Map on "a thousand plateaux" by Deleuze/Guattari
Monday 28 January 2008
Border Performance (duration 90 min.)
1. Enter a train compartment for six persons and ask for a free seat beside the window.
2. Start to put your full plastic bags on top of the shelves and next to the seats of other passengers.
3. Ask them if they could declare the plastic bags as theirs. Reassure them that it is allowed to cross the border with up to ten boxes.
4. Reassure them that there won’t be any problems at all.
5. Try to hide boxes behind sleeping passengers and wake them up right before crossing the border to ask if they may help you.
6. Distribute sugar from small paper packets of cafés on the ground (will bring luck).
7. When the train stops ask everybody to tell his amount to the custom officers (they will pick only on a few vicitms as alibi).
8. Handle out your passport and ask the others in the cabin to stay calm, covering your body with theirs.
9. As soon as the train continues, start your central choreography:
Lie down on the floor and hide plastic bags behind the right seats (old German trains provide space between seats and division). Get up to get more plastic bags. Lie down again to hide the rest behind the left seats. Take off your (prepared) jacket and belt, take out the packets and put them behind the seats as well. As soon as you have completed this choreography ask the other passengers to come in.
10. Now police and custom officers will start their performance, too. The first will just have a look inside from the corridor and pass by. The second will open the door to ask for the amount. (You tell about a tenth of the amount you have with you). Then three officiers will check the luggage of every passenger. They won’t check the seats.
11. As soon as they leave, distribute sugar again and throw a coin to see if you will succeed this time with your performance.
12. After some minutes the first police officer will come back to give you a sign to leave the compartment.
13. You pay his share (1 Euro each box, be careful not to cheat too obviously)
14. As soon as your passport has been taken, stamped and returned, your performance turned out to be successful.
15. Start to pack again and at the next stop, hand over the boxes of cigarettes to the waiting cars.
2. Start to put your full plastic bags on top of the shelves and next to the seats of other passengers.
3. Ask them if they could declare the plastic bags as theirs. Reassure them that it is allowed to cross the border with up to ten boxes.
4. Reassure them that there won’t be any problems at all.
5. Try to hide boxes behind sleeping passengers and wake them up right before crossing the border to ask if they may help you.
6. Distribute sugar from small paper packets of cafés on the ground (will bring luck).
7. When the train stops ask everybody to tell his amount to the custom officers (they will pick only on a few vicitms as alibi).
8. Handle out your passport and ask the others in the cabin to stay calm, covering your body with theirs.
9. As soon as the train continues, start your central choreography:
Lie down on the floor and hide plastic bags behind the right seats (old German trains provide space between seats and division). Get up to get more plastic bags. Lie down again to hide the rest behind the left seats. Take off your (prepared) jacket and belt, take out the packets and put them behind the seats as well. As soon as you have completed this choreography ask the other passengers to come in.
10. Now police and custom officers will start their performance, too. The first will just have a look inside from the corridor and pass by. The second will open the door to ask for the amount. (You tell about a tenth of the amount you have with you). Then three officiers will check the luggage of every passenger. They won’t check the seats.
11. As soon as they leave, distribute sugar again and throw a coin to see if you will succeed this time with your performance.
12. After some minutes the first police officer will come back to give you a sign to leave the compartment.
13. You pay his share (1 Euro each box, be careful not to cheat too obviously)
14. As soon as your passport has been taken, stamped and returned, your performance turned out to be successful.
15. Start to pack again and at the next stop, hand over the boxes of cigarettes to the waiting cars.
Feminism Now
Yesterday was the day of women so I went to the market in order to catch a photographer who could help me with a computer problem. She was taking photos of women fighting for ecology (www.genanet.org) and I started to wonder what could be the effect of gendering ecological activism. The friend who joined us could apparently not take part in the photo session, male as he was, but managed to be shot for another project by the same photographer. I stayed in email contact with her, still hoping to fix my problem.
The day passed without being aware of its official significance. Even when I visited an exhibition about the “room of one’s own” inspired by my hero thinker V.Woolf it did not come across my mind. At bed time, X. told me about a friend who chatted with her in the messenger, congratulating for “her day”. She asked back when would be “his” day and he anwered: “every day”. I guess that I what feels uncomfortable about “women’s day”, it feels like carneval where once in a year you have the power to act as you want before slipping into your niche again.
In the early morning I dreamt I ran away with a princess I had an affair with at court. It was meant to be a dream in the setting of 17th century but soon turned out to be very contemporary: us, fleeing with a dark big cabriolet stopping at a supermarket, trying to avoid the street control that was looking for two “shabby girls”; a constant hide and seek till we finally reached a city where a so-called uncle tried to protect us against suspicion in the camera spot.
One scene before I took part in a slalom contest at court (like in good old times where I was still a black male sportsman and lover of both, the king and the queen); of course I won, of course the ski fell down from the balcony in the next scene and my father asked me to fetch it. Downstairs a romantic encounter with my beloved one, observed by the king who then was doubting my sexual identity. I turned myself into a “onnabe” a woman-man, a really beautiful one with brown skin and Indian touch and stood beyond doubt.
Reading the “Frieze’s” essays about “Feminism” afterwards did not inspire me much but I enjoyed the short description of surrealist films given by Runa Islam. So far for this year.
