RITUALS IN RELATION TO SPACE
Meredith Monk's artistic practice often incorporates elements of meditation and mindfulness. Her performances and compositions frequently feature repetitive patterns, vocalizations, and movements that can create a meditative atmosphere. Through her work, Monk explores the power of presence and stillness, inviting audiences to engage with the moment and experience a sense of inner reflection.
Ritualistic elements are also prominent in Monk's work. She has created performances that incorporate ritualistic gestures, communal experiences, and symbolic actions. These rituals can serve as a means of connecting with deeper layers of meaning.
In her work "Songs of Ascension" (2008) she incorporates ritualistic elements such as ceremonial processions, chanting, and symbolic gestures. The performance explores themes of transcendence and spiritual awakening, inviting audiences to participate in a collective ritual of ascent. Monk carefully considers the spatial dynamics of the performance venue when creating this piece. The architecture of the space, including its layout, acoustics, and visual elements, influences the staging and choreography of the performance. Monk may utilize different levels, alcoves, or architectural features within the space to create dynamic interactions between performers and audience members.
I am very much inspired by the way Monk co-creates with the space being also a performer. The architectural elements affect the whole music piece and Monk understands that and works together with, gets inspired by it.
"Dolmen Music" (1979) features repetitive patterns, extended vocal techniques, and hypnotic rhythms, creating a meditative atmosphere that invites listeners into a contemplative state. The piece explores themes of resonance and inner reflection, allowing audiences to immerse themselves in the sonic landscape Monk creates.
TRACING THE IDENTITY OF A PLACE
"Skinned" by Jay Kay is a creative exploration of texture and space through the unique medium of latex rubbings, offering a tactile and immersive experience for viewers. The artist describes it as "a collection of thin foldable casts of abandoned places, brought to life in a clean gallery with a new composition." For them it is important that the latex cast also brings out the dirt of the material. I see it as if it's a sample of the space's DNA that comes with it, like casting a part of the human body. In that way, the genetic identity of the space stays imprinted on the rubbing.
In the way I collect I don't find it significant to make an exact replica of the texture, but I do find it interesting that the character of the material is showing on the trace.
However, I do understand that mt traces make it hard for someone to identify the materials without having some context. In that sense, it's difficult to see them as stand alone collectables, without the stories to go with them.
TRACING AND RESURFACING
Do Ho Suh covers the surfaces of places he has lived in and has some connection with with paper, erasing the details only to bring them back to life by “rubbing”, using charcoal to trace them back on the paper surface. Together with the details, “textures and nuances and feelings and emotions that you had while you were living in this space” resurface.
THE RITUALISTIC CHARACTER OF COLLECTING
According to the dictionary Merriam-Webster, a ritual is "a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions or revered objects". Performativity is also mentioned as an important element of ritualistic practices.
The use of specific tools, that are always the same, the fixed sequence of events as well as the position of my body and the repetive movement of the hand with the pencil on the paper, constitute a performative ritual.
In meditation and mindfullness practices the activation of the body and the repetition of movements play in important part in focusing the attention and in connecting to one's self. In this case, these are serving as a way for me to connect with the space, with the material of the floor that I'm in contact with and with the liminal space, the entrance, the threshold which reveals the character of the interior space, but also welcomes the visitor.
THE TRANSITORY SPACES OF MARC AUGE
French anthropologist Marc Augé introduced the concept of "non-places." to refer to spaces of transience where people remain anonymous and which lack a strong sense of identity or social connection. Such places are train stations, airplane lounges and hotel rooms for example. In general, spaces where people pass through quickly, often without forming meaningful connections or memories.
Augé extends the concept of non-places beyond traditional examples like airports and shopping malls to include transitional spaces such as thresholds—those areas where one passes from one place to another, like doorways, corridors, or even virtual spaces like website homepages.
People passing through thresholds may do so anonymously, without engaging with others or forming significant social ties. This anonymity can contribute to a sense of detachment and alienation from one's surroundings.
In this context, I see even more the significance of my collection and I want for my further experimentations to stay still within such transatory spaces, where the lack of connection with the surrounding space is so evident.
DETAILS
I started looking at the space in microscale, in an attempt to reveal the beauty of the world we don't see with the naked eye. For me this practice was important to bring attention to the space as something more than just a container of human activity. By exposing this different view of the materials, I was able to invite the spectators to see a space with a more empathetic eye, to understand it as a body not very different to ours.
COLLECTING MY TRACES AND CONNECTION WITH SPACE
In this part of the collection I have gathered the collectables where the act of tracing the floors and passing time in the entrance of a place got me in a state of bonding with the space and projecting my past interactions with it on it.
By being uninterrupted in this act of collecting the materials traces on paper I was able to observe details and be taken away to other interractions I've had with this space, all the moments I had passed by and had never stopped to take notice. Entering this flow, by my body being active and crouching, by the repetitive movement of my hand on the paper, with this simple action that takes my eyes away from the overwhelming larger picture and focuses my gaze on this A4 space I am able to listen and to feel.
