dear all: i haven't had an opportunity to respond to Claudia Kappenberg's question in her posting (5/31/2008), regarding the notion of the "informe." I think you make a good point in comparing my reference to Buergel's curatorial theses on "migration of forms" (and of course the actual installations and hangings & justapositionings at documenta XII), which indeed implied that I do believe -- and assumedly most curators and institutions and academies would do so -- in a history of forms and a continuity and necessity of form in artmaking. My reference to the "informe" was an attempt to draw attention to impurity and derangement, which is part of the history of western art collected or installed as modernism and its high avenues, albeit a part that was often suppressed or deemed less significant. i also think this implies a politico-economic context issue. Which art was collected and shown/exhibited, under what conditions and under what regimes of dissemination and critical championing. I tried to find my copy of FORMLESS: A USER"s GUIDE (by Krauss and Bois), but it's in a box in Houston. So instead, i reviewed the DVD which Brisa MP gave me when she came to Monaco to present the "Electrochoreographic Exercises" produced by Caida Libre Co,. in Santiago. There is a terrific video introduction in which Brisa speaks about local production contexts in Chile since emergence of democracy after the years of military rule (and culturak suppression). She mentions the particular challenges to be met by creators working with lack of funding or insurance, and also with a lack of historical cultural continuities. the broken continuities in European militant, dictatorial/fascist/stalinist, and democratic eras perhaps also could be address through such a lens, yet I remember that Krauss and Bois apply an art historical counter narrative (picking up Bataille, yes, and his philosophical development of the term informe). Indeed, in recent years the notion of the "formless" has been deployed in theorizing and reconfiguring twentieth-century art, especially looking at the dirty side, so to speak, nmely the persistence of what i wanted to rephrase as the "hybrid" (within a history of modernism , always repressed in the interest of privileging formal mastery). I see the informe today less as an issue of formal mastery or purity of medium/medium-specificity, and more or a challenge to ponder the multiplicities of formal and informal deformations or transvestisms. i suggested, more or less, that videodance does not exist. By that I mean to say it is hard to conceive a "form" (in this era of dance or theatre or video in their "post-medium" conditions) that is presented at festivals and in curatorial contexts which acclaims to itself a singurality (of combined choreography on film or on digital video as "screen-based? ?tape? projection?) or a history of emergence / evolution that would not at the same time have to be considered utterly contaminated. i need to rush off, but want to share a citation from Cuban critic Andrés Isaac with you "(Danzando en la superficie...."), whichj was written for art.es 64, on the subject of Peter Welz and his video projection installations created with Forsythe. "Las prácticas artisticas contemporáneas se hayan fuertemente atravesadas por un espíritu de contaminaciôn absoluta. La puridad de los lenguajes es casi ya una utopia en medio de un escenario estético transido por los re-juegos y ls mezclas, las yuxtaposiciones y los préstamos. El paradigma de lo inter-disciplinar se asiente como criterio estético rector, y el travestismo de las formas y maneras de decir ha redundado en una estrategia discursiva aceptada por una gran mayoría de los artistas que buscan no sólo estructurar un discurso ideo-estético de implicaciones sociales, sino también advertir sobre ciertos fenómenos que atañen a la ontogía misma del fenómeno estético. No pocas poétics trazam mapas, en apariencia tautólogicos, desde los que logran escrutar en la naturaleza de los discursos artisticos abriendo infinitos interrogantes sobre la propria pertinencia, legitimidad o limites fronterizos de los mismos lenguajes que están siendo objeto de uso. El rendimiento de ciertas nomenclaturas de designación y la autoridad de algunas taxonomias provenientes de la critica historicista se someten a juicio todo el tiempo. De este modo visto, la entronización de las identidades biculturales, ls re-estructuraciones gep-politics del territorio, la crisis del occidentalismo, l decadencia de la falacia poscolonial, la sospecha acerada sobre el fenómeno de la globalización y el descrédito absoluto respecto a todo modelo de identidad monocorde y esencialista son algunos de los ejes operacionales del pensamiento contemporáneo. La cultura actual se debate en el terreno movedizo de las indefiniciones, las genealogías montadas y los cruces y tensiones de los aspectos y contradicciones fronterizas. La subjectividad contemporánea es, en consecuencia, más tránsfuga, más escurridiza, más resistente a la definición y a las clasificaciones estandarizadas y rentables." with regards Johannes Birringer DAP Lab London http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap <<<<<Claudia wrote>>>> Hi all, hi Johannes You bring Bataille's 'informe' into this discussion on curation, and I think it might be useful if you elaborated on how you envisage this is this context. The informe is brought in more and more within contemporary art debates, often as some sort of guarantor for a possibly wilderness, for something raw, which cuts across categories and hierarchies. In his definition on 'formless' Bataille does effectively attack academics