The day passed without being aware of its official significance. Even when I visited an exhibition about the “room of one’s own” inspired by my hero thinker V.Woolf it did not come across my mind. At bed time, X. told me about a friend who chatted with her in the messenger, congratulating for “her day”. She asked back when would be “his” day and he anwered: “every day”. I guess that I what feels uncomfortable about “women’s day”, it feels like carneval where once in a year you have the power to act as you want before slipping into your niche again.
In the early morning I dreamt I ran away with a princess I had an affair with at court. It was meant to be a dream in the setting of 17th century but soon turned out to be very contemporary: us, fleeing with a dark big cabriolet stopping at a supermarket, trying to avoid the street control that was looking for two “shabby girls”; a constant hide and seek till we finally reached a city where a so-called uncle tried to protect us against suspicion in the camera spot.
One scene before I took part in a slalom contest at court (like in good old times where I was still a black male sportsman and lover of both, the king and the queen); of course I won, of course the ski fell down from the balcony in the next scene and my father asked me to fetch it. Downstairs a romantic encounter with my beloved one, observed by the king who then was doubting my sexual identity. I turned myself into a “onnabe” a woman-man, a really beautiful one with brown skin and Indian touch and stood beyond doubt.
Reading the “Frieze’s” essays about “Feminism” afterwards did not inspire me much but I enjoyed the short description of surrealist films given by Runa Islam. So far for this year.
Translocal Map of Mertola
Historical layers of perception and social life in a small town close to the Spanish border, part of the Archive of Translocality
map station #1 structure
Map by Alexandra Ferreira
As answer to reactions of visitors of the festival "plateaux" in Mousonturm, Frankfurt, who used different elements of map station in a playful way we included basic game structures and particular games like e.g. ping-pong as single events to open an additional sensual channel of communication. Within this structure visitors had the possibility to position themselves on the festival’s map and to start a dialogue apart from the classical format of one-to-one-conversation. A camera-mirror- installation was recording the central area from above, providing an overview accessible for all and including persons into a general image of the map itself.
map station #1 mousonturm
The first step of map station at Plateaux Festival worked via extension and concentration in space and references to geography as symbolic language to reflect on and play with the context and conditions of festivals. Designed as participatory space with planned and spontaneous comments and interventions not only by the artists, but also visitors of the festival and the theatre’s staff, map station became, during the eight-days period of Plateaux, a multilayered, multilingual and heterogeneous space where all agents of a festival, visitors as participants, as well as the festival’s and cities “discourse” had an impact on a text, visual and hap tic level. Different sessions by artists of the festival marked steps in the development of the site that shifted between installation and communicative space.
map station #1
has been developed as tool of research and communication. In dialogue with participants of the same event or network, common topics are mapped; a common ground is created in relation to site and context. On this ground we do not only present the results of our research, but also turn them into a visual, sensual, textual proposal that is open to feedback and can be used and restructured by others.
Live Mapping
In the performative situation of "structure multifonction", organised by the collective LISA for Klapstuk in Leuven 2005, I asked audience members I had a conversation with during the performance to point out lines of connections and networks they see in the space. As result, a temporary map showed how much performers and public shared a common social and discursive space.
Mapping and Movement
Maps are abstractions of space and thought, mapping a way of organizing in spatial order what is in and around us. Mapping produces relational movements of thought and body. If we call these movements cartography they will be perceived in the invisible frame of a prototype of map that may be linked to the childhood memory of travelling through the carpet’s cluster or imagining your own place on the panoramic map of the alps….
Ground becomes metaphorical when being mapped – the journey in Chinese opera takes seven days in seven steps – children invent same symbolic ways of travelling through the world when crossing the living room. Another layer of meaning is added to the stage as common ground of performers and audience. To movement in space: a journey. To words: coordinates. Cartography can widen a creative process into two directions: stretching and interweaving the organisation of thoughts in research and “metaphorising” space and ground via movement.
Ground becomes metaphorical when being mapped – the journey in Chinese opera takes seven days in seven steps – children invent same symbolic ways of travelling through the world when crossing the living room. Another layer of meaning is added to the stage as common ground of performers and audience. To movement in space: a journey. To words: coordinates. Cartography can widen a creative process into two directions: stretching and interweaving the organisation of thoughts in research and “metaphorising” space and ground via movement.
Notes on Nomadic Structures
I. If we understand nomadism as de-contextualisation from space and structure as (re)contextualisation in space, we can draw a time line from one term to the other: starting with mobility, a concept that integrates nomadism as constant movement, then slowing down to locality, the perception of space by mapping its structure and finally the reflection of its context.
The operation of creating a (thematic and chronological) distance between both terms opens a territory that might expand its central spots (mobility, locality, mapping, context) to connected regions. There are (at least) two binoculars to look onto these regions: using the concept of agency (the act of creating structures) or structure/disposition (the state of being structured by space)
At the first glance nomads enter a kind of “terrain vague” as soon as they step on new ground. As locality cannot be fixed but seems to be as transitory and imaginary on the surface as translocality, it offers new experiences – a “space of flows” - when being crossed for the first time(s). If the nomad maps the new terrain by walking, (s)he can be drawn into urban dynamics easily: a visual series of buildings, streets and squares creating expectations, the imagination of another scene beyond sight, the contrasts of elements and impressions… in short: space as experience, as stimulus for a “rite de passage” that strengthens the individual powers by disturbing them temporarily. The “geographical imagination” (Harvey) that arises with linking local details in our memory provides us with a sensual knowledge of space and place linked to our biography. As the nomad’s biography follows the line of movement, the act of entering a “terrain vague” might be crucial for re-constructing and reaffirming his/her identity. At the same time nomads know that the new terrain they arrives at will be only of temporary use. To use the space efficiently as resource it is important to analyse local elements along a horizontal line (visual and functional elements) as well as vertically (historical and social layers of meaning, the “depth structure”) – interpreting the local just like interpreting a written text in a structuralist way.