There were moments of boredom, of tiredeness, of acute self-awareness. But especially in those moments I was able to stay open to new discoveries that came both from my observing details but also from my memories in the same place. I start drifting into my thoughts but the touch with the floor keeps me connected to the space as it is in the present, it keeps me grounded.
By stopping in a threshold to perform this act that resembles a sort of ritual, I was able to connect to this place, remaining still in a space that's meant for passing, echoing the flow of passed and future interactions.
TOWARDS A LOOP OF BODIES
Starting from the human body and the space body as 2 different entities, I'm looking into what is that moment of connection that signifies the beginning of their engagement in a loop, where the 2 bodies are performing together, constantly feeding off each other's input.
What is needed to achieve that connection? To unlock the perception?
EXPERIMENTING WITH TIME
In the second experiment I took the spectator with me to let them into my collecting process. We sometimes talked during, and other times passers-by or visitots of the cefé would also interact.
At that point it was important for me for someone to understand what I mean by spendng time in places, that it is actual real time that is needed for this collection to happen.
I wanted to try this form of staging to see whether the process could catch the interest of the spectators and invite them to observe the space differently.
After conducting this experiment I started thinking of ways to engage the spectator themselves instead of me "performing" my material
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE COLLECTION
I was concerned with how can the human body be invited into the space body and treat them as an equal performer.
I am interested in looking at the existing space as a performer in their own right. I wish for the spectator to engage with the space, to be able to connect and feel them come to life, to understand them as a living, breathing organism.
The word "invitation" had popped up in feedback I had gotten in my previous experiments. I'm always very careful to treat the spectator's experience as a whole, starting from the very first moment they start interacting with my work, which is how they enter it.
By taking this as an inspiration, I started paying attention to entrances of buildings. I first started by photographing them. Photograhy is not a medium where I can express myself, so I turned into something more tactile. Combined with my experience at the Nexus workshop, where we opened up our senses to feel what's already around us, I had the idea of collecting the traces of materials that can be found at the entrances of buildings. I first trusted my body, it felt like a gut feeling to fall on my knees and just repetedly move my pencil back and forth to reveal the texture of the material underneath on my paper.
After talking about this act and being asked many questions about the reasons or significance behind it I started realising that these paper traces where not the only thing I was collecting. In fact, the main collectable, was time itself. Time I spent in that entrance, in that passage, standing still, observing while myself being in a meditative state (repetitive movement, eyes fixed on paper).
During that time, I was also collecting connections. Me connecting with this space, the outside or the inside of the building, remembering other times I've been there while making this new memory, revealing the unseen details on the floor, a floor that so many others had stepped on, that have made their own memories with. But also me connecting with passers-by, with people that got interested in my action, that asked me questions about it, that started seeing the details and the beauty of the space.
MEDITATION EXERCISES WITH SPACE
In my latest series of experiments I'm working with an audio guide, a guided meditation to be performed in public space. The guide consists of 2 parts: in the first part the spectator-performer is asked to come in physical contact with the floor of a space (in this case the foyer of theatre Bellevue in Amsterdam); in the second part, the spectator-performer is asked to recollect passed timelines, moments where they have found themselves in that same place. In this way, the past self is projected into the present space and connections are made. The space now seems like an old friend, more familiar.
Powered by my experiences during my collecting process, I focus on the significance of the touch and the memories that bind someone with a space. I'm using the format of an audio guide inspired by similar meditation and mindfulness guides I use in my personal practice. I want the spectator to feel they are in their own bubble while still surrounded by a crowd.
That crowd of by-standers or passers-by is also important as secondary spectators. They are also witnessing these people touching the materials and turn their attention to that event, partaking in the creation of a collective memory in that moment.
EXPERIMENTING IN SPACE
Going back to an entrance I had already traced at an earlier stage and working on what way can I let others into my process, how can I "stage my collection" and most importantly for me and my research, how do I invite spectators to connect with the space and start feeling part of the loop of bodies (the human-body and the space-body).
In this first experiment I "exhibited" the traces in the place they had been taken, inviting the memory of another day into the present. A camera was playing back a real-time video of the tracing process, bringing in the element of time passing. Lastly, for the last trace I invited the spectators who up until that point had only been observers of the whole piece, to help me match the trace to the exact place on the floor. In this way I succeded to activate their bodies, to bring them to the level of the floor and to actually touch the material and observe every detail of it.
Stil halfway through the collecting process, with this staging of the material I realized that the importance doesn't lie with the material of the traces themselves, but more in the process. of collecting it.
LOOKING BACK TO THE ORIGINAL QUESTION
I started my exploration in September 2023 wondering how can a human performer and a space be interlinked in a performative loop, where the space and the human interact and affect each other, listening to each other.
I find that many times space is treated as a container where a performance takes place, or that it should be manipulated so that it serves the performance.
I'm always working with found places, locations that already have existed and have lived through some events.
DE-OBJECTIFYING SPACE
I work with ways of percieving the space as a living entity.
I invite the spectator to see and feel the breathing space
THE WORKSHOP AT NEXUS AND LISTENING WITH THE FEET
During this workshop with Rachel Schuit, through a series of exercises we got to open our senses to feel the space around us, to be able to dance with the wind and to whistle with the leaves.
