My presentation focused on a participatory, socially engaged art experiment entitled ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ which was part of my research on the embodiment of time/space informed by Butoh notation[1]. In KYTTAΡΟ, I was aiming to inquire into participants’ ability to form a self-governed system that floats in the space, borrowing its structure from the minimalist configuration of a cell consisting of a nucleus and its membrane. The focus of my research is on the participants’ experience. They were invited to embody a given score alternating between being the nucleus and the membrane of the cell.
The duration of the event was approximately 30 minutes and was open to all symposium participants. Some of them stepped into the experiment while others observed from outside. The ideal location for this experiment would have been outdoors (e.g. in a park, a yard or a public square). Since the weather was not favorable, it took place in an indoor dance studio at Fontys. The performative experiment was followed by a 40-minute feedback session. It is important to note that because of the ever-changing location of the cell in motion, even the observers had to relocate themselves to allow enough space for the cell to move freely. Hence, in a way, the observers were affected and indirectly took part in KYTTAΡΟ because they had to facilitate the unpredictable movement of the participants in the space.
During the experiment the participants had been asked not to use verbal communication while performing but to seek alternative embodied ways of connecting to each other. The incitement of non-verbal communication is related to Butoh as a pre-reflective form of dance that transcends rationality. Hence it favors a pre-societal mode of being that helps to bring to the surface reactions that stem from the subconscious. While during the performative experiment there was no verbal communication, the group discussion that followed was meant to give voice to the participants in order to express their own extra-ordinary experience of ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ.
ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ consisted of a simple set of instructions leading to a peripatetic group action aiming to address our pre-reflective, sensory being in-the-world as the participants had to stay alert and instantly respond to the stimuli arising from group action by changing their level, speed, direction, and rhythm. Participants were directly engaged in the action as co-creators, whereas my role was that of the initiator of a collective experiment. I invited them to step into this performative experiment with an inquisitive spirit and playfulness, aiming to explore listening to one another and synergically coexisting within a specific framework.
The props used in KYTTAΡO were a number of textile Covid-19 masks distributed to the participants prior to the experiment and a large hula hoop. ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ was formed by its nucleus (the performer), the cell membrane (the participants) and the cytoplasm (the space between the performer and the cell membrane). I was the first performer in the role of the nucleus. The role of the nucleus was interchangeable and was subsequently taken on by another participant who in turn stepped into the hula hoop. Each time, the performer of the nucleus used a black textile mask for Covid-19 to blindfold themselves before entering into the hula hoop void. The hula hoop was held loosely in the hands of the nucleus performer who waited to be guided by the participants forming the cell membrane. The membrane performers circled the nucleus and positioned themselves around the hula hoop, as they maintained gentle but constant contact with it. Their task was to stay in tune with each other as they formed a living system that moved in space like a flock. The membrane’s role was to direct the cell’s movement by sensing the ‘needs’ of the nucleus.
The membrane participants had to take care to 'protect' the nucleus by directing it safely with their whole bodies while paying attention not to cause any harm to the blindfolded performer. They had to agree silently and instantly with each other as to the direction, speed and intensity of the movement applied to the hula hoop without verbal communication. At the same time, they also had to allow enough space between their bodies and the nucleus’s body for the cytoplasm to 'flow'. Sometime later, I (the first nucleus) took off the mask and stepped out of the hula hoop. The ‘floor was now open’ for another performer to step inside the hula hoop and become its new nucleus. This was repeated until as many participants as possible had experienced the nucleus role.
The entire cell went through a constant process of actively protecting its structure by reshaping its form as it moved around the given space. In fact, the space of the indoor studio and the corridor presented some physical ‘obstacles’. However, this performative experiment is more challenging when performed outdoors because of unpredictable factors that can intervene in the process, such as ground irregularities and the non-linear trajectory of a natural site (see Figure 2, ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ at the 2nd Lycabettus Festival in Athens).
[1] https://avarts.ionio.gr/en/department/people/665-kolliopoulou/ Butoh-notation (Butoh-fu) is an articulation of qualia (image-worlds) delivered by Tatsumi Hijikata via visual (collage) and poetic language. My research deploys Butoh-fu as prompts for enabling time/space-scapes with a focus into the sensorial activation of the participants.
I situate ΚΥΤΤΑΡO under the umbrella of artistic works and research that make socially engaged, imaginary propositions. My vision is of an art that can offer a platform to try out alternative ways of being in society, bringing our attention to current modes of practice that might be problematic or callous. There is a deep connection between my practice and the concept of ‘Happenings’ coined by Allan Kaprow in the 1960s.
'The movement of Happenings arose in the same historical period with Butoh and Gutai. They have often been characterized as a protest towards the Second World War, an attempt to reconnect to basic and primal aspects to life instead of bearing to a product and consumerism-oriented society.'[5]
The research questions that KΥΤΤΑΡΟ asks us are: how can an ephemeral group move together without an assigned direction or the presence of a leader? What kinds of possibilities and disorders may arise when we are faced with the challenge of staying together, tuning in as a cell? How do we respond to unpredictable factors while staying connected?
The research unfolded in dialogue with the practice of Brazilian Performance artist Lygia Clark[6] and her series 'The Collective Body’ (Corpo Coletivo)[6]. In the later stages of her artistic career, Clark worked with small or bigger groups on a series of propositions entitled Arquiteturas biologicas (Biologic architecture) often using a simple material or everyday objects to activate a physical net of interrelations between the participants/co- creators’ bodies and the connecting source.[7]
What is of interest here is the fact that by handling concrete everyday objects, a net of invisible interrelations among people is brought to life and evolves. Here, the props (Covid-19 masks, the hula hoop) frame a human activity and act as enabling and empowering agents that give birth to new modalities of bondage. Hence, they are not deployed as mere tools, but are recognized as valuable entities in a co-authored creative environment.
The shape of the hula hoop, its weight and texture gives information about the membrane’s movement and thus the object becomes another ‘participant’ in the cell. In her book Vibrant Matter, Bennett (2010) shifts her attention from the human experience of things to things themselves, suggesting a new framework, a political ecology of care that acknowledges the participation of non-human agents in the ways events emerge and unfold. Here, the hula hoop’s distinct agency has to some degree affected the performative experiment.
[6] Lygia Clark and her ‘Abandonment’ in MOMA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ4TXDlUwQc
[7] Clark, L., (1998) The Collective Body. In: M.J. Borja-Villel, N. Enguita-Mayo, and L. Figueiredo, eds., Lygia Clark. Barcelona: Fundaciò Antoni Tàpies, pp. 306.
The experiment offers an embodied experience of complex social phenomena happening in western societies, which need to be re-examined and reconsidered from a new point of view. As we live through a post-lockdown era, we need to re-establish methods of interconnectivity and re-conquer with tenderness our balancing ability on the thin line between the individual and the group. The aim of KYTTAΡΟ is to offer its participants the chance to imagine an extra-ordinary moving cell and to make its movements transpire harmonically.
Every cell is a vibrant living organism which continuously expands and contracts, while it shapes and is shaped by its surroundings at the same time. KYTTAΡO is an orchestrated challenge to evoke and maintain our internal cohesion, while we remain porous to an ever-changing environment.
In its actuation at the Connective Symposium, KYTTAΡΟ encountered a variety of reactions from the participants. These included great enthusiasm and curiosity to participate, moderate willingness to engage and reluctance to join in. The discussion that followed the experiment was an effective way to listen to the voices of the participants and gain a deeper understanding from the feedback received.
KYTTAΡΟ did not have the intention of being sanitized from real world conditions, where chaos reigns as a multiplicity of unpredictable factors comes into play when we make plans to achieve a goal. Its research design proposed an experiment that entailed a reasonable amount of risk taking, to trigger truthful reactions from the participants. Post-experiment reflections have led to the conclusion that what could be improved is the communication of the instructions by openly inviting the participants to decide whether to join in a creative process of co-authorship of anti-hierarchical values. Some participants raised the objection that there was no clear articulation of the fact that they were given the choice of whether to join the activity or not. This could be resolved by clearly stating that their participation is voluntary.
Some expressed surprise and anxiety about the fact that the structure of the performative experiment allowed for such a great degree of uncertainty and unpredictability, which was uncomfortable for some. This was a conscious choice incorporated into the research design, that aimed to preserve the promptness and timeliness of the experiment and to offer space/time to the participants to become proactive in it.
The overall experience of presenting KYTTAΡΟ at the Connective Symposium was positive. This is an ongoing experiment that gets enriched by a diversity of participants and changing contexts. For this reason, it remains a rich field of discovery, full of potential in the context of socially engaged artistic research.
Flyer of the participatory artwork ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ/ THE CELL performed at 2nd Lycabetus Festival, March 2021.
A fundamental facet of the research design of ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ is that the roles of the nucleus and the membrane are not predetermined. Rather, it is important that these roles are exchanged in a smooth and spontaneous manner so that everyone is given a chance to experience both roles. This means that in practice the participants must silently collaborate and find an instinctive way of “knowing” who is doing what, how and when, so that ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ remains ‘alive’ and vibrant [2] at all times. As Jane Bennett notes, even the material world has its own agency, and we are not living in an anthropocentric universe. The interchangeable aspect of the KYTTAΡΟ research design is meant to promote anti-hierarchical [3] ideals in experiencing society. The formation and the process of the cell is used as a metaphor in a sociocultural context. A cell is not a fixed entity but rather an ongoing process vulnerable and subject to its environment. Its processual nature resonates with the ontological principles of Butoh. Butoh always refers to situations which unfold in time/space and thus co-shape it. The aim has come to inquire into the ways in which we relate to each other under a set of rules that require instant cohesion, collaboration and deep listening. It is the cell membrane that decides the orientation of its nucleus through an invisible ongoing reassessment process.
The structure of KYTTAΡΟ subverts the unquestionable role of sovereign entities that rule society by imposing their will. ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ is intended to poetically symbolize and suggest another possibility for contemporary socities to exist politically in more equal and democratic ways. ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ is a symbolic arena that offers conditions to memebers of a society (represented by the membrane) to find out how they might act in self-organization by adopting a truthful and non-contrived way of listening to each other. This experiment required the active presence of the participants, and for this reason, it was at times challenging, as there was a moderate level of risk of being hurt involved in the process. ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ is a system that can only emerge out of trust: the nucleus places themself in a vulnerable position by being blindfolded and must trust the cell membrane to be transported safely in an unknown direction.
ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ is also about the direct embodiment of the concept ‘Body without Organs’ (BwO) coined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their book ‘‘Anti-Oedipus’' [4]. What is of interest in the BwO concept as applied in KYTTAΡΟ is the absence of a linear hierarchy and the emergence of open-ended potentialities arising within a group while being constantly in movement.
ΚΥΤΤΑΡΟ wishes to be an empowering experience that offers participants the opportunity to embody and invent changes that might bring us closer to democracy. I believe this is a pressing necessity for contemporary societies, to which I attempt to respond in a poetic way: the urge behind this work is the exploration of conditions that would enable democracy to flourish.
[2] Bennett, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press.
[3] Fuller, Z. (2014). Seeds of an anti-hierarchic ideal: Summer training at Body Weather Farm. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 5 (2), 197-203.
[4] Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2004) Anti-Oedipus. London: Continuum.
When I first saw the call for proposals for the Connective Symposium, I felt that this was an interesting way of bringing together experts, scholars and artist-researchers in socially engaged art and community art to share their own methodologies and practices. From my perspective, artistic practice is a concept which is difficult to express in words. When artistic practice is coupled with human activity and behavior, whether on a societal scale or in a smaller community, the combination becomes quite tortuous to grasp. For this reason, I believe that the symposium set quite an ambitious goal. Despite the complexity of the topic, the symposium tackled some delicate and controversial topics. In my opinion, this was made possible by its hybrid format which embraced workshop-based presentations, performances and academic lectures.