Edward W. Soja calls this immediately perceived and analyzed space the “firstspace” in contrast to the mental “secondspace” that refers to images and representations ( Edward W. Soja: Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Oxford/Cambridge 1996. Quoted from sculpture projects muenster 07.) If nomads have access to the first and the second, are they also able to enter the “thirdspace”, the lived space, stage of political praxis? Regardless nomadic movements like the alterglobalist that transform space into a stage of political and symbolic battle for a short period of time, nomads often enter a system as newcomers without being involved in local dynamics, without knowing too well local power structures and alternative networks. Is it possible to link experiences gained elsewhere with observations and interactions “in situ” in order to create a new embedded and at the same time translocal knowledge? Does this knowledge have the power to lead to an action, a transformation of ground, even if it is neither the own nor the only one? What kind of impact do nomads want to achieve on the ground they temporarily use, and how big is their radius of action if this ground is already taken literarily and politically by the residents themselves?
II.
This first desillusion (of the structure around being taken by local forces) is followed by a second, third, fourth one if we change our perspective from agency to structure: the kinetic self (after Sloterdijk) that followed the drive of progress in modern times soon entered the vicious circle of constituting itself only via movement, in other, again Sloterdijk’s words: the modern active became (second illusion) a postmodern passive, trapped in the necessity to continue its nomadic life; even if it feels like leaving a system when leaving a local context there are, third, no exit signs for leaving the own professional system (as an artist or cultural agent), that means: the way values, nods and positions in a network are created does not change with changes the place, even worse: nomadic movements have a direct impact on the “transnational capital” (Christine Nippe) of an artist. Fourth: Contemporary nomads are not really following nomadic structures. What?
III.
Nomads (in the classical as well as in the contemporary, symbolic sense) challenge the project of state sovereignty by neglecting borders and by creating an alternative system of power and hierarchies based on relations in their community. They are often described as symbol of freedom and subversion. Yet, their way of life strongly depends on economic exchange with the settled population. They are half in, half out. They are always inside their community (“tribe”), based on mobility in-group by definition. The contemporary character of “the nomad” is nourished by stories of travellers and migrants, by the individual liberating itself from the social corset whereas nomads in the classical sense can only exist within common rules. Their deep knowledge of a specific region is crucial for the a system based on subsistence and natural cycles whereas nomads in a symbolic sense do not need to get in touch with the ground as deeply. On the other hand, their physical effort and sensation of movement and adjustment might even be bigger as there are no common tracks and experiences; it might even exceed their mental effort to create a biographical line, a translocal belonging. Becoming a nomad means to make a constant effort to move, hide, reappear, restructure, remember, react, translate, transfer the material base into a symbolic one (even if nomads own objects, these objects will be transferred into symbols of daily need and belonging when carried from one place to another). Nomads in the traditional sense are carried by cycles that have been opened, closed and re-opened in the past. Their twisted steps follow a pragmatic pattern, structured by a sustainable vision of exit and return.
Comparing two types of nomadism it seems that the perception of traditional nomadic life that led to the symbolic key figure of the contemporary nomad is focussed on mobility and opposition to state control, that means: taking the outer image as the new core of identity, claiming the consequence of action as its condition. Nomads in a symbolic and a literary way seem to be “false friends”, like words in neighbour languages that finally have a completely different meaning. Should these false friends separate or become real friends again?
The original disposition of nomadic life based on a micro system of community, cycles, sustainability, (trans)local knowledge and exchange might serve as blueprint for a new kind of contemporary nomadism. Incorporating freedom and subversion of the individual as basic structure of identity, but creating a new sense of belonging and responding to local contexts by reflecting one’s movements on shifting grounds. If we were able to read the lines of our movements, we could discover crossing points with the lines of others, stabilising circles, effects on the surroundings, a structure, an alphabet of lines and signs that are understood elsewhere; leaving traces of lived experiences in the space before moving on.
The operation of creating a (thematic and chronological) distance between both terms opens a territory that might expand its central spots (mobility, locality, mapping, context) to connected regions. There are (at least) two binoculars to look onto these regions: using the concept of agency (the act of creating structures) or structure/disposition (the state of being structured by space)
At the first glance nomads enter a kind of “terrain vague” as soon as they step on new ground. As locality cannot be fixed but seems to be as transitory and imaginary on the surface as translocality, it offers new experiences – a “space of flows” - when being crossed for the first time(s). If the nomad maps the new terrain by walking, (s)he can be drawn into urban dynamics easily: a visual series of buildings, streets and squares creating expectations, the imagination of another scene beyond sight, the contrasts of elements and impressions… in short: space as experience, as stimulus for a “rite de passage” that strengthens the individual powers by disturbing them temporarily. The “geographical imagination” (Harvey) that arises with linking local details in our memory provides us with a sensual knowledge of space and place linked to our biography. As the nomad’s biography follows the line of movement, the act of entering a “terrain vague” might be crucial for re-constructing and reaffirming his/her identity. At the same time nomads know that the new terrain they arrives at will be only of temporary use. To use the space efficiently as resource it is important to analyse local elements along a horizontal line (visual and functional elements) as well as vertically (historical and social layers of meaning, the “depth structure”) – interpreting the local just like interpreting a written text in a structuralist way.
