CALENDER
3 - 4/08/20
First Encounter
21 - 22/09/20
Second Encounter
Week 49
Third Encounter
End of January
Workweek & Beyond The Blackbox
Een ontmoeting vindt plaats.
Een ontmoeting vindt plaats op een plek, maar vindt dus in eerste instantie plaats.
Het is belangrijk te bedenken welke plaats dat kan zijn.
Voor dit deel van HALL 12 is één van de eerste plaatsen Amsterdam.
De plaats van de fysieke ontmoeting.
Maar ergens moet het denken ook plaats vinden.
Een plaats is niet een weg. Een weg heeft een verloop. Een weg gaat van naar.
Een tekst is een weg. Van linksboven naar rechtsonder in ons geval.
Een plaats staat het toe te verdwalen. Zelfs in een ongedefinieerde ruimte.
Een plaats gaat nergens heen, maar geeft ruimte te bewegen.
Op de plaats die de ontmoeting van ons denken vindt, moeten de dingen ook ver weg kunnen zijn.
Moet ruimte zijn om te dansen en de weg kwijt te zijn.
Op een plaats kan gelijktijdigheid bestaan.
Het zou mooi zijn als de plaats voor de ontmoeting van het denken, ons gedeelde hoofd zou zijn.
Dat is lastig.
Een derde, extern hoofd dan. Waar we beiden in kunnen.
Een nieuw hoofd, speciaal voor ons.
Distance: things got more intense when we walked close to each other. Walking across the street was definitely interesting. Especially in the crossings when one space has to cross the other to keep the rule of distance.
Time (or Timing) setted a game of figuring out where you are in relation to the other and... trying to catch up?... to lead?... to not lead?...
Arriving at a splitting path was interesting as someone has to make a decision.
Stoping, feeling the change statically, feel the other and if the relation has changed.
A meeting takes place.
A meeting takes place in a space,
but therefore has to take some place in the first place.
It is important to consider what sort of place that could be.
One of the first places for this part of HALL 12 is Amsterdam.
The place of the physical meeting.
But somewhere the thinking must also take place.
A place is not a road. A road has its course.
A road goes from to.
A text is a road. From the top left to the bottom right
in our case.
A place allows us to get lost. Even in an undefined space.
A place does not go anywhere, but gives space to move.
In the place where our thinking meets, things must also be able to be far away.
There should be room to dance and get lost.
A place gives room for simultaneity.
It would be nice if the place for the meeting of thought were our shared head.
That's difficult.
A third, external head then. In which we can both get in.
A new head, especially made for us.
Losing each other and finding back
Starting from different points
Very big distance between the people
Very small distance between the people
Difference in elevation
Difference in types of paths (concrete-grass)
Play with speed
Decision making discussion
Goal - Risk - Communication
Change of atmospheres
Stop
Caring about the other
We are doing this together
Having enough agency
Need of keeping the other
Starting the walk with a ritual
A moment of free exploration
A moment of negotiating the route
A moment of following the path
A ritual of arriving to meet the other
A coffee together
Menzo
21/12/20
Dear Shaly,
Our last try out period, before trying out our project during Beyond the Blackbox, was a couple of weeks ago. You worked in Berlin, I worked in Amsterdam. Although working like this wasn't initiallly part of the plan, I think it was a good thing. It gave us the opportunity to do more runs and in a new environment. You working in the park might turn out to be a pivotal move for this project.
What has stuck with me the most, is the intimacy that somehow managed to facilitate. It hink this has to do with the way we set it up. By having the people find each other without us guiding them other then telling them where to go. Because we remove ourselves from the equation, there is more room for the actuall participants.
Now I think we have to start looking for places that offer less distractions, at least at first. We have to try to make sure that the encounter does not get lost in play.
I'll talk to you soon.
All the best,
Menzo
07/10/20
Dear Shaly,
Our second encounter was two weeks ago. For the first time it was not only between us, we also facilitated the meeting of strangers. It was good that we did this, as unprepared as we felt.
Our participants were kind and interested and we found some stuff that works. It also made me even more curious about how to develop the work further.
I wonder how much we can actually do with the walks, if we want to keep the quality of drifting. How much we can actually add to that.
