, can call this feeling by touching beautiful old “dying” trees.

how does it feel to be broken?
to be moulded?
to be round?
to be backed?
to be industrial?
to ly down?
to be carved?
to be pushed?
to be in a border?
to be the border?
to have a hole?
to be one of many?
to be made into?
to be among others?
close to another material?
to be erected?
to be square?
how does it feel to be of stone?
to be a stone?
to be stony?

Would it be possible to create an algorithm that included human behaviour?, that would evolve over time and in the process integrate aspects of the personnallities of all the participating individuals? With Marika Dermineur of Rybn we decided to run a small test. You can read more about this here : Performing Processes using algorithms / Performing Secret Alchorithms.
What we learned ?

Optimisation has pittfalls.

*
Let’s go for Queer Analytics.

Queer Analytics displaces, transposes thought, it is fun to do, is therapeutic for the participant and augments imaginative holding powers for the entangled damage. (my words)

I was so impressed by the session proposed by Femke Snelting during Alchorisma that in January 2019 I proposed a Queer Analytics session for Constallations. Also there and then the methodology convinced as “another logic”.

QÆ = (((♞H1H2F,⚕FNH,♥F)+(⚕IHF,♥H1H2FF)+(⚕IHF)+(♞H1H2F,♥H2NHIHFNH))*ae)/aK ? 🎊🎉

αe
[H1Ωa, H2ΔΩ, H3Δ, H4ΔΩ,NHΔ≠,,IHΔE≠,,F©Ω]
♞ + ⚕ + ♥ [qHΩa©∃≠,qNHΩE©,qIH∃©,qFΩΔ©≠]
αK

queering: non-identitary, non-essentialist, non-fixed lives → trans*feminist approaches // intersectional, not-only-human, antinormative, affirmative,

analytics (discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data): a post-positive move. It is urgent to reclaim analytics in non profit experiments. Reclaim analytics as the practice of cutting complexity together apart. Take on both the injuries caused by analytics and also to take on how we might invent/generate/build on an analytics for trans*feminist work that stays with damage,

These textfragments come from the Queering the Damage at Alchorisma. It was based on Queering damage: methodologies for partial reparations… or not, a workshop in Hangar Barcelona by Helen Pritchard, Jara Rocha and Laura Benítez, oct 2018.

///

* Alchorisma alludes to the relationships between algorithms, charisma, rhythm, alchemy and karma. Alchorisma is a Constant worksession which looks at integrating cosmogenetic views with the charisma surrounding technology. We look at ways to infect existing algorithmic models with positions that acknowledge the importance of co-existence with non-human entities. (as announced by Constant)

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Filed under: Of interest, Workshop, alchorisma, Constant, queer analytics

douter de sa perception d’autrui / doubting the presence of the other

(FR) A la suite de la session Distant Movements #9, Muriel Piqué, dans son texte Entre Imaginaire et empathie / Between the Imaginary and Empathy, parle du doute de sa perception d’autrui, d’une altérité qui lui, en tant que danseuse et chorégraphe, était jusqu’alors inconnue.

(ENG) After the session Distant Movements # 9 Muriel Piqué, in her text Entre Imaginaire et empathie / Between the Imaginary and Empathy, speaks of her doubting perception of the others, of an otherness which to her, as a dancer and choreographer, was previously unknown.

(FR) Non seulement je perds toute notion du temps, mais je perds également toute représentation de moi-même.

(ENG) Not only do I lose all sense of time, but I also lose all representation of myself. I no longer clearly distinguish reality, I enter a mental space between the imaginary and feeling.

(FR) Lorsque je ressens ou crois ressentir le flux du mouvement de l’autre : est-ce que je ressens réellement de l’empathie pour cet autre corps en mouvement ou bien est-ce que je l’imagine ?

(ENG) When I feel or think I feel the flow of the other’s movement: do I really feel empathy for this other moving body or do I imagine it?

(FR) Je ne distingue plus clairement la réalité, j’entre dans un espace mental entre imaginaire et ressenti. Je sais que je ne suis pas seule dans cet espace mental …

(ENG) I no longer clearly distinguish reality, I enter a mental space between the imaginary and feeling. I know that I am not alone in this mental space …

(FR) Les yeux fermés, je suis à l’écoute du prolongement de la guidance partagée. Et je pressens parfois même le prolongement de notre danse, à moins que je ne l’imagine…

(ENG) With my eyes closed, I am listening to the extension of the shared guidance. And I sometimes sense the extension of our dance, unless I imagine it …

Est-ce qu’elle répond à Célia Bonnet-Ligeon, qui dans son article En VR, on reconnaît son corps dans celui de l’autre, parle de Distant Movements ? Célia y visite des projets VR et se demande:

Alors que manque-t-il à la réalité virtuelle pour qu’elle soit autre chose qu’un divertissement, qu’une sensation renouvelée de notre propre corps ? …. Pourquoi associer la commensalité à la réalité virtuelle ?