for wanting the world to exist in forms. On the other hand the Documenta theme you refer to, The Migration of Forms, suggests that forms do change or shift, but not that we can do without them. You talk about the assumptions and aesthetics that are part of public collecting and selecting; is it not realistic that they will always be subjective and to some extend classifying, and re-classifying? Do lineages not have to be biased simply because we can only work with the history we come from? Considering that many of us are part of a Western state and system I think it is fair that we refer to and build on our own heritage. Indeed I cannot speak for an Asian filmmaker-artist, but that does not mean that I throw overboard my own past. What concerns me is that the current screen-dance history appears to start with Maya Deren on one hand and Hollywood on the other and generally ignores the extensive and exciting work for movement on screen that came before. I have to admit here that DADA is my personal hobbyhorse when it comes to screen history. As an examples also of 'talking back' I could list the recent show on Duchamp, Picabia and Man Ray at Tate Modern, admittedly a mainstream monumental institution, which created however an exciting dialogue between the works of these three artists and their time. Very interesting was the focus on the element of movement across their work and very relevant for us movement-based practitioners. Did anyone else see the exhibition? With regards to the Documenta curatorship I could refer you to a talk at Tate Britain recently by the ex- Artistic Director of Documenta 11. I was at the talk for the purpose of webcasting and the event is available online at the Tate website: http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/webcasts/tate_triennial_symposium2009/okwui_enwezor/default.jsp This talk is a good example of the curators looking at and working with their own heritage: It was introduced by Nicolas Bourriaud, the 'Relational Aesthetics' man, who proposed a new term for curatorial practice and art criticism: The Altermodern. Although the term is supposed to describe a current art practice of a globalised world it highlights also how much we are still under the spell of modernism; even though the categorisations of modernism are outdated, they are what we work against and what we work from. I'd be interested to hear from the list of other well curated shows/ events, that could be recommended in terms of 'talking back'. Best, Claudia Claudia Kappenberg Senior Lecturer Dance and Visual Art School of Arts and Communication Faculty of Arts and Architecture University of Brighton Grand Parade Brighton BN2 0JY Tel: 0044 1273 643020 -----Original Message----- From: Media Arts and Dance on behalf of Johannes Birringer Sent: Fri 5/30/2008 14:29 To: MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Opening up screendance / dance tech / curatorial practices *** This email has been sent from the MEDIA ARTS AND DANCE email forum. To respond to all subscribers email MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx *** hello all: yes, Claudia, you are right in proposing to dwell not on issues of control, ideology and canons (and my comment was only meant as an ironic feedback to Doug's elaborate paradigm of a kind of formalist modernism (the "painting" analogy) -- i think the paradigm is correct for the history of mainstream institutional curating, but bears less relevance of the kind of "talking back" you all seem to advocate, and the kind of hybrid medium / informe I sought to speak about. where does the talking back take place? at what festivals, and academic conferences? through what independent organisations, and "social networks" -- has co-curating ("co-editing") had any sliver of success, Marlon? I was also ironic in my use of examples (from structuralist northamerican film), as in Doug's narrative on formalist modern canon formation and curatorial practice of iteration (sending a curated show around the museum / festival circuit just as dance festivals select their companies and acts and send /spread them, or as video dance festivals make program and clusters that go on tour ) there are in-built assumptions about the form, the properties and aesthetics of form, the influences and traces and precursors.......and in the publications coming from the US, for exmple, as in Judy Mitoma's "Envisioning Dance", and perhaps in much other writing on "screen dance" / video dance, these traces are distinct and clearly lined (who does not refer to Maya Deren, and A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945) , to Merce Cunningham, or to The Hollywood Musical ? [and what of Hip Hop?] ....... and yes it strikes me these lineages are profoundly biased, Euro-American form-canons, and might have not the slighest relevance for young video makers and video dance makers in Beijing or in Belo Horizonte or Santiago or Johannesburg. On the other hand, the discussion about curating here has been terrific, bringing out the discrepancies (and ideological pressures/blindnesses), and the alternative pushes (by practitioners/curators like Jeannette or Brisa in larger global contexts / the southern hemisphere, by Janine and her efforts)..... in terms of curating and programming, i do think it is exciting to pair or juxtapose performances, installations, and screenings. It takes time, and resilience and stamina to attend a festival or days on end looking at all; I remember we had scheduled something like that during Digital Cultures (2005) in Nottingham (http://www.digitalcultures.org/exhibits.html), and I felt audiences were tired after day-long