[dance-tech] Re: Post symposium anyone?
- From: "Johannes Birringer" <Johannes.Birringer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <armando@xxxxxxx>, <dance-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 17:53:15 -0000
dear Armando, dear all;
I'll start with the initial post, Armando, that you sent to the list, we were
snowed in, so the answer comes slowly.
you raise a very interesting point (about curtatorship and organisation of such
events), you seem a littke pessimistic in general (about people talking
publicly) , and I'm sure you'll get interesting responses (for me the quick
coffee breaks do not necessarily always work either).
and by the way an entire list was formed a while ago
NEW-MEDIA-CURATING@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
which deals with such interesting questions, of the positioning of arts
practices (and dance tech or performance technological art and resaerch) vis à
vis exhibition or curatorial (and i include symposia here) contexts and
recontextualizations.
Now, I note you say will curate one at home (if that is a proper way of
speaking about your base, Paris, France, or one of your bases), and two abroad,
and presumably the one in Tunisia attracts considerable attention here , we
seldom receive much information about the practices and research in Northern
Africa, and that is changing now it seems, Philippe also addressed it.
Is this your reference to the "post colonial?, or how did you mean this, and
why would a "postcolonial" approach to a gathering (symposium) be different in
Tunisia (compared to say, in New York or Melbourne? how do you engage place
and local culture, re: dance-tech, and why would one do so, and to what end?
There is much to talk about here, since tech workshops in the past, to my
recollection, were not so much about the site, the place where we met, but
about software and new performance techniques, yes? data were extruded from the
body. sometimes from site. so the workshops were about extrusions and
analysis. Is this what you mean by (neo)colonial?
A different approach however has much to give us, I agree, One always looks
for good, exciting models.
Armando, and others here on the list, you may recall our "Digital Cultures"
event in 2005, at Nottingham; the combination of workshops (hands on creative
encounters), research presentations/dialogue, forum discussions, and evening
performances -- I had pondered then, that such web of things would not be
enough, i hoped for another social dimension that would bring us together more
intimately or personally, and i hoped it would happen at the dinners.
My model was Mine Kaylan's venture, something she had started to do in
Bodrum/Turkey a few years back, and prior to "Digital Cultures" I had met with
Mine and asked her to help me in creating a version of her LELEG institute for
Digital Cultures. The Bodrum site was used to bring artists and local people
together in a series of dinner conversations.
for Mine andf LELEG see: http://www.digitalcultures.org/Symp/Mine.htm
and : http://www.ucsia.org/main.aspx?c=.RETHUNIV&n=70295&ct=66546&e=181629
I think the idea of using the local village/place and the ritual role of
food/dinner in the community of people (and hosts and guests relations) as a
kind of Platonic model for dialogue is quite splendid.
Mine was not feeling well during the November/December "Digital Cultures
event," she had a cold, and so my hopes for better food and talk were somewhat
dashed,
but the hope remains.
lastly, i think it was also Mine who introduced me to a work group of artists
from the Netherlands and the UK who in 2006 or thereabouts worked on a
practical experiment of explaining to ourselves the practices involved when we
make context-specifric relational art or conceive of relational architectures.
A small handbook has sprung forth from these wonderful workshops: "The
Architecture of Interaction" (AoI)
http://www.architectureofinteraction.net/
with regards
Johannes
Johannes Birringer
DAP-Lab
School of Arts
Brunel University
West London
UB8 3PH UK
+44 (0)1895 267 343 (office)
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
http://www.digitalcultures.org
-----Original Message-----
From: dance-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Armando Menicacci
Sent: Wed 2/4/2009 2:13 AM
To: Reseau DanceTech
Subject: [dance-tech] Post symposium anyone?
Hello all,
I've been tired of symposia for quite a long time. Of course as a
researcher I go to listen, I go to speak and I organize them all the
time (the next 3 I'll organiza will be in Tunisia in may, in Paris in
May and in Rio de Janeiro in July. But nevertheless I'm tired of the
form they seem to be crystalized in. Don't you?
Missed encounters, just short glimpses, tight and tiring schedule,
fake (if existing) question and answer session after the
presentation...... the list of the things lots of people don't like
(but rarely dare to say) is great. The best moments in the symposiums?
Almmost everybody agrees: the coffe brakes! Where you can really, even
for ten minutes smoking one cigarette after the other you drink the
tenth coffe of the day but have some quality time with your favourite
speaker.
To make a long story short I think that the ideal symposium is JUST a
long coffe break.
But I'd like to ask something: in our field, digital performance/
installation etc. etc. what woud you think an appropriate, pertinent
contemporary form of a dance-tech knowledge sharing gathering would
be? Just to kick start (hoping that a discussion will follow) I'd like
to propose that a postcolonial approach to a symposium would be a form
of dialogue with the place in which the event (should we still call it
symposium?) would be.
Suggestion 1) Listening (good exercise for a speaker) to local
realities and do a work of calibrating level and topics of the speech
in order to create a dialogue.
Another thing that always strikes me is, generally, the little space
dedicated to questions. For me it is as important as the paper.
Suggestion 2) "Real" question-dialogue-exchange section
Who would like to go on?
If we come up with something we could implement this in the dance tech
symposium we are organizing in may in tunisia and you'll all be
credited for the suggestions that become real. (By the way, maybe this
is already the beginning of a different way of organizing symposium:
asking what form this could have from scratch and thinking it in a
wide dialogue....)
All the besto to all of you
_______________________________
Armando Menicacci
Dierector of the Mediadanse Laboratory
Dance Department, Paris 8 University
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