We can probably change the beginning and the end but I feel like the things that happen in between are not in our hands. This is not nescessarily a bad thing but it does make me wonder about the amount of research we can actually do. What are the parameters we can actually change, before we start to tell people how to experience the work. I wonder how you feel about this.
All the best,
Menzo
16/8/20
Dear Israel,
Nice to meet you once again. We weren't complete strangers to each other before our encounter at the ferry but I do feel like we got reintroduced.
In the not too distant past, we went on four walks through Amsterdam.
In the not too distant future, we will go on many more.
Instead of analysing exactly what we did and how we did it, I would like to start out by writing you this letter.
I am unsure how this project will unfold and what this digital space will mean for the way in which we encounter each other. I am sure you feel something similar.
A lot of my work tends to revolve around intimacy in one way or the other. So does this. That is also a reason I am now writing about my own work, because I feel we have to get intimate in some way for this project to work.
We are working in a time that physical intimacy or even nearness between two strangers has become almost impossible if not illegal in some situations.
So how one question is how to deal with that.
How can a shared experience, an experience that is co-created by it's participants, give space for meaningfull encounter?
Another aspect of my work is the use of imagination. I feel like using the imagionation is a skill that humanity is losing because we live in a world filled with images. Everything revers to something else, nothing has to be imagened. I am not sure if this has a place within our current project but I am curious to see if it does. Maybe it is about a sense of adventure. Of being part of something that other people don't know about. Something that doesn't really mean anything untill you make it meaningfull.
Who knows. We will figure something out.
By writing this letter, I don't want to impose this format for our conversations. I hope this digital space will become a playground for us. Not something that is always neat or orderly, but something that can move. With messy corners.
Can you play hide and seek in here somehow?
All the best,
Menzo
A PLACE FOR NOTES
- Keeping distance gives space to get lost and demands being attentive of each other.
- A goal or a set of rules gives a sence of urgency.
- A need to negotiate gives a sence of urgency.
- Sight, smell, sound are all part of the encounter.
- Intimacy is very important
A PLACE FOR QUESTIONS
- How can we give instructions?
- Should we give instructions?
- How does it end?
- In which ways can we use the architecture that is present?
- When and why does it become 'just a walk'?
- How do we find our participants and who are they?
Invitation #1
Welcome to HALL12,
Today we want to invite you on a drift; a walk through Amsterdam with a stranger, together and in silence.
The walk has no strict structure, you can walk freely and find your way through the city. To drift, but to stay together, to make sure that no one is left behind.
We ask you to do this without talking to each other. To be and stay together, in silence.
The walk starts after this talk is finished. We would like to invite you to walk to turn left/right here and then left/right again at the next alley. There you will see a bridge.
Please walk to the middle of the bridge and blow up this balloon.
You will find your partner by looking around.
Once you have found each other, please cross the bridge and start walking, drifting through Amsterdam. Stay as far from or close to each other as you feel comfortable with, taking into account the rules concerning social distancing.
There is no route, together you will decide how the walk develops, when to take a pause and when the drifting ends. Once you feel that the walk is over, we invite you to split up and walk back to the Brakke Grond individually.
But once again, please don’t talk while doing this.
We would like to suggest this solo part of the walk as a moment of reflection. You might not see the other person but you might be still walking together.
Once you are back here, there will be a table for you on the terras. If you have to wait for the other person to arrive, please be patient, enjoy your surroundings and don’t use your phone.
On the table there will be a notebook with a short question. After answering the question, you can break the silence and feel free to discuss your walk together.
The scores
Encounter #2 - Walk #5 & 6
- Introduction/Invitation
- Starting point on bridges with balloons
- Drifting
- Separation
- Meeting at Brakke Grond / Drawing
A PLACE FOR DESIRES
- To lose and find each other.
- To start in sepperated locations.
- A moment of great distance & a moment of great nearness.
- Some difference in the height of each path.
- Different types of paths (concrete, grass, sand ...)
- The need to find a solution for something.
- Stationary moments.
- Different athmospheres (sound, light, smell, crowd)
- Different speeds.
- To share something at the end.
- To have a "staged/designed" place for the ending maybe something simple like the table.