workshops, evening dance concerts, symposia, and then screenings at 11:oo pm, but a good number went to lie on the stage floor and stayed on, dreaming and wacthing , when we showcased Nuria Font's cluster (which she brought to us from Barcelona), and Anna Douglas's program "Motion at the Edge". The third cluster was curtailed, as our Chinese guest was denied visa entry, I had hoped to showcase some of the latest underground video-performance-videos from Factory 798 in Beijing. Instead I showed an over the top Chinese camp goth ballet shot with 8 cameras which i couldn't easily trace to anything outside of Marilyn Manson... so, again I agree with Claudia and Doug, that more intermedia curating and more mixed media programs will be exciting and helpful to stimulate thought and responsiveness 9also amongst those who publish, and those who write on these matters to get it published) as to strategies of talking back to or setting up works towards other works in particular kind of room with particular 'colors" ......., and picking up Doug's "painting" analogy, it might be of interest to reflect critically on the curatorial tactics deployed by Mr Buergel & his co-curator of Documenta XII last summer, a rather significant art exhibition taking place every five years with massive influence on the art world and curatorial ideologies, as can be seen from the many publications (since World War II) released about the exhibits and their curatorial choices....... Last year's theme for Documenta XII was "the migration of forms".......... regards Johannes Birringer DAP Lab London >>> Claudia wrote Dear all I'd like to respond to a few points that have been raised recently; Firstly to Pascale's comment: "It is in my eyes illusory to completely rationalise the curation process." We need to acknowledge that there is always an intuitive aspect and taste involved when we deal with art and its processes, no matter what aspect we are exploring. On the other hand I think that we can - and ought to - work towards a clearer articulation of what motivates this or that kind of program or curation. This is not only to make things transparent, but indeed to develop the artform, as Doug said in his excellent statement on curating. Which brings me to the proposition of 'control' (Johannes) versus 'speaking back' (Doug); The notion of control might not take us very far as any form of presentation/ selection/ programming or showing 'controls' to some extend. I believe the debate on curating aims above all at diversifying the current international scenario and practice and in this respect a notion of 'talking back' or dialogue seems helpful. A film/ video/ installation work is generally conceived as a complete thing in itself, as a discrete object, even though it always sits in a wider context and will be informed by that context. Through the process of curation, through placing a work in the direct context and proximity of other work, a new level of meaning can be added to a work, meaning can be shifted significantly and even lost and new aspects can be drawn out that the individual maker/ producer may not have intended. In curating films cease to be the discrete object and enter a wider stream of issues and ideas. From an artist's point if view I think it is exciting to see what happens to a work when it is put into a curatorial context. As Doug indicated curating can raise issues and challenge individual practices. An 'interdisciplinary' screening/ exhibition may contribute ideas, that screendance at large has not explored and not explored enough. We also have barely begun to look at bodies of work from individual screendance practitioners, or set up an encounter between the work of two or three screendance/ film/ video/ dance technology practictioners. As has been pointed out already in the process of this email conversation selections focus often on what is considered to be the Best. Has there ever been a sculpture exhibition under the title "The best of sculpture'"? Most people would think this an absurd proposition. In response to Jeannette's suggestion of a 'conundrum' to me curation is an opportunity. I also would like to pick up on the debate around the notion of academia; interestingly one area of public life that is hanging on to this division is the publishing world. Publishers like to think that academics and artists do not mix and that they do not read the same books or magazines. Is it not our task to challenge this view? As was pointed out this division appears to rest on a hierarchical division between those who 'think' over and above above those who 'make'..Surely we would all argue that making is also a form of thinking. We ought to prove the publishers wrong and make them realise that we do indeed read the same literature and share the same discourse. Best, Claudia Claudia Kappenberg Senior Lecturer Dance and Visual Art School of Arts and Communication Faculty of Arts and Architecture University of Brighton Grand Parade Brighton BN2 0JY Tel: 0044 1273 643020 -----Original Message----- From: Media Arts and Dance on behalf of Johannes Birringer Sent: Wed 5/28/2008 19:26 To: MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Opening up screendance and reply to dance tech idea *** This email has been sent from the MEDIA ARTS AND DANCE email forum. To respond to all subscribers email MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx *** hello Doug, Janine, Jeannette, Brisa, and all: rather fascinating and eloquent reponse from Doug, I should think, i really liked your attempt to address the curatorial practices / discourses as an iterative practice that builds (often of course also dominates or