On the Indeterminate Training Technologies of a Reconstructed Bauhaus Choreographer. A Research Practice Between Speculative Historiography, Architectural Invention, and Performative Co-enactment
(2023)
author(s): Thomas Pearce
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
This exposition proposes a method of artistic research that uses (and disobediently misuses) techniques of reconstruction as a mode of performative, artistic, and architectural invention. Our speculative notion of reconstruction challenges inherited disciplinary notions of historiography and simultaneously functions as a propositional and generative tool. The exposition revolves around the discussion of a research and performance project entitled Jakob K., which reconstructs the works of fictional Bauhaus choreographer and gymnastics teacher Jakob Klenke (1874–1941). This reconstruction was the product of a collaboration between performance artists and architectural researchers, involving field work, site-specific re-enactment, 3D scanning, animation, and digital fabrication, and culminated in a series of live performances at Kampnagel (Hamburg) and during the 2019 Bauhaus 100 centennial.
The exposition is structured around a series of multimedia sections, each of which departs from an element of the performance’s architectural and medial framing, describes aspects of the artistic research process, and uses these as a lens for theoretical reflection. In analogy to our working method, which created the project as an ongoing layering of spatial and choreographical ‘evidence’, this method of discussing the project consecutively adds layers and connections to the project-assemblage that is Jakob K. Throughout the exposition, a practice emerges that challenges notions of solely human-authored and human-centred design and performance; proposes a set of techno-speculative training practices while challenging historical discourses on body optimisation; and subverts disciplinary uses of technology, prescriptive logics of representation, and techniques of reconstruction, misusing them instead in disobedient ways and reinventing them as creative affordances that can challenge dominant techniques of power.
Symposium in Motion - Addressing Dizziness. Navigating Possibilities in Collectives.
(2023)
author(s): Ruth Anderwald, Laura Brechmann, Leonhard Grond
published in: Research Catalogue
This process-oriented working symposium discusses ways of localizing, recognizing, approaching, and countering dizziness on different scales and disciplines – from the somatic and the built environment to interspecies and post-colonial contexts. Through the prism of art, architecture, philosophy, somatics, post-colonial theory, and remembrance cultures, we aim to find ways to uncover the layers of physical, social, and architectural dizziness in historical, political, social, fictional, present, and future contexts.
Haunted houses
(2021)
author(s): Emelie Carlén
published in: VIS - Nordic Journal for Artistic Research, Konstfack - University of Arts, Crafts and Design
This exposition uncovers the thought process behind and around the artworks Haunted Houses and Cold Readings. I focus my research on the two modernist buildings of E1027 and Villa Müller and the architects behind them. Through the production of these works I have been concerned with how narratives about these houses have been constructed and re-told – and how these narratives have changed as they have been 'rehearsed'. I have applied the methodology of rehearsal to my process in order to outline how historical writings and archival research can be used with the aim of finding alternative outcomes to what has already been written and said.
Trigger Place - A Game of Sound and Architecture
(2017)
author(s): Matilde Meireles, Diogo Alvim
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
"Play" was a project developed by Matilde Meireles and Diogo Alvim with the participation of experimental filmmaker Richard O'Sullivan. This multilayered performance was specially conceived for the annex of the Physical Education Centre at Queen's University Belfast, a building composed of several squash courts and an audience area. The project encompassed live music (a brass ensemble), electronics, video projections, and a live squash game, all affecting the perception of the site.
This building became the main character of an immersive acoustic experience, where a game of squash was the starting point to explore ideas about architecture and place through sound. The squash courts were subject to acoustic processes extrapolated from two of Alvin Lucier's most important works—"Vespers" and "I am sitting in room". Also the floor markings were manipulated, as a reference to Edward Krasinski's obsession with a never-ending line. These extended beyond the performance space to reveal unexpected connections.