Filed under: networked performance, Performance, research, Virtual Reality, altérité, Célia Bonnet-Ligeon, commensalité, distant movements, empathie, imaginaire, Muriel Piqué, VR

Distant Feelings #5

Wednesday December 19th 2018,
9-9:15AM EST (New York time)
3-3:15PM GMT+1 (Paris time)
2-2:15PM GMT (Porto time)
Find your time here.
An Online Ritual.
Open to all.
Eyes closed and no talking.

If you want to join you need to install the zoom application on your device.
On the 19th connect at 2:55 pm Paris time / 1:55 pm Porto time / 8.55 am New York time to meeting no 3210554238.

15 minutes of ‘us’ being together, (t)here, where? …. 15 minutes against the everyday digital restlessness, building a sensorial invisible fabric that gathers who’s participating (and who’s not?!), resiliently coming back to this shared moment, with the same faces or others, who will be there again in this silent and blind encounter across each other in an electronic communion. Will it be ‘us’ again?!
Daniel Pinheiro after Distant Feelings #4 Dec.1st 2017.
Image from DF #4 :

Distant Feeling(s) #5, fifth session in a series of online webcam meetings trying to experience each other’s presence eyes closed and no talking.

Distant Feeling(s) #5, the second of a livelong yearly reconnection.
An ever-changing re-enactment of our intra-action with machines.

Distant Feelings is a project from Annie Abrahams, Lisa Parra and Daniel Pinheiro.

More information – 2 videos of DF#5, reactions etc.

Last 5 min of the connexion:

Zara Rodríguez Prieto: …to BE together for 15 min, just BEING…
James Cunningham: Just so nice to do nothing with a globally dispersed group of people.
Camille Bloomfield: … all these strangers agree to close their eyes together and show their vulnerabilities to each other, or at least show themselves vulnerable.
Ruth Catlow: Things were louder than people.

Filed under: networked performance, Distant Feelings, eyes closed, no talking, togetherness

constallations – 3G(enerations)

3G(enerations : Annie Abrahams (Montpellier), Pascale Barret (Bruxelles) et Alix Desaubliaux (Lyon), trois artistes, trois femmes, trois générations, se retrouvent en ligne pour Constallations : un projet de rencontre où le faire est utilisé comme instrument pour défaire sa propre réflexivité, son subjectivité systématisé et pour se lire les unes à travers les autres à fin de générer des moments créatifs et inattendus.

Constallations est une conversation sous la forme de 3 x 3 sessions de désirs / tempêtes / lavages cérébraux.
Constallations est un outil radical pour un non-art. 
Constallations est une confrontation attentive entre générations, visions et pratiques.

Chaque instanciation est initiée / hébergée par l’une des artistes comme une invitation et un défi aux deux autres. Jusqu’à maintenant trois sessions ont eu lieu : Defragmentation, Crittertalk et musingCyborg. Reprise en janvier.
Pour suivre le projet : constallations.hotglue.me.

Nous nous penchons aussi sur comment faire vivre ce projet après. Comment l’archiver ? Comment l’anarchiver ?* Comment récolter les “graines” pour pouvoir les réutiliser ailleurs? Pour qu’on puisse se les réapproprier – ne pas pour produire, mais pour faire pousser autrement. Comment y extraire des tendances / les essences / les affects?
Un protocole, une procédure ou plutôt une danse, un mouvement? Un rituel ?

Constallations  est soutenu par OUDEIS dans le cadre de son axe de recherche sur l’exposition et l’automatisation.

* L’anarchive est un concept développé par le senselab Canada. Il s’agit de produire des traces qui ne sont pas inertes mais porteurs de potentiels. Hors canon.

Filed under: networked performance, research, 3G, Alix Desaubliaux, Constallations, OUDEIS, Pascale Barret

Avant. Il y avait encore tout à construire.

Du 29/10 au 3/11 2018 Ariane Cassimiro et moi, nous avons pu travailler au laboNRV à Lyon. Une courte résidence autour de la VR (Virtual Reality), la performance et la danse. Pour lire nos intentions c’est ici.
Presque tout de suite, après quelques tests de déplacement et danse dans Google Earth nous avons changé le titre. C’était avant la glace et les montagnes … est devenu Avant. Il y avait encore tout à construire. La VR, la terra incognita, demandait de se pencher sur sa technologie, les réglages par défaut du casque, des capteurs, mais aussi des logiciels à utiliser. Tout à construire. Ariane et moi, toutes les deux des immigrées en France l’ont abordé en tant qu’étrangères. En tant que corps non adaptés.