Edward W. Soja calls this immediately perceived and analyzed space the “firstspace” in contrast to the mental “secondspace” that refers to images and representations ( Edward W. Soja: Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Oxford/Cambridge 1996. Quoted from sculpture projects muenster 07.) If nomads have access to the first and the second, are they also able to enter the “thirdspace”, the lived space, stage of political praxis? Regardless nomadic movements like the alterglobalist that transform space into a stage of political and symbolic battle for a short period of time, nomads often enter a system as newcomers without being involved in local dynamics, without knowing too well local power structures and alternative networks. Is it possible to link experiences gained elsewhere with observations and interactions “in situ” in order to create a new embedded and at the same time translocal knowledge? Does this knowledge have the power to lead to an action, a transformation of ground, even if it is neither the own nor the only one? What kind of impact do nomads want to achieve on the ground they temporarily use, and how big is their radius of action if this ground is already taken literarily and politically by the residents themselves?
II.
This first desillusion (of the structure around being taken by local forces) is followed by a second, third, fourth one if we change our perspective from agency to structure: the kinetic self (after Sloterdijk) that followed the drive of progress in modern times soon entered the vicious circle of constituting itself only via movement, in other, again Sloterdijk’s words: the modern active became (second illusion) a postmodern passive, trapped in the necessity to continue its nomadic life; even if it feels like leaving a system when leaving a local context there are, third, no exit signs for leaving the own professional system (as an artist or cultural agent), that means: the way values, nods and positions in a network are created does not change with changes the place, even worse: nomadic movements have a direct impact on the “transnational capital” (Christine Nippe) of an artist. Fourth: Contemporary nomads are not really following nomadic structures. What?
III.
Nomads (in the classical as well as in the contemporary, symbolic sense) challenge the project of state sovereignty by neglecting borders and by creating an alternative system of power and hierarchies based on relations in their community. They are often described as symbol of freedom and subversion. Yet, their way of life strongly depends on economic exchange with the settled population. They are half in, half out. They are always inside their community (“tribe”), based on mobility in-group by definition. The contemporary character of “the nomad” is nourished by stories of travellers and migrants, by the individual liberating itself from the social corset whereas nomads in the classical sense can only exist within common rules. Their deep knowledge of a specific region is crucial for the a system based on subsistence and natural cycles whereas nomads in a symbolic sense do not need to get in touch with the ground as deeply. On the other hand, their physical effort and sensation of movement and adjustment might even be bigger as there are no common tracks and experiences; it might even exceed their mental effort to create a biographical line, a translocal belonging. Becoming a nomad means to make a constant effort to move, hide, reappear, restructure, remember, react, translate, transfer the material base into a symbolic one (even if nomads own objects, these objects will be transferred into symbols of daily need and belonging when carried from one place to another). Nomads in the traditional sense are carried by cycles that have been opened, closed and re-opened in the past. Their twisted steps follow a pragmatic pattern, structured by a sustainable vision of exit and return.
Comparing two types of nomadism it seems that the perception of traditional nomadic life that led to the symbolic key figure of the contemporary nomad is focussed on mobility and opposition to state control, that means: taking the outer image as the new core of identity, claiming the consequence of action as its condition. Nomads in a symbolic and a literary way seem to be “false friends”, like words in neighbour languages that finally have a completely different meaning. Should these false friends separate or become real friends again?
The original disposition of nomadic life based on a micro system of community, cycles, sustainability, (trans)local knowledge and exchange might serve as blueprint for a new kind of contemporary nomadism. Incorporating freedom and subversion of the individual as basic structure of identity, but creating a new sense of belonging and responding to local contexts by reflecting one’s movements on shifting grounds. If we were able to read the lines of our movements, we could discover crossing points with the lines of others, stabilising circles, effects on the surroundings, a structure, an alphabet of lines and signs that are understood elsewhere; leaving traces of lived experiences in the space before moving on.
Why Nomadology should become a discipline
Obviously Nomadology has not become an academic discipline during the past because it basically deals with social groups that have been marginalised as they did not fit into the State’s striation project: Circus groups, Gypsies, Mongolian shepards and warriors, Arabian Beduins, African merchants, Refugees, Sami hunters…
These classical images of nomads are images of the “other”, the “outcast”, so it is very easy for people travelling in culture scene to relate to them as the images affirm a transitory, risky, but also flexible and alternative identity. To describe nomadism as mental state rather than a physical one is an attempt to shift the traditional images into a contemporary sphere. Physical nomads do not cede to exist (you can find them at parking lots, sleeping in railway stations, renting guest rooms in big cities, keeping their herd together etc.) but mental nomadity seems to become a dominant preposition of nowadays way of life. But what does it mean exactly? If we just take “nomadism” as flexibility, movement, mobility we can attach the term to almost every phenomenom we like to attach it to. More than that: we feel attracted to do so as “nomadism” may describe also our state of mind and thought and move. Nourished by traditional patterns we create new images of “Nomadism” within ourselves. But does it help to catch the term? Do we need to catch the term in order to use it, to translate and transform it and to feed it into our own work? Nomadism is not a field, it is a world. And Nomadic Structures are patterns that fit on so many different layers that it is worth creating a whole discipline around it and not just a discussion. If we start to map that discipline we get an atlas with unlimited pages and if we start to study nomadism we may become aware that the term itself will cease to exist – we just used it as a key to open a new passage. Let’s see where it can lead us to.