controls, if you think of MOMA, or the attempts at the Whitney) the "movement" of a form (and the ideas and content approached via the form). I take your criticism of the babblefish discorses on mocap and max/msp/jitter as somewhat grounded but also biased; yes, there have been discussions on technologies, new stuff, and workshops on such technologies which are also techniques (and extended practices of choreography, interaction design, visual form, improvisation, expression, and sensorial experience) which are being developed and in need of further development (in their materiality), sharing, exchange, and curatorship (as far as labs, workshops residencies are concerned or as far as courses are concerrned in universities , institutes (ZKM) or independent media arts organisations, such as STEIM, V2, Harvest Works, Lemur., etc.......... But I strongly agree that discussion and exchange, in such international forum as this (and Brisa, your comments about your work and the local contexts in Chile and in Latin America are very interesting and immensely helpful, and please why not write in spanish we should be able to use many languges here) perhaps might dwell more on content and form of the movement, the kinds of new ideas (or "classical" manifestations) that shape and re-shape the understanding of the form. This may very well be an academic or formalist (avant-garde) take how one wishes to frame a history , if you think of structuralist filmmaking and would you say La Jetée or Stan Brakhage are important for the form today? for the expanded media culture? And if Moholy-Nagy and Brakhage were important for your understanding of the movement of the form, how does this impact a curatorial choice for work,say, like Skoltz-Kolgen's ? Isaac Julien's? Nicole Seiler's ? or the incredibly beautiful animations of Anouk De Clercq? For audiovisual or interactive installations or for 3D animations, how would you constrain the "movement" of the forms and under what category do you look (film:? animation? photography? music,? sound painting? visual music (Nam June Paik), kinetic art? installation art doesn't have a long history yet, and interactive installations, such as the group of works you can see at ZKM, have been around for 2 decades, some may not even function anymore today........), dance-interactive installations have not been "collected" or sold yet and not so iterable, unfortunately. Doug asks: what is the kind of >>work that comes out of a dance-tech milieu..., what does it mean? What is it ultimately about? >> We did have some longer and drawn out discussions on "Glow," for example (a work by Chunky Move), or on Forsythe's "Atmospheric Studies," , we did discuss ideas on the changing understanding of the formal compositional methods we were trained in (some of us), on choreography, on interactional flow and real time adaptation that marks some of the works under discussion (meaning is not just one thing but can of course be constituted also experientially and sensorially and thus resides in synesthetic and affective modalities that are being philosophically examined now through newer phenomenologies (Hansen, Sher Doruff; Susan Kozel's book, CLOSER, just having come out)......... etc etc. and in the performance context we are looking at hybrid works. and i think , reading Janine, Jeannette, Brisa, -- this is precisely where the curatorial cover does not always work since the experimental cross media practices now -- short and mixed up videos/short films deriving their forms and their "informes" (to use the title of Yve-Alain Bois/Rosalind Krauss' book) from other traditions than screendance/dance on film , music films, Dj /VJ work, audio-visual installations, reverse engineered games & machinima -- are continuously tearing away at that cover. Well, more needs to be said, but I stop with a brief response to Janine's idea of a questionnaire regarding "curator practices' --- i think this is a very good idea, (and one could also think of other current discussions and efforts to "frame" a phenomenon, such as the practice-based research on the postgraduate levels --- interesting here that Doug thinks the difference between artists and academics no longer matter- -- and how knowledge about a form or methods of knowing about hybrid forms (in cross disipline contexts such as media arts in which many of us work) are constituted, institutionalized and then deployed for evaluations. of art / research, re-deployed by juries and panels on festivals, etc... I remember that in the fall of 2006, prior to Monaco's last MDF festival and the entries invited to what used to be called the "digital dance" section, -- Philippe Baudelot sent out a questionnaire to all those who participated. Since the results of the questionnaire were evaluated and analysed to help us draw conclusions from it..... it would perhaps be of interest to some of you here .... (it might also be interesting, regarding Doug's preparations for ADF 2008, to ask oneself how quickly such a set of questions might become [historically] dated? What do you think, Janine? The questions from 2006 were actually meant to sort out whether choreographers or digital art makers (who submit to festivals of this kind or any kind) still think of their "dance making" or artmaking as something that needs to be "qualified" as "digital" or whether the form such as choreography had already subsumed the digital........, and how they think about the form and the practice...........and the tools. regards Johannes Johannes Birringer DAP LAB School of Arts Brunel University West London UB8 3PH UK http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap >>>>