While working with one of the exercises and feeling the space around me as an entity that's communicating with me, I had an experience which I could only describe as "listening with my feet". My soles became hyper sensitive to the materials they were coming in contact with. This was an experience I wanted to share with others, so I created an experiment for one spectator. Blindfolded, I would first touch them on their bodies and their feet and non-verbally invited them to rock their weight back and forth. Then I would take them by the hand, walk with them passed different ground materials, until we reached the soil. There I asked them to stop (without verbal communication) and I would gently put the weight of my body on them and on their feet.
What I was aiming at was to bring as much attention as possible to the feet of the spectator and to invite them to feel and appreciate more all the textures of the materials they step on.
During this workshop we also created and performed a ritualistic performance, that explored time and being bored, listening to what's there and embracing the natural elements.
At this moment I also took up the habit of writing down my thoughts after my connections with a material or a space
METHODOLOGY
WHERE
Entrances of buildings that I have to cross for a reason not related to the collecting.
WHAT
A4 pieces of paper, tracing a part of the floor.
From the floor that is found exactly in front of the door, until the floor that signifies the visitor has entered the inside.
A photo of the paper surrounded by the actual material.
Afterthoughts in journaling format regarding the time spent there.
HOW
Kneeling or squating on top of the paper, sometimes interupting the flow of people, sometimes the flow of people interupting me.
Placing carefully the papers in a folder, together with the rest of the collectables.
COLLECTING INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS
In this part of the collection I have gathered the collectables where the act of tracing the floors and passing time in the entrance of a place invited or embraced human interaction.
In this sense, by being still in a passageway I drew attention with this act and the curiosity of people led to them getting more in touch with the details of the material.
I was able to connect with them, I was able to in that moment collect the story of this interraction, of their comments about the materiality, of their attention to the details.
Some of the interactions where more focused on the act of tracing itself. In those moments, the attention shifted from the materiality of the space to the tracing of it. But even in those moments the attention of the gaze was towards the material itself, comparing it to the trace or looking at the revelations that the pencil and the paper had brought.
By stopping and interrupting the flow in a threshold, the people that flow through it, stopped to look, showed interest in the materials, listened, acknowledged the existence of this in-between space.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING BORED
In the 1981 essay film directed by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet "Trop Tot/Trop Tard" the camera is locked in the same frame and the same shot for sometimes even more than 10 minutes at a time.
Cultural historian Meaghan Morris talks about the boredom that these shots bring to the audience. "The camera is fixed for an endurable length of time, almost unbearable. [...] I am absorbed in time passing so slowly that it vanishes into the timeless speed called "passing in no time at all". [...] I am mezmerized by this image, and yet, I endlessly look at my watch."
In this specific shot of the egyptian workers, there's too much activity in the frame for us to catch everything, but we quickly get the gist of it. After we "understand" what is communicated (these are workers moving from one end of the frame to the othe) we expect the next beat. When that doesn't come we start losing our interest. And then there comes the moment when we start observing more, when we start getting lost in the image, when time becomes real again.
I find that the spectator thinking "this is taking too long" is something I could work with in my experiments. I would maybe even say I would like to try and evoke it on purpose. I believe that in those moments of "boredom" lies an opportunity to invite the spectator into a different state, more open and more receptive.
Anthropologists and documentary directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel approach their work in a similar manner.
LAYERING AND MAPPING NARRATIVES IN SPACE
In their newest performance, Andrea Božić and Julia Willms are working with the idea of different realities that can coexist at the same place at the same time. They have been working with mapping dreams in space, in an attempt to bring them to reality.
When going back to the same place where I had collected traces I always kept my memories from the specific time I collected and the interactions I had. I brought those memories into the present, projecting them onto the space, so the 2 realities would intertwine. Remembering the exact positions where people where standing or walking through and what they had said. replaying that into the same space where now something different is happening is a very inspriting experience.
THE OBSERVATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE COLLECTION
With vedute, the artists were capturing the character of the city, depicting a panoramic view where the architecture and the atmosphere where given more weight rather than the people or animals. The depicted space became a character. This view was of course subjective, depending on the artist.
In my collection, the journal-like text together with the video documentation and the photos of the traces serve as a subjective view of the space where I pass time in. I’m including details of the moments spent there, encounters with people and the materiality which to me personally is so important to preserve this space as I lived it in this specific moment in time.
TRACING AS A WAY TO REMEMBER
During their famous work "The Lovers, Great Wall Walk" Marina Abramović and Ulay produced these lesser known "rubbings". The rubbings were a method of documenting the journey along the Great Wall of China. As Abramović and Ulay walked the wall from opposite ends, they made rubbings of various textures and surfaces encountered along the way. These served as tangible records of their physical presence and the landscape they traversed.
In this manner, the two artists also engaged directly with the environment, incorporating elements of the wall itself into their artistic process. The act of creating rubbings required physical contact with the wall, emphasizing the artists' interaction with the landscape and the historical significance of the Great Wall of China
The rubbings can be seen as symbolic of the transformative journey undertaken by Abramović and Ulay during their walk. As they made rubbings of the wall's surface, they left behind traces of their presence while simultaneously altering the landscape through their actions.