These classical images of nomads are images of the “other”, the “outcast”, so it is very easy for people travelling in culture scene to relate to them as the images affirm a transitory, risky, but also flexible and alternative identity. To describe nomadism as mental state rather than a physical one is an attempt to shift the traditional images into a contemporary sphere. Physical nomads do not cede to exist (you can find them at parking lots, sleeping in railway stations, renting guest rooms in big cities, keeping their herd together etc.) but mental nomadity seems to become a dominant preposition of nowadays way of life. But what does it mean exactly? If we just take “nomadism” as flexibility, movement, mobility we can attach the term to almost every phenomenom we like to attach it to. More than that: we feel attracted to do so as “nomadism” may describe also our state of mind and thought and move. Nourished by traditional patterns we create new images of “Nomadism” within ourselves. But does it help to catch the term? Do we need to catch the term in order to use it, to translate and transform it and to feed it into our own work? Nomadism is not a field, it is a world. And Nomadic Structures are patterns that fit on so many different layers that it is worth creating a whole discipline around it and not just a discussion. If we start to map that discipline we get an atlas with unlimited pages and if we start to study nomadism we may become aware that the term itself will cease to exist – we just used it as a key to open a new passage. Let’s see where it can lead us to.
Mapping Session on "Nomadic Structures"
Brainstorming about "Nomadic Structures", the main theme of a residency programme at Bains::Connective, Brussels 2007
Booklet for an Ideal Libary
Edition of undedited texts by choreographers, curators and dancers about their perception of body and imagination for studium:bühne Burghausen 2006. The booklet accompanied books adn video material that was sent to the small public library of Burghausen which opened an own section about performance.
Mapping Session "Prinz of Homburg"
Techniques of mind mapping served as common tool for research and debate about central topics of a play that should be staged in a Romanian theatre: power, communication, hierarchies and networks. Together with Romanian theatre actors we explored the dimensions of text and work conditions surrounding the project.
Incorrect Map of Europe
Compilation of incorrect maps for the New Media Festival Jonctions/Verbindiging in Brussels 2005
Incorrect Map of Finland and the Baltics
Leaving the symbolic vocabulary of old maps the touching circles between artistic initiatives of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania suggest transregional exchanges that start from local centres and spread over the region, geographic or language divisions left aside.
Lecture Performance
“As the description of your own body cannot be distinguished from your bodiliy sensation, notes of a journey are automatically body notes with landscapes being absorbed into your body and finally turned into the body of a map. Maps could not come into being without physical movement and time, though in the end they do not depict neither movement nor time. Actually they are hiding much more than what they are showing…”
On Incorrect Maps and Imaginative Snapshots, held in Nextart, project space in Lisbon, Spring 2005
Imaginary Snapshots - New Shots
“I decided to leave behind my camera and only take imaginative snapshots. Later on friends called me crazy when hearing that I had traveled to all these places, Brussels, Gent, Maastricht, Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Helsinki, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Prague, and also places they had never heard of like Palanga, Montemor-o-Novo, Inari, Pärnu, Kaunas, Liepaja, Pyhäjärvi, without taking any photos. I mentioned a rather practical reasen. Imaginative Snapshots are easier to carry. In fact I believe in slides without image or spoken words without recording more than in what is visible and proofable – because of their moment of appearance – their presence, in the centre always a blind spot, as presence itself cannot be grasped – and the search for traces afterwards, on the blank screen, in the auditorium. Let’s have a look…”
Incorrect Map of Portugal (Part Two)
Coming back to Lisbon one year later new dynamics were going on - project spaces had opened, transnational connection had been created. But only the future would tell about shifts and transformations in the cultural landscape. So I decided to foretell the future by placing projects and persons close to each other that already had an affinity but did not collaborate yet.
Incorrect Map of Portugal (Part One)
Countries themselves can take the shape of islands, like Portugal, maybe still remembering its glorious past as sailing nation, still looking towards its cities and the sea rather than towards Europe. Some artists and project spaces might be located close to a harbour to be able to leave for other shores….
Incorrect Map of Brussels and Surroundings
Using landscape metaphors to situate networks in relation to and competition with others. Small rivers turn into bigger movements and get canalized by cultural policies, boats of visiting researchers are arriving at islands that could be placed anywhere in the European sea of artistic activities...
Incorrect Maps and Imaginary Snapshots
started in November 2003 as part of my research dealing with transdisciplinary projects in the area of arts, politics and public space in Europe. While traveling through different areas of Europe, capital cities as well as “peripheries”, visiting projects, spaces, interviewing artists and producers, the research got focused on dynamics in developing projects and communicating between different artistic and cultural fields in an informal network, that surpasses national and institutional borders.
This network does not exist as static structure but rather as a way of interaction and communication between different agents in cultural field, which is marked by flexible exchange, alliance and support in (co)production. In a combination of face-to-face encounter and communication via internet shifting “points communes” on a map of culturescape are created, mingling positions and processes that were formerly divided (like artist/publisher/sociologist, actor/choreograph/researcher).
