This project researches body and object relationships through practical exploration (practice-led research) in suspension and on the ground. It illuminates connected thoughts linked to posthuman philosophy, permaculture, physical movement and contemporary circus.
Our perception of the world is getting more global and connected, but we have not realised yet the full complexity of all the interdependencies and interplays. In fact it is more than questionable whether this might be graspable for any human to its full extend at all…
The state of being ‘in suspension’ is taken as an analogy for the times we live in – life itself. In a world in which pop-stars sing ‘I have no roots’ (Merton, 2016), mass-migration makes people leave their homes involuntarily and others choose nomadic livestyles that leave them only loosely connected with a geographical place and a single culture. But at the same time, we are always tightly connected (digitally) with ‘the whole world’.
'How to strike roots into the void?' is the essential question of this interdisciplinary research, which has its roots deep 'down' in aerial acrobatic movement. How could this rooting be possible at all? And in which ways? – referring to the question of quality: 'HOW' can we in these times as human being strike out our own roots? Who and what can keep us grounded? To whom or what are we reaching out to search for connection? What nourishes us? And where to hold on to, if the substrate is emptiness – the Void – the uncertainty of life itself?
Tree Encounters – artistic dialogues of human and non-human bodies / #Berlin Series –
is the title of an Artistic Research project around the development of special movement forms of the body in suspension. The focus lies on the mutual interdependencies with nature/ the trees (in the urban sourrounding of this specific Berlin Series). In contrast to traditional movement concepts, especially in the classical aerial acrobatics, where an objectified body has cognitively been forced in 'preplanned' forms – in this work the Physical-Intuitive, the body-immanent knowledge is assigned more agency and a leading role. The practical artistic research is documented in this exposition mainly by video.