Shaly
17/8/20
Dear Menzo,
I appreciate the introduction in the form of a letter, it just makes things more easily approachable. Was nice to walk with you and start the project without the pressure of figuring out (yet) what we are doing. But, in any case, looking back to my notebook I figured out that we did much more than that. What? I don't know but we’ll see. Maybe these digital encounters are the way to figure it out? Who can know, in any case the path just started and I'm sure is gonna be an interesting one.
I’m now thinking about the idea we discussed about walking and making the distance between the people grow bigger and then coming back together. These moments of on-line/cybernetic encounters feels also like the street grew bigger. Or maybe this is the moment in which each of us experience different paths, and then we'll see when we arrive at some meeting point.
Thanks sharing your artistic moment, I guess this is also shaping the way we develop this work. I can personally relate to this, as my focus now is also in some kind of “staging” beyond the visual. I’m really curious on how we perceive and create realities, and with this create space. Let’s see how our personal curiosities encounter each other in HALL12.
Looking forward for all what is next
Cheers
Shaly
A PLACE FOR COMUNICATION
(new communiction entries on top)
07/10/20 Maybe we should clean this space up a bit, it is getting choatic. Also, some information is on here double. How do you feel?
13/10/2020 Agree. I think we should also think in how to draw paths within this research page. Like for now there is some kind of route of how the routes or paths are getting shape, but also some other about our comunication. I think we should be aware of the mess, but maybe let it be a bit, like drifting, maybe then we can find an organicing method. But sure feel free to delete or moove the double info or anything that seem "out-of-place". I'll do the same.
I'm also changing the names of some of the elements in the navigator, so we can track what is what and later categorice?? (my programing mode is talking here)
BIOS
Do we need them?
No, not now, but maybe is just me hating to the bio thingy.
I like this structure, it looks like a mind map wich personally i love. I think for the "walks narration" we can make hyperlinks so we keep this part as a mind map/virtual encounter room and then we can have the others as some kind of archive. Are this narrations usefull maybe not, but also they are material that we generated so can be of help when things get uncertain (you know the uncertainess pre-opening)
Things that work
- The balloons
- The table with the signs
- The bridges
- The separation
- The reserved table at the end
A comment as an Experiencer
or
Looking back at my drawing, after 3 weeks of having walked with Lotte
It's interesting to try to locate the walk with the path. It's definitely not like looking at a map, in which the relation of the traces in the paper relate to the distribution in the city. It feels like reading a script of how the walk was based on the decisions that we took in order to navigate, our drifting together.
Somehow these traces are like a snapshot of how we related during the walk. The most interesting part comes when I cannot locate what I was drawing. Like in the park close to where the pigeon king appears, that kind of a square within a bigger square with a line that doesn't really end nowhere. It took me some time to figure out that what was happening there was that I wanted to leave but somehow felt that Lotte wanted to keep walking.
Looking back at this was interesting because even though that memory is located in the city, in a very particular place. That place takes a spot in the drawing, just when it also locates a spot in our experience of walking together. This somehow makes it traceable weeks later.
Something different happens when the lines are "random" or labyrinthic. There it was pure drifting. The space even if it was still playing a role on how we related, don't create in me a traceable experience. Maybe we were walking comfortably, maybe we got some kind of agreed rhythm and the path became homogeneous.
For me it is interesting to be able to notice how space gets shaped when we perform it. It gains a kind of location that doesn't relate to geographical location -like the one in my memory, or the paper or as relation with the encounter- that makes it a tracking position within a map. These locations somehow take importance as they affect us and with that mark a point on how we relate with the other.
Things that might be a problem/challenges:
- The very bussy streets
- To get a diverse group of people, not just theatre-arty people.
A description of each walk?
Is that something that is usefull?
Maybe with some of the elements that were crucial in it?
Walk #1. The start
Walk #2.
Walk #3. City Center
Walk #4 De Bijlmer
Walk #5 & 6 De Brakke Grond
The first test runs with people other then ourselves
Details are important as they give security to the audience. Like serve to locate them into a constructed (or maybe delimited) experience in which they can relate in a specific way. To say, the table that has been saved for them gives them clarity of an ending of the experience and opens time and space to reflect of the walk, of the city, of the other and of its relations.
Somethig similar happens with the balloon, it frames the encounter with an image, but also becomes an element of identification with the other and the space that is being created.
Small details can be interesting elements to propose ways of interaction, reflection and to slightly shape the experience.