Not only in geographical respect but also in terms of roles and positions Europe’s map is reshaped, borders between areas are blurred and new systems of inclusion and exclusion come into being, depending on the radius of background, experience and facility.
The facts that more and more artists/agents are getting access to, participating in and navigating through Europe’s network-based culturescape has a strong impact on the role and fields of activities of artists as well as on structure and aesthetics of projects that are reflecting a transnational and transdisciplinar way of working and living in Europe. “Artists-in-residency”, co-productions in festivals and organizations, virtual offices that offer supporting structure for projects in different countries, the fusion of virtual and public space in architecture and urban movements are pointing towards a tendency of translocality. On the other hand a strong focus on community and local situation leads into a “grounded” vision of arts and culture.
Different from former movements towards “neighborhoods and streets” or (perfomative and other) experiments of the 60s and 70s this vision has its sources not in a (political) countermovement, not (only) in critic of institutions, but in an reflective process of questioning situations of work and living in different (artistic, urban, political) circuits and creating answers within these circuits.
My answer is also navigating between different circuits, the academic, artistic, sociological and geographical one, as I am using different formats to deal with the subject (the thesis, texts for magazines and presentations, lecture performances, hand drawn maps as visualization and informal guides), following the dynamics of encounters and spontaneous collaborations in the networks I am doing research about.
Rather than objectifying results I try to work with intuitive yet reflective answers to the situations I find during my stay in different countries. In this respect I am part of the research itself - and of the map that has to be incorrect, because it may change its focus and range with every interaction and distribution; of snapshots that have to be imaginary as they consists of “points specials” and “points communes” which have too many layers for being put into a two-dimensional format; of encyclopedias that have to be incomplete because they are dealing with an endless amount of ways how to enter cultural regions and use the dynamics of “grounded” projects within a translocal frame of action.
This network does not exist as static structure but rather as a way of interaction and communication between different agents in cultural field, which is marked by flexible exchange, alliance and support in (co)production. In a combination of face-to-face encounter and communication via internet shifting “points communes” on a map of culturescape are created, mingling positions and processes that were formerly divided (like artist/publisher/sociologist, actor/choreograph/researcher).
Not only in geographical respect but also in terms of roles and positions Europe’s map is reshaped, borders between areas are blurred and new systems of inclusion and exclusion come into being, depending on the radius of background, experience and facility.
The facts that more and more artists/agents are getting access to, participating in and navigating through Europe’s network-based culturescape has a strong impact on the role and fields of activities of artists as well as on structure and aesthetics of projects that are reflecting a transnational and transdisciplinar way of working and living in Europe. “Artists-in-residency”, co-productions in festivals and organizations, virtual offices that offer supporting structure for projects in different countries, the fusion of virtual and public space in architecture and urban movements are pointing towards a tendency of translocality. On the other hand a strong focus on community and local situation leads into a “grounded” vision of arts and culture.
Different from former movements towards “neighborhoods and streets” or (perfomative and other) experiments of the 60s and 70s this vision has its sources not in a (political) countermovement, not (only) in critic of institutions, but in an reflective process of questioning situations of work and living in different (artistic, urban, political) circuits and creating answers within these circuits.
My answer is also navigating between different circuits, the academic, artistic, sociological and geographical one, as I am using different formats to deal with the subject (the thesis, texts for magazines and presentations, lecture performances, hand drawn maps as visualization and informal guides), following the dynamics of encounters and spontaneous collaborations in the networks I am doing research about.
Rather than objectifying results I try to work with intuitive yet reflective answers to the situations I find during my stay in different countries. In this respect I am part of the research itself - and of the map that has to be incorrect, because it may change its focus and range with every interaction and distribution; of snapshots that have to be imaginary as they consists of “points specials” and “points communes” which have too many layers for being put into a two-dimensional format; of encyclopedias that have to be incomplete because they are dealing with an endless amount of ways how to enter cultural regions and use the dynamics of “grounded” projects within a translocal frame of action.
About an Ideal Library
The dream of an ideal library – a space that contains all information, inspiration and atmosphere you need for your own creation – must be a common one for many artists. Rather than offering just books the ideal library provides space for thoughts, comfort, visual and sensual attractions… like the ideal residency space it inspires you immediately to gather knowledge and concentrate on work, to reflect on what you have done so far and to contextualize your own creation within a broader framework. It turns your social and professional communication into hardware (books, visual material), your personal studio into a shared space (cabins for work, floor, tables) and your creation process into an architectonical metaphor. If you move through the ideal library and pass various sections your body is already performing the search for knowledge about itself, about its relationship to space and the others, to the world of arts and its common ground. From above e.g. from a gallery on the second floor you can see bodies moving through the ideal library which perform a delicate choreography of thought with intervals or stills: bent over a book, quiet in the sofa, in front of the window to the outside world that does not share the same rhythm. No need to say that the library’s order is not an alphabetic or thematic one but corresponding with your needs and movements. The library itself can move, change its order and appearance, share your thoughts, lead them further, give you the feeling that you are on the right way with what you are doing, that there are colleagues, writers, thinkers, performers who share your direction.
