besides,How to communicate via two moving images? Which performances do the virtual spaces - cut out by two webcams - allow? And what does the juxtaposition of the moving images create? Is it possible to make an intimate space occur in which two women can encounter each other through their live-videos? And who/what is choreographing this encounter? What emerges when two vulnerable bodies, silence, broken communication, a few mundane objects, a lot of uncertainty and some fragmented comments meet?
Reflections on the three performances September 2015 :
Archives : June 13 2015 : besides, Dear Body,
June 12 2015 : besides, moved by some thing.
June 11 2015 : besides, the person I am becoming.
Preparations : June 8th : "everything is on-the-fly, we don't rehearse, we prepared technics and format together, content is taken care of individually - nothing can go wrong - we create experience ... an encounter with the invisible public" June, 4th : We wrote descriptions of our intentions for the three performances separately. When we compared these, we saw they resembled, were complementary and decided to mix them. There is always something that escapes — some dimension of objects, bodies, events, and processes that withdraws despite all visual presence. June 2nd 2015: testing Object Agency for the first performance. MR : In the performing arts the live-presence of a body or various bodies in front of other people
was and is often regarded as the basic requirement of a performance. What does it mean
if the body is mediated by a webcam, cut out from its surrounding, becoming two-dimensional while speaking in real time, if it is seen only if it does not move too much (and stays in the range of the camera)? To what extent does the interface choreograph us as much as we choreograph it? April 2015 : December 2014: webcam dramatics exist Martina wrote in October 2014: What is interesting for me more and more in thinking about the non-human world of objects is the limits of our, of human, intentionality. The acts and things that we intend to do are one thing and what is done is smth. else - also because of the resistance of the material world, because of the "agency of things" that resist being mere objects for our manipulation or use or consumption. This links also to working with computers, webcams etc. They have their own "agency" somehow and coproduce smth. that is always partially out of our, human control. Original proposal: a series of web performances by Annie Abrahams: a Dutch net artist and Martina Ruhsam: an Austrian choreographer, performer and writer. Together they will explore the relation of their bodies to the machines they use, specifically in live streaming situations, where they are confronted with bodies no longer being “feelings“ (sensations), but also becoming images to be manipulated by themselves. being with - text is radical – coincidences – gestures of resistance - trust and attention - silence is beautiful |
besides, is a Turbulence commission made possible with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Three online experiments by Annie Abrahams and Martina Ruhsam, who will, once again*, investigate the performative potential of computer-mediated performance. By listening to each other´s gestures (in a visual and acoustic sense) they will choreograph each other despite being geographically far away from each other - Annie will be in Montpellier, Martina in Berlin.
June 11 2015 : besides, the person I am becoming. Duration 20 minutes. The audience can interact via a chatwindow. June 12 2015 : besides, moved by some thing. An intimate conversation on death and illness. Duration undetermined. No interaction with the public. June 13 2015 : besides, Dear Body, Duration 3 minutes. With public chatwindow, so we can discuss afterwards. All performances
Follow-up : besides, the city is not a tree |
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Martina Ruhsam is working as a choreographer, performer and writer. From October 2008 to March 2009 she was (vicarious) head of the theorycentre in Tanzquartier Wien. In 2011 her book “Kollaborative Praxis: Choreographie” was published by Turia + Kant. Her artistic work and collaborations were presented at various venues and festivals (among others: Wiener Festwochen, Tanzquartier Wien, brut, Kino Siska, Mladi Levi Festival, Museum for Applied Arts Vienna, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova) – predominantly in Austria and Slovenia. Martina Ruhsam was teaching in Maska´s Seminar for Performing Arts (Ljubljana) and was lecturing internationally. She is a member of the editorial board of Maska. Performing Arts Journal and is regularly contributing articles to the magazine. She published essays in several publications dedicated to the performing arts (f.i. Martina Ruhsam: „Die Inszenierung des Dokuments“, in: Sigrid Gareis/Georg Schöllhammer/Peter Weibel (ed.), exhibition catalogue, Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2012). Currently she is completing a Phd at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen. Annie Abrahams has a doctoraal (M2) in biology from the University of Utrecht and a MA2 from the Academy of Fine Arts of Arnhem. In her work, using video and performance as well as the internet, she questions the possibilities and limits of communication in general and more specifically investigates its modes under networked conditions. She is known worldwide for her netart and collective writing experiments and is an internationally regarded pioneer of networked performance art. |
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