Not being is, this not that.
Report from a presentation at artistic research forum 14.10.2020.
During my final project presentation as a research fellow at ARF 14.10.2020 there was an ongoing pandemic. The forum was conducted digitally, and all presentations where done via video conferencing. This was challenging but also afforded some unique possibilities.
I have usually approached presentations at the Artistic Research Forums as performances, and this time was no different. I decided to present a new figure and then have a short performance with accompanying sound work, followed by a section where I interviewed the figure. This last idea owes to the podcast Everything is Alive1 by host and creator Ian Chillaq in which he interviews everyday inanimate objects by having them voiced by actors, the differences being that in my presentation the physical object interviewed was one of a kind, visible over a video link to the audience, and animated.
For the presentation, I had written a script. I went for a light, and what I thought would be a somewhat humorous approach. The figure spoke with a jovial tone in a manner one might expect from a person, without any of its otherness colouring the dialogue. The otherness was entirely situational; the act of talking to a physical object rather than a person, and having that object being able to respond.
In preparation for the presentation, we had two short rehearsals, and I decided to use one to improvise a conversation with the performer, (Alwynne Pritchard), in which we would simply have a conversation without me indicating to her what mode I had intended for the voice of the figure. To see what might come up. Alwynne Pritchard elected to bring in a much more performative interpretation of what the voice of the object should be, and what it would say. She would draw out words, synchronize them to the physical movements of the figure, and express unusual, (from my human perspective), sentiments. Her instinct was to be inspired by the otherness of the figure in what they would say and how they would say it.
My interpretation of what the personality of the figure could be was very different,(and much more conventional in terms of human likeness,) from Alwynne's. The most apparent reason for this is that the text for the second script was developed from an actual conversation. For the two of us the unusual nature of the task; to give voice to a physical object, prompted us to form a relation to the figure and ascribe a personality and manner of being to the figure as if it were a human. The act of humanizing the object became explicit because the task at hand was to humanize the object and from there give voice to this humanized version of it.
As humans we share the ability to humanize the figure. But as seen in mine and Alwynnes very different interpretations of what the voice of this figure should be, the qualities drawn from that humanization depends on the person doing the humanizing. The figure appears as a completely different personality depending on who voices them.
As people, we share the ability to experience a narrative featuring the figure and its movements, without the content of the individually experienced/generated stories being the same.2 There is potential for imaginative perception, and the possibility to prompt narrative imagination from a non-symbolic starting point. When Alwynne and I were preparing for the presentation, we were assigning words and story to the figure for a specific purpose(the presentation) and elected to form our respective narratives accordingly. However, I have no reason to believe that a similar process, allbeit internal, would not be possible for an audience member and that such evocation can be part of their experience of this figure. It also seems to be an example of a realization of a possibility that I had hoped for, that non-representational figures; figures that do not have a strong indexical placement in the consciousness of the human observer allows engagement from the observer openly and imaginatively.
Not being is this, not that.
Script.
(Figure moves in a choreographed sequence with a composed audio accompaniment).
(During movement sequence(dreamlike)):
FIGURE:
Hi..
I may appear as an object to you, but look, look again consider the butterfly .?
Consider the dragonfly, or, not.
I'm, I'm, what's the word, oblivious to your opinion as to my beingness.
I, I have a busy schedule according to my plans.
This, this and then this, see *sigh* .
Well you know what they say about sentience do you? And cognition, trick mission. My action, maybe my thoughts, who knows. ha ha ha .
See me, it's really too much, overtask this.
(End of movement sequence.)
(figure moving slowly – humming to itself.)
THOROLF:
what's your name?
(figure stops for a moment.)
FIGURE:
Oh, Do I need a name?
T: That's a good question, do you feel the lack of a name?
F: Ah well I guess I've heard of beings … , who believe that you only call the world into being by naming it.
T: That's interesting.
F: And if that's the case I definitely need one, and I like that idea. I think it's very beautiful.
I feel that I can be called into existence in another way, and I can also define myself according to something other than a name.
I'm not sure what that is yet, maybe it could be a sound, but I guess the sound is a name too.
I like the idea of… I prefer the idea of not having a sound with a history attached to it. Because I don't really know what I'm going to be yet, where I'm going to go, and maybe having sound without history will give me freedom to go to what, and where I want.
But I'm not sure that really exists.
But as far as I know I don't really have a name.
T: You say you can be without a name, how long have you been? How long have you existed?
F: I mean, I think time is something I have a very different perception of from you, so I wouldn't know how to measure that, I'm not sure how to express my measurement of it in terms you would understand .
T: Do you feel you understand me as a different type of being?
I know about you, but I don't think I understand you. I have a lot of information
T: How did you get that information?
F: I think it comes with my.. my being.
T: So you just know?
F: Yeah, I come with a lot of information.
T: So you don't know what you're going to be, but do you have a sense of why you are?
F: Ah no I've never thought about why either. Um, again I have a lot of information about the question why, and how it has been asked and, why it has been asked, why the why.
But I have never thought about it with respect to myself. I don't know if that makes sense, if it makes sense for me to ask that question.
T: Yeah … It seems like we can understand each other on some level but you also seem very different, so I can't quite understand where you came from or why you're here in this way, what you want. It's strange..
F: Yeah um, it hadn't occurred to me that that wasