T H E D A R K
P R E C U R S O R
International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research
DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015
O P E N - A C C E S S R I C H - M E D I A P R O C E E D I N G S
Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici
T H E D A R K
P R E C U R S O R
International Conference on Deleuze and Artistic Research
DARE 2015 | Orpheus Institute | Ghent | Belgium | 9-11 November 2015
O P E N - A C C E S S R I C H - M E D I A P R O C E E D I N G S
Edited by Paulo de Assis and Paolo Giudici
Ana Paula de Campos / Anna Paula Silva Gouveia / Marlyvan Moraes de Alencar
State University of Campinas and Anhembi Morumbi University, BR
State University of Campinas, BR
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, BR
Repeat, Please: An Experience of Creation
Day 2, 10 November, Orpheus Auditorium, 10:00–10:30
In this presentation, we outline a creative experiment organised by the Ornata group and carried out during the course “The Body, Memory and Becoming: Encounters and Vestiges of Art Jewellery” by art students of the Institute of Arts, State University of Campinas. Ornata is a group of teachers and researchers that runs courses and workshops for art students and employs a teaching methodology that seeks to deconstruct preconceived meanings of jewellery. By drawing attention to its symbolic potentiality, as a sign of power associated with the body, it posits jewellery as a potent medium for artistic creation, an individual and social object able to mediate or interrogate relationships of desire, power, and memory.
The methodology developed by Ornata is informed by Deleuze and Guattari; in the course, the guiding principles were the theorists’ concepts of “becoming” and “difference and repetition” and the relationship of these concepts to memory. The goal was to create an object in which the concept of “Becoming” is manifested, materialised, and produced through the body and for the body. We started from the notion of duration, in which being is conceived as an overlap, as a continuous construction in which past and present contract. As a strategy, we suggested to the students a procedure to produce something so that the body could evoke and/or invoke the concepts of becoming, and difference and repetition. We decided to highlight how time could be made tangible through the body by using the voice. We asked the students to repeat poems or extracts for ten consecutive days and record them. Through this procedure, the transformed speech gives rise to a word that would in turn be translated into an object.
The stages of the exercise were to select poems or extracts from Ana Cristina Cesar (a Brazilian poet) on the basis of a possible relationship found by the teacher between the poem and the student who recites it. Students were instructed to repeat these poems for ten consecutive days, recited at least twice a day. The reading should be governed by the way the text resonates with the student and not by its interpretation. Only the recording of the voice interests us, and the recordings must be posted on the group’s Facebook page every day.
After ten days, we collectively listened to the recordings—only the first and last—to compare the transformations over time and we compiled keywords that expressed the difference in utterance between each student’s first and last recording. The results were discussed among the group and two verbs that reflected the change in utterance (conjugated in the present continuous) were suggested, for example, “swallowing.” The students were asked to use the concept of translation (explored in previous exercises) to make an object for the body related to the verbs identified in the process, but not by making a representation. The guidelines for developing the piece were to think where in the body the object would be placed and what materials would better translate this action.
The objects presented showed unusual connections afforded by the choice of materials and the way they were worked. The relationship between the objects and the body was also unexpected. Thus, the unusual combination of different artistic and material languages, together with the methodological approach described above, set in motion a creative situation that contributed to foster imagination and to stimulate creation.
Ana Paula de Campos received her PhD in arts at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in 2011. Currently she teaches at Anhembi Morumbi University—SP, Brazil. Generally her research focuses on issues related to jewellery—as a symbolic social product—and their interfaces with art, with design, and, more recently, with philosophy. She is also affiliated as a visitor-teacher in the Post-Graduation Program in Arts from Arts Institute (Unicamp), which develops research on art-jewellery and creative processes. She has published articles on design and art, as well as on materials and education. In addition, she develops special projects and organises events and exhibitions.
Email: dcampos.anapaula@gmail.com
Anna Paula Silva Gouveia architect (1986) and PhD (1998) in architecture and urbanism at the University of São Paulo—FAU USP. She is a research professor at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in undergraduate courses in visual arts and architecture and was Vice Dean of the Arts Institute of UNICAMP, management 2011–2015. She has experience in architecture, visual arts, and industrial design, with emphasis in graphic design and visual communication, was a board member of SBDI—Brazilian Society of Information Design—management 2007/2008 and 2009/2010, is a member of the editorial board of the Journal Infodesign, and is a member of the scientific committee of the journals Educação Gráfica—UNESP Bauru, Pitágoras 500—Unicamp, and Oculum Ensaios.
Email: annagouveia@iar.unicamp.br
Marlyvan Moraes de Alencar, holds a PhD in anthropology from Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUCSP—2008) with a thesis, “Metropolis Images in Brazilian Cinema,” whose objective was to discuss how big cities were appropriated by young filmmakers. The study was based on film theory and urban anthropology. She also holds a master’s in communication and semiotics (PUCSP—2001), which featured a dissertation on the semiotic relationship between television and film, and a degree in social communication at the Federal University of Ceará—UFC (1995), and is a specialist in theories of image. Currently she teaches multimedia and advertising courses at the Catholic University of São Paulo, with research on “Image and the Design Digital.”
Email: marlialencar19@gmail.com