232 research outputs found
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Judo as a devising practice: Yves Klein, La Mancha and Chile
Get PDFThis article describes the creation process of Arquitectura del Aire (Aerial Architecture) devised by La Mancha Theatre Company, Chile, a company I co-founded. The point of departure was the ‘Painting’ exercise initiated at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris and continued in La Mancha Escuela Internacional del Gesto y la Imagen (La Mancha International School of Image and Gesture). The aim of this project was to explore the exercise’s potential for developing a theatre production, inspired by the work of French artist Yves Klein (1928–1962). What was unanticipated, was the intimacy and intricacy with which Klein’s fascination and expertise in judo infused the work. A devoted practitioner of judo, Klein became a fourth dan judoka in the early 1950s, a level that no other French person had achieved at that time. Training with a judo sensei (teacher) for this project, the actor-devisors, including me, experienced a rigorous system of preparation: ukemi (falling safely), kuzushi (breaking the opponent’s balance), throws, counter-throws, grappling techniques, falls, and recovery. Judo’s principles of giving way, maximum efficiency and mutual respect became the essential cornerstones of our approach. In this production, judo shaped both the process and outcome, in effect as co-creator, prompting the question: what performer training practices might engender an imagining disposition for attending to the creative possibilities, movements and dynamics of martial arts as a material devising practice
‘Limits not frontiers: surrealist resistance to nationalism, patriotism, and militarism’
No full textThis chapter, a contribution to a critical survey of the key ideas of the international surrealist movement, looks at the movement’s attitude to inter-connected questions of nation and national identity on the one hand, and national military attitudes and practices on the other. While maintaining a critical perspective on contemporary history and politics, the French surrealist group of the 1920s, 1930s and beyond were resolute in their rejection of national identity as part of their wider critique of western values and concepts – for example, promoting German philosophy and literature in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. With many in the French surrealist group seeing active service in First and Second World Wars, and the lives and livelihoods of all surrealists having been adversely impacted by international conflict, surrealism opposed all enemies of liberty, especially totalitarian positions, but also promoted a vigorous anti-militaristic ethic explored in key critical texts and collaborative statements
Une explosion lente: le Carnet de Paul Paon
No full textPaul Paon (Paul Păun / Zaharia, 1915-1994) was a key member of the short-lived but significant Bucharest surrealist group during the 1940s; he continued his activities as an artist, writer and theorist, and his networked connections to surrealist and other creative circles, in Bucharest and Tel Aviv from the 1950s to the 1990s. This first and definitive monograph on the artist is the catalogue for the first major survey exhibition of his work at Galerie Métamorphoses, Paris, summer 2022. The essay Une explosion lente: le Carnet de Paul Paon’ looks at a little-known but significant element of Paon’s thought, a previously unpublished notebook containing his critical and philosophical perspectives on art theory and practice, a work that allows the reader to locate Paon’s distinctive thought and practice within his wider international contexts
Exploring Bateson’s Syllogism in Grass in Systemic Design
No full textGregory Bateson’s syllogism in grass expresses a form of abductive reasoning which can be used to generate and discuss metaphors, particularly in living systems and humans’ interrelations with them. This paper tentatively explores the possibilities of the syllogism in grass in a systemic design context as a creative method of provocation and reframing
Efter København
No full textEfter København is an eco-dystopian ~200 page graphic novel, based on the novel 'After London' by Richard Jefferies (1884) and the lectures 'The Storm-cloud of the 19th. Century' by John Ruskin (1885). This story of unrequited love depicts the Danish capital's architecture in the same way plants are represented in botanical drawings, where all the staged of the plants lifecycle are shown in a single drawing
Editorial: Valuing the qualitative in design and data
No full textThe DRS 2022 track ‘Valuing the Qualitative in Design and Data’ features eleven accepted papers on topics including visualisation and physicalisation of qualitative data, the use of materials in this context, practical applications in design
and education, and applications in personal informatics. In this editorial, the track chairs introduce the track, and the reasoning behind it, together with a short introduction to the papers
Designing qualitative interfaces: Experiences from studio education
No full textInteraction designers tend to use quantification as a default to present information and a way to enable interactions with technologies. There is a notion that quantification is valued to be the most actionable and legitimate form of presentation, while our actual experiences of the world are largely qualitative. But can we design ‘qualitative interfaces’? What would they be like? In this paper, we explore insights and experiences from four years of applying the notion of qualitative interfaces in
interaction design student projects in two countries. We introduce, review, and compare projects across different application areas ranging from running training schemes to electricity use, and discuss questions around the relationships between the underlying phenomena and links to the ways in which they are displayed or represented, around the variety of ways in which students arrived at their designs, and suggest considerations for others interested in this kind of approach
Jeremy Butler: In-Between Everywhere’
No full textContemporary British artist Jeremy Butler’s sculptural practice engages questions of ecology, landscape and material culture through wall-mounted reliefs comprising miniaturised edgeland landscapes. This first essay on Butler’s work considers critical contexts such as materiality, liminal spaces and eco-catastrophe as an introduction to his practice
whiteness
No full textThis “illuminated” video essay works through the juxtaposition of textual and audiovisual material to interrogate the cultural and philosophical whiteness of bodies and institutions. It demonstrates a reciprocal and circular relationship between textuality and audiovisuality insofar as the documented practice responds to a textual object — a physical copy of Giorgio Agamben’s book The Open: Man and Animal — while another layer of critical poetic text interrupts, critiques, analyzes, and illuminates the video. Agamben’s treatment of Heidegger is taken as a reference point to deconstruct the racialized human/animal binary, while the productively ambiguous perspective on whiteness found in contemporary Black studies and critical race theory is invoked as a possible alternative. At the same time, the tactile and sensory qualities of the documented practice — hovering between song and speech, gesture and action — emphasize the embodied, material, and affective dimensions of both whiteness and our attempts to escape it. The video asks: Can the white body be decolonized without killing it? Its multimedial form implies that answers to such a question can only be found through forms of thought that displace the tyranny of writing, or logocentrism, as is also suggested by Fred Moten in the video’s closing epigraph