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.
Eight to Infinite
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Alex Jovcic-Sas
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Eight to Infinite is an exciting collaborative project between electronic artist Afrodeutsche and PhD researcher, Alex Jovčić-Sas. The aim is to revise two unknown historical composers, Gertrud Grunow (Bauhaus) and Daphne Oram (BBC), by writing, recording, and performing a new work that uses their archival materials combined with contemporary digital compositional tools. Grunow and Oram worked with optical sound as a process for composing music, specifically focusing on colours and shapes as compositional tools. They both have been largely overlooked within their respective institutional histories and this project will bring to life their unique and rich compositional practices.
Eight to Infinite took place on the 7th of October 2021, at the Space at Nottingham Contemporary. Eight to Infinite was generously funded by Arts Council England, Midlands4Cities, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham Contemporary, and PRS Foundation.