This page assembles materials produced in group situations. It also contains various dialogues held in the online preparatory phase of the project.

{hhr 220311}

Another term or concept I wanted to bring in is contact. On the one hand, we have these relative distances—Jean-Luc Nancy uses curious spacing, for example, or Sara Ahmed uses simultaneous arrival and orientation. On the other hand, contact is what connects by somehow overriding the distance, at least in some way. When Jackie stands metres away from the owl, of course nominally there is still the distance, but when both beings make contact, that distance is also put into doubt. From contact you come to other forms, contact noise for example, something that produces noise as the contact surface is not infinitely flat. Naya used the word tangential, which is a particular form of contact, I think. Other connotations of course also include the idea of the coloniser (contacting “uncontacted people”). Why I like the term, it seems to indicate only an infinitesmal small point, a needle, that is required. I wonder if somebody has done a thorough analysis of contact in terms of collaborative practices.

{hhr 220325}

One thing I find interesting is “coincidence” or “conjuncture”, an unexpected correlation or simultaneous occurrence. I was thinking about the "suitcase”, and I went back to Jackie’s blog and noticed that at the end, she referred to Douglas Kahn’s book Earth Sound Earth Signal. Just two days ago, I read a paper that was built around a scene from that book. What are the odds?

{hhr 220406}

Since we used that "offline", here is also the link to the first chapter of Despret's Living as a Bird. As well as the Plea for Slow Science of Stengers.

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Franziska wrote this text, The Adventure of Arriving, for an exhibition catalogue in 2010. When developing Simularr, it was by pure coincidence and later discovery, that the image of the arrival had also been used in this text.

Formulations

What are possible “formulations” of new types of collaborative artistic and artistic-research work? This could be concepts and idea, but also examples from our past experiences. How do we describe what we imagine to be a different kind of collaborative process that allows us to work in parallel, to conceive different things that can co-exist, or perhaps merge in a new way that preserves the individuality brought in by everyone? (Or to take even a step back, to discuss what “individuality" would be, if and how it is desirable, and how it relates to a process of commoning. What is the kind construction of a work process that you would like to develop or “test”?

Materials

The term “material” of course has many meanings (and different interpretations). An idea can become material, a glass pane can become material, a social constellation can become material, a piece of software can have material consequences. What is the “stuff" you work with? Can material even be distinguished from "composition", “tools”, “form”, and are those distinctions important? Rather than engaging in a game of definitions, perhaps we can just throw in everything that seems relevant to our practices. What would we bring to the studios in April / online, what are we going to work “with”? Are there materials we’d like to share?

{date: 220211}

We were talking today (dp, hhr, jkk, nc) about the interpretation of the Swap Space title. Jackie thought of a book swap shelf. Hanns Holger of the swap space on a computer that is used when there is too much stuff, and things need to temporarily move to this placeholder swap. Naya thought that it would be nice to allow others to work with the by-products no longer used by somebody. We thought that a “blank space” could function as such a place, a residual repository, where we can leave elements that come out of a process but that we are no longer using or pursuing, for others to pick them up.

{hhr 220325}

I don’t know if that’s just a side-effect of working with electronics, or our interest in “organisms”, but I notice the prevalence of elastic tubes, cables, ducts, things for interconnection, transport, communication. I think that can become part of the objects being “authentic”. When you focus more on “atmosphere”, you might be more inclined to “hide the clutter”. You probably wouldn’t describe a cloud of being made from fibres (or perhaps yes?)

{sf 220403}

quick note from shane: agreed re cables and fibres. They are the markers of infrastructure. But so far I have seen more about transit and windows, flat surfaces, that are triggering something.

 

{sf 220317}

Some great ideas here, thanks Franziska. I like the following points, which I'd love to discuss more:

1) "To arrive in a space requires actively taking possession of it." – I am not sure I love the idea of posession, unless we're talking about ghostly or spiritual posession, but the importance placed on arrival and ownership is definitely worth considering. I wonder how much people felt this type of posession when they arrived in ships in the "new world", and how different that felt if you were above the hold on the ships, or below the hold in chains.

2) "Working with as much as on what we come upon by chance, in conjunction with what we bring along, causes for unforeseen yet nonetheless intimate moments of varying density to arise."

I have written something similar in "materials" as I am thinking about this too. What do we find on arrival? What can we use? If I was a migratory critter, what would I seek in my immediate surrounds?

Book link: www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520257559/earth-sound-earth-signal

Book link: www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=living-as-a-bird--9781509547265

Article link DOI: 10.1163/9789462096448_004

Book link: www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/matters-of-care

Here are the references to Nancy “Being Singular Plural” (2000) and Ahmed “Queer Phenomenology” (2006):

{sf 220317}

I'd add to this Maria Puig de la Bellacasa's really interesting thoughts on contact and care. In her book Matters of Care, she comes to a fascinating point on the idea of contact, technology, and care between human and nonhuman (also drawing from Ahmed if I remember right). Her key point that she makes early on is that touching is not only performed by one body, it is always by at least two bodies simultaneously. The thing being touched is also performing touching.

Book link: www.sup.org/books/title/?id=643

Book link: www.dukeupress.edu/Queer-Phenomenology

{sf 220317}

I like this point about the view of electronics. I am thinking a lot about the things that we cannot see, but of course there are many things that we can see clearly if we just look. There is an obsession sometimes with hiding wires to make objects look more "authentic" (or perhaps magical). I have moments where I like the wires, and others where I don't. Of course, my most recent work with Púca in the Machine was nearly all wires on show, but it was about the unseen and electricity so I suppose there was a connection.

-Shane

Simultaneous Writing

When thinking about collaborative writing, how could that involve simultaneous practices? In a more general sense, we we collected various traces created in the parallel group exercises.

{hhr 220304}

I don’t know if I distinguish “compositional material” and physical material. There is a way of saying “to develop material” in terms of music, sound, code, words. In the physical sense, I would think of “forming material". I am not particular good with manual processes, but I do like to work with physical stuff. I like wires; some sound artists like to hide their wires, others like to arrange them with extreme precision. I also like to arrange wires, but I also like the elasticity; cables from many thin copper wires are very flexible, but single copper wires allow you to bend and make more persistent movements.

I like the view of electronics, especially if they are not ready-made machines but constructed from parts. I like the repetition and rhythm of elements. Other materials I like include paper, glass, wood, ceramics. Light and sound are also materials in some way, and I work with them a lot. I like that you can assemble materials—electronics, wooden pieces, metal pieces, code—but also that you can mould materials—wire, ceramics, wax. Perhaps words are both in the category of assembly and moulding. I have worked with wax only for the piece schwärmen+vernetzen. It came into that project because we were thinking about systems of swarming, but also to include odour as a modality. Today I was coming back to that wax, to see if I can create a surface or skin around a volume, a cylinder from chicken wire.

"Cognitive map" exercise My week in Schrattenberg, created by Johanna Lettmayer on 15 April 2022. Each map took 40 minutes. (some maps have been drawn at a different day)

{hhr 220322}

As I was just reading Pauline Oliveros' keynote “Quantum Improvisation: The Cybernetic Presence”, I was thinking of the relationship between what we are doing and improvisation (Naya sometimes said “jam”). For instance this quote:

“What in fact does happen when a creative musician makes new music? How can it be new or free? What is it free of? What could be new about it? What is happening with a solo improvising musician? a group? The soloist gives herself feedback and enters a dialogue with herself and musical space - the group stretches the possibilities for dialogue and new relationships come about creating a myriad of new possibilities even though the course of the music - new as it may be - will flow with ineluctable inevitability.”

Later, there are also other interesting relations to space, for example the image of the universe as a torus. I come back to the depiction of extimacy as a torus by Gabriel Tupinambá, and a tentative "torus chain” perhaps formed by multiple beings?

The title refers to quantum computing and thus to simultaneity.

“Ambiguous consciousness would mean the ability to perform in more than one mental state simultaneously in order to reach or bridge past and future as an expanding present. There could be new sound combinations anchored by increasing order even though choices might seem incompatible.” (my highlight)

{hhr 220309}

Naya woke me up this morning when she left for work at 5 a.m. I had one thought that I quickly noted down, “the unknown — early almat, fra”, so that I can return to it here later.

The unknown is also part of a text Franziska wrote for the Algorithmic Segments book (perhaps I add the PDF later). It entered my head, as in the last Jitsi there was the remark that instead of aiming to accumulate things, we should aim to unclutter things, to reduce the amount of stuff. We are a bit poisoned by the linkage of artistic research as an approach to epistemology, the knowledge of creating new knowledge. One has the image that the unknown is reduced by increasing the known (a zero sum game). An artistic position is often to imagine that you know nothing. In the experience of art, the wonderment is often in the beginning, until the narrative becomes a narrative, the plot becomes a plot. In the last two Jitsis I felt this wonderment, the nimbus of the new and unknown. I hope it will remain with me for the best part of the project. I knew nothing about Shane's wetland landscape, or about Jackie's studio, and now I know something but it came by way of the description of events, a different topology than having a “full” explanation of the studio. This reminded me of the beginning of Algorithms that Matter. In autumn 2017, when I got in touch with our first guest artist-researcher, Ron, there was also this wonderment as we didn't really know each other and each other's work much. The initial contact and dialogue was driven by not knowing (yet). I wish we would remain in the not-knowing for longer. Perhaps we can be pushing for an acceptance of not-(yet-)knowing in artistic research. Perhaps it's related to the idea of remaining incompatible.

{hhr 220322}

Merleau-Ponty using the term “chiasm” to describe the coming together and intertwining:

“the chiasm is a structure of mediation that combines the unity-in-difference of its physiological sense with the reversal and circularity of its literary usage … A paradigmatic example of chiasmic structure is the body’s doubling into sensible and sentient aspects during self-touch." (source)

{hhr 220309}

here is a transcription of the ensuing dream and other notes that are probably difficult to read in my hand-writing.

“korridors, I walk, the woman opens a door from the left to let her dogs in, more and more dogs, different breeds, at least five or so dogs; they notice me, they navigate around me, careful as they don't know me. I take the left bend as the corridor forks; there's H and their partner, they are freshly married; I congratulate them and hug them (carefully, as there is still Corona); (earlier) a guy that revealed himself, through writing (pseudonymous) as a Nazi; he was identified, appearing in some of our publications. He is a text editor (literally), he rotated 90 degrees, one name (short name) stands for another, but the link was identified. Someone (N?) suggests I should indicate that on the front cover to boost attention or sales of the publication; people would get the issue because they recognise it contains information (accidentally) about him. I keep rejecting the idea, I don't want to advertise it.

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I don't want to force my mind to extract more memory, I'm going to be exhausted. I will turn off the small lamp again, and try to go back to sleep, to catch two more hours of sleep.

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remaining in not knowing (not cluttering) about someone

in someone being an open field

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the asymmetrical ears (to shut / to open)

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(8:30) vs. waking-up (biologically-physiologically): resolution"

Here is the reference to Franziska’s “How to Induce the Unknown” (2021):

Book link: rowman.com/ISBN/9780761840640/Artistic-Bedfellows-Histories-Theories-and-Conversations-in-Collaborative-Art-Practices

Associative exercise Bindedraht, created by hhr on 21 April 2022. Each response took 5 to 10 minutes.