Your work, of course would have its own place in the library and being stored in a shelf with title and registration number on the cover it looks more consistent and continuous than you ever thought it to be. So far to the dream of an ideal library. Which – as many artists might know – does not (yet) exist. There are quite some attempts to set up archives, database, collections of books and visual material deriving from praxis and theory at accessible points both for artists and audience. These open archives might be small and rather hidden, yet they become more and more crucial for image and attraction of culture and art centres. “You should visit Tanzquartier! They have a marvellous library for dance in there!” Creation ex nihilo is a myth, the ideal library is meant as a counter image showing the artist in community and communication, and well aware of the (theoretical/historical) ground (s) he is moving on in search for new steps.
The first step leading towards the idea of an ideal library is to map the common ground it could be built onto. For contemporary performance arts that ground is multi-layered reaching the deeper levels of politics and philosophy while underlying the soft, slippery surface of “corporeality”. Neither a geological, biological nor and architectonical map would do to grasp the complex dimensions of work with living bodies. Though renaissance dreams of maps that cover every section of the world and human being within are tentative they would not be helpful for the investigation of a common ground for contemporary arts: after all, this ground will always be instable, shifting, relying a lot on self-perception and expression of individual artists and thinkers. Collages, notes, sketches for future maps must do meanwhile, covering the interspace between movement, body and thought as invisible border marks.
When Virginia Woolf’s alter ego was walking through London and Cambridge in search for Shakespeare’s sister and a Room of One’s Own her thoughts were taking the same way too, over passing (gender) obstacles, getting stuck, lost, crawling deeper into the damp insides/insights of body knowledge. By moving through her (re-imagined) every days world she was getting closer to a future dream manifested in a space open for both sexes and even a third one: a space of creation you can only enter by reflection and by risky jumps over the barriers of gendered society rules. It was by no way a fled towards “Innerlichkeit” , an inner utopia the writer was projecting herself into in literary dreams. It was her, who was not only her anymore, fighting for a common ground of arts one could mentally and physically enter after having left the gendered mantle at the entrance. There would be no section for “Women and Household” or “Women and Africa”. If V.W.s Room of One’s One would contain a library it would be for sure an ideal one with (body and other) knowledge open to be shared. The dream of an ideal library is dedicated to her room.
Your work, of course would have its own place in the library and being stored in a shelf with title and registration number on the cover it looks more consistent and continuous than you ever thought it to be. So far to the dream of an ideal library. Which – as many artists might know – does not (yet) exist. There are quite some attempts to set up archives, database, collections of books and visual material deriving from praxis and theory at accessible points both for artists and audience. These open archives might be small and rather hidden, yet they become more and more crucial for image and attraction of culture and art centres. “You should visit Tanzquartier! They have a marvellous library for dance in there!” Creation ex nihilo is a myth, the ideal library is meant as a counter image showing the artist in community and communication, and well aware of the (theoretical/historical) ground (s) he is moving on in search for new steps.
The first step leading towards the idea of an ideal library is to map the common ground it could be built onto. For contemporary performance arts that ground is multi-layered reaching the deeper levels of politics and philosophy while underlying the soft, slippery surface of “corporeality”. Neither a geological, biological nor and architectonical map would do to grasp the complex dimensions of work with living bodies. Though renaissance dreams of maps that cover every section of the world and human being within are tentative they would not be helpful for the investigation of a common ground for contemporary arts: after all, this ground will always be instable, shifting, relying a lot on self-perception and expression of individual artists and thinkers. Collages, notes, sketches for future maps must do meanwhile, covering the interspace between movement, body and thought as invisible border marks.
When Virginia Woolf’s alter ego was walking through London and Cambridge in search for Shakespeare’s sister and a Room of One’s Own her thoughts were taking the same way too, over passing (gender) obstacles, getting stuck, lost, crawling deeper into the damp insides/insights of body knowledge. By moving through her (re-imagined) every days world she was getting closer to a future dream manifested in a space open for both sexes and even a third one: a space of creation you can only enter by reflection and by risky jumps over the barriers of gendered society rules. It was by no way a fled towards “Innerlichkeit” , an inner utopia the writer was projecting herself into in literary dreams. It was her, who was not only her anymore, fighting for a common ground of arts one could mentally and physically enter after having left the gendered mantle at the entrance. There would be no section for “Women and Household” or “Women and Africa”. If V.W.s Room of One’s One would contain a library it would be for sure an ideal one with (body and other) knowledge open to be shared. The dream of an ideal library is dedicated to her room.
On Incorrect Maps
[...] A friend once asked me where I was in my maps.Would be easy to say: I stay outside, it is only my subjective gaze on European networks and connections. But by following physically the nonlinear logic of these hints, from one billboard, one town to another, getting new numbers on the phone, returning again, you cannot be sure is it you creating this map by travelling and drawing or are you simply the dot of ink leaving traces while moving through it.
As the description of your own body cannot be distinguished from your bodily sensation, notes of the journey are automatically body notes with landscapes being absorbed into your body and finally turned into the body of a map. Maps couldn’t come into being without physical movement and time, though in the end they do not depict neither movement nor time. Actually they are hiding much more than what they are showing.
Also this map does not depict borderlines, only distances, though I was constantly crossing borders – one time at the Swiss border I had to get out all the stuff of my rucksack to produce it to the officer who was, after two hours of going through nuns‘ underwear and childrens‘ teddy bears, already too tired to realize that I was the bad guy in the bus, smuggling handdrawn maps that deleted completely the well-controlled borderlines of his home country. After this two hour check I was quite dissapointed: My maps seemed not to have any revolutionary potential at all.