Nous avons testé d’autres outils, comme la composition de paysage live avec unity, le jeu dans une visite du The Lab et même les traceurs aux pieds dans un univers zombie multi-joueur.

Le déclic est venu quand nous avons commencé à tracer/dessiner nos corps dans le 3D avec Tiltbrush, quand nous avons utilisé les manettes pour dessiner nos mouvements pendant qu’on dansait seule ou à deux. Le corps se multipliait. Il y avait celui qu’on ressentait, celui dessiné dans l’espace 3D – autre, mais réel, à découvrir, à contourner, celui à regarder dans la projection en mouvement, celui présent en tant qu’ombre devant la projection et celui que parfois on touchait, qu’on entendait avec lequel on dansait, ou qu’on regardait danser/mouvoir.
Le trait, produit dans un mélange d’intérieur et extérieur VR, était magnifique, naturel, traduisant l’hésitation, le rythme, l’interaction. Il était aussi personnel. 

Plus d’images (15) sur flickr.
La terra incognita domptée.
I would love to do workshops danser / tracer/ dessiner.

Vous pouvez manipuler nos univers sauvegardé en 3D ici :
Encapsulées : https://poly.google.com/view/3ahW9Veu1Lg
L’astronaute : https://poly.google.com/u/2/view/cQCt9mnF711
àDeux : https://poly.google.com/u/2/view/3q5-Yznjapc
Si vous avez un casque HTCVive vous pouvez aussi revisiter nos traits.

Filed under: Of interest, Performance, Ariane Cassimiro, corps, danse, dessin, laboNRV, résidence, recherche, VR

C’était avant la glace et les montagnes…

29/10-3/11 Résidence laboNRV. C’était avant la glace et les montagnes …
Project VR (Virtual Reality), performance et danse avec Ariane Cassimiro.
Suite de Qu(o)i agence Quand .

C’était avant la glace et les montagnes, avant la lumière et avant le mouvement. Avant le corps, la chaleur, la pression, c’était avant que I & U parlent…
(merci à Valentin Godard pour cette phrase)

La VR sera abordé comme une terra incognita « classique », un fantasme, qui malgré son progrès technologique est mélancolique du nouveau, de l’inconnu, d’un monde vierge.
Nous souhaitons faire de l’expérience VR très solipsiste une expérience partagée et communicative.
Nous allons utiliser les limites et les frontières du VR par défaut, la narration instantanée et le dialogue, la participation du public, l’échange en improvisation entre l’opérateur informatique (l’interprète du logiciel Unity) et l’utilisateur VR. Nous allons relier l’intérieur de VR à l’extérieur et rester dans l’entre-deux de ces espaces.
Nous aimerions pousser nos réflexions sur la relation au corps et à l’autre dans le VR en utilisant des techniques de danse et des interventions live dans des environnements comme VRchat par exemple.
Le commentaire est pour nous un endroit important face à la VR. En dehors de la narration en direct et le dialogue nous voulons expérimenter d’autres voix, tester un débit/flux autre, un récit de rêve, de l’hypnose ou d’addiction.
Vaste programme – trop peut être?

Accueil studio, Les Subsistances, Lyon, 2018-19.

Avant. Il y avait encore tout à construire. Compte rendu 5 nov 2018.

Filed under: Of interest, Ariane Cassimiro, corps, dance, laboNRV, Les Subsistances, résidence, recherche, VR

Distant Movements

In Distant Movements we close our eyes. Thus we immerse ourselves in the imagination of our own space and we can not control how we appear on the screen. We are guided through this space, at the same time real, virtual and imaginary, by a voice. It is this voice that creates a shared mental space.

In this shared space our bodies dance and interpret, each in their own way, the words coming in two different languages. It is clear that in the immediacy of our interpretations, our smallest differences occur, revealing an unsuspected value. So many bodies, so many dances: in-reproducible, inimitable. And each one gets in tune with the other and dances with the other, imagining the dance of the other in his own inner space.

In July 2018 Daniel Pinheiro, a performer and visual artist based in Porto, Muriel Piqué, a choreographic artist, researcher and performer from Montpellier and I started working on a new project called Distant Movements. In this project the intense presence of and attention for the unseen other, experienced in another online networked project called Distant Feelings*, is extended with an exploration of our bodies in motion and the imagination of the other who also moves, who also dances.

Distant Movements wants
– to give an intimate access to a danced, dancing body
– to reveal the body to poetry / to acces a poetic body
– to activate a body at a distance
– to research – the relation body-machine, their interdependence, their entanglement, the connection, the constraints – meeting at a distance mediated by cables, the voice, our imagination, our sensations – the relation between the real space / virtual space / imagined space.
– to share the magic of dancing together over distance

Distant Movements uses performance as a tool.

Distant Movements manifests itself as
– a research web site; an anarchive** : traces intended to be potential carriers, that can be reactivated.
– a series of online experiments
– online participatory performances accessible via zoom.us
– performances / installations in situ
– video traces some of which will have the status of a stand-alone art work.

Distant Movements can be followed here : distantmovements.tumblr.com
So far we had 7 sessions. In the future we will invite more people to assist in our experiments.

———-

* Distant Feelings is an ongoing project by Annie Abrahams, Daniel Pinheiro and Lisa Parra – an online ritual of contemplation on our situation of being together while being separated. Eyes closed, no talking.

** For a concise definition of the anarchive visit senselab.ca.

Filed under: networked performance, Performance, artistic research, body-computer, dance, Daniel Pinheiro, distant movements, Muriel Piqué, webcam

tienpooms fr eng ned

Filed under: Of interest, gedicht, mots, poème, poem, woorden, words

mushroom potentials / art-sci

Last week we used Jan de Weille‘s ECG (electrocardiogram) equipment to do a quick experiment. Gaspard and Sandra Bébié Valérian of art-act were starting a new project on mycelium and asked Jan (a scientist, who had also worked on sonification of electric fish and motoneurones) some questions about sonification of champignons.

An image of our first experiment. Jan thinks we just mesured the apparatus’ imperfections. (We had no idea about the response range nor about delays.) I was excited to see the potentials change when I talked to the mushroom, and Gaspard was excited about all. We had a nice range of reactions from scientific to almost chamanic.
Wondering what this tells about art-science projects.

Filed under: Of interest, art science, art-act, champignon, ECG, Jan de Weille, mushroom, sonification

Jiji and J.R.

Two books of two friends, female friends, friendins, friendxx …
I present both books together, because, the authors could be interested to meet the book of the other.

Both books make you read differently.

Once upon a [‘high’, ‘spring’, ‘slack’, ‘neap’] tide we
[‘drifted’, ‘coasted’, ‘slid’, ‘slipped’, ‘tacked’] past a [‘bay’,
‘beach’, ‘cape’, ‘cove’, ‘dune’, ‘lagoon’,]

An Ocean of Static by J.R. Carpenter, Penned in the Margins, 2018.

Crahsh. L∅j drpp∅d ah mirrr pahinting n th∅ jjr. AH shrn ahbiss wh∅r∅ th∅r∅ hahd b∅∅n nji sahnd. AH hj∅ in th∅ b∅ahch. Jiji jah∩gh∅d.

Jiji by Lily Robert Foley, Omnia Vanitas Review, Sept. 2016.

On page 4, all o’s are removed.
On page 17, all j’s and l’s are exchanged.
On page 22, h is added to a’s (ah).
On page 94, y is replaced with i.
On page 100, u is replaced with ∩.
On page 123, e is replaced with ∅.

Jiji has its own rules which are transforming the book into a reading machine. The “code” is given from the start.
When I first leafed through the book I was skeptic “It looked impossible to read”. But it wasn’t, my brain adapted and became entangled with the lovers in this “roman à clef”. Incredibly how plastic our brain is, how much of reading is convention, incredible how fast you can learn a new code. I preferred the tragic story, its content mirrored through its form, to the machinic end. Not brave enough. I don’t regret. Jiji stays with me.

J.R. Carpenter also clears the coast at the start in her note to the reader.
This book is made of other books. The poems in this book are composed of facts, fictions, fragments, and codes collected from accounts of voyages undertaken over the past 2,340 years or so, into the North Atlantic, in search of the Northwest Passage, and beyond, into territories purely imaginary. These poems are intended to be read on the page and to serve as scripts for the live performance of a body of web-based works. They retain traces of the syntax and grammar of code language the dense, fragmented archive of the North Atlantic into an astonishing sea of fresh new text.

In An Ocean of Static form and content are also intimately linked. I was again initially skeptic; the book looked so austere.
I like to “play” between choosing an argument and comparing them among themselves. J.R.’s variable texts read as code, as poetry, as a game, and they are deeply strangely personal. They leave me space to be in/with the ocean of noise, hearing faint voices and splinters, that sometimes I recognize as from the past, however are always first-most hers. This is what we are made of. This is what we are. This is how we can speak without ignoring what was. This is how we are entangled with machines.

In this constantly shifting sea of variable
texts a reader will never wash ashore on the same island
twice… and by islands, I really do mean paragraphs.

Et puis : Un poème d’un autre amie: Camille Bloomfield.

Be brave! Other recommended Summer reading : Allison Parrish and Gabriele d’Annunzio.

Filed under: Of interest, An Ocean of Static, books, Camille Bloomfield, code, Jiji, JR Carpenter, Lily Robert-Foley, reading