I came to understand this map as a correction: All names of people, projects, culture centres, festivals have the same size, there are no hierarchies between centre and peripherics, though it was necessary for drawing it to start with an invisible centre from where the first paths could start and in consequence others would follow. At the end the map was covered by invisible yet influencial centres, the radius of paths starting from there is marking different regions in a multiple perspective.
Still the map does not say how often and in which way these paths are used. Some artists might even use even ships amd river passages to be more flexible in where they what to enter new regions - a way of transport that wouldn’t work so easy in real geographics of Europe.
[...]
If people are travelling through Europe with their work they are not necessarily leaving their ground. To touch the ground, you do not have to be grounded, you do not have to touch the pavement even, if your surroundings supply enough floor, artistic or artificial one. Andre Lepecki explains the term „grounded“ by describing an artist crawling up the avenue in superman’s costume, touching the pavement literally with every move. He himself is standing on a wooden stage in a theatre in Gent, in front of an audience of dance and theatre people, students and choreographers.
If you want to be grounded I guess you have to step out of this theatre, not only expand your range of action in culturescape because in the world this „map“ depicts there is no „real outside“.
„Outside and real“ – again these dangerous words, describing the nonexisting yet influencial centre from which the photographic image starts and where it points to. A blind spot so to say. The spot where my snapshots lead to, in addition to the map that has no geographical sites or out-sides. But as you are not able to see a blind spot – it is exactly the area taken out of the radius of perception – there would be no use in showing „real“ snapshots. So what to do?
At this point (between Madrid and the border of Portugal geographically spoken) I decided to leave behind my camera and only take imaginative snapshots. Later on friends called me crazy when hearing that I had travelled to all these places, Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, Barcelone, Paris, Geneva, Vilnius, Riga, Talinn, Helsinki and also places they have never heard of as Palanga, Montemor-o-Novo, Inari, Pärnu, Kaunas, Liepaja, Pyhäjärvi without taking any photos. I mentioned a rather practical reason: Imaginative snapshots are easier to carry. In fact I believe in slides without image or spoken words without recording more than in what is visible and proofable, because of their moment of appearence – their presence, in the centre always a blind spot, as presence itself cannot be grasped - and the search for traces afterwards, on the blank screen and in the auditorium.
Let’s take a look (turn)
As the description of your own body cannot be distinguished from your bodily sensation, notes of the journey are automatically body notes with landscapes being absorbed into your body and finally turned into the body of a map. Maps couldn’t come into being without physical movement and time, though in the end they do not depict neither movement nor time. Actually they are hiding much more than what they are showing.
Also this map does not depict borderlines, only distances, though I was constantly crossing borders – one time at the Swiss border I had to get out all the stuff of my rucksack to produce it to the officer who was, after two hours of going through nuns‘ underwear and childrens‘ teddy bears, already too tired to realize that I was the bad guy in the bus, smuggling handdrawn maps that deleted completely the well-controlled borderlines of his home country. After this two hour check I was quite dissapointed: My maps seemed not to have any revolutionary potential at all.
I came to understand this map as a correction: All names of people, projects, culture centres, festivals have the same size, there are no hierarchies between centre and peripherics, though it was necessary for drawing it to start with an invisible centre from where the first paths could start and in consequence others would follow. At the end the map was covered by invisible yet influencial centres, the radius of paths starting from there is marking different regions in a multiple perspective.
Still the map does not say how often and in which way these paths are used. Some artists might even use even ships amd river passages to be more flexible in where they what to enter new regions - a way of transport that wouldn’t work so easy in real geographics of Europe.
[...]
If people are travelling through Europe with their work they are not necessarily leaving their ground. To touch the ground, you do not have to be grounded, you do not have to touch the pavement even, if your surroundings supply enough floor, artistic or artificial one. Andre Lepecki explains the term „grounded“ by describing an artist crawling up the avenue in superman’s costume, touching the pavement literally with every move. He himself is standing on a wooden stage in a theatre in Gent, in front of an audience of dance and theatre people, students and choreographers.
If you want to be grounded I guess you have to step out of this theatre, not only expand your range of action in culturescape because in the world this „map“ depicts there is no „real outside“.
„Outside and real“ – again these dangerous words, describing the nonexisting yet influencial centre from which the photographic image starts and where it points to. A blind spot so to say. The spot where my snapshots lead to, in addition to the map that has no geographical sites or out-sides. But as you are not able to see a blind spot – it is exactly the area taken out of the radius of perception – there would be no use in showing „real“ snapshots. So what to do?
At this point (between Madrid and the border of Portugal geographically spoken) I decided to leave behind my camera and only take imaginative snapshots. Later on friends called me crazy when hearing that I had travelled to all these places, Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, Barcelone, Paris, Geneva, Vilnius, Riga, Talinn, Helsinki and also places they have never heard of as Palanga, Montemor-o-Novo, Inari, Pärnu, Kaunas, Liepaja, Pyhäjärvi without taking any photos. I mentioned a rather practical reason: Imaginative snapshots are easier to carry. In fact I believe in slides without image or spoken words without recording more than in what is visible and proofable, because of their moment of appearence – their presence, in the centre always a blind spot, as presence itself cannot be grasped - and the search for traces afterwards, on the blank screen and in the auditorium.
Let’s take a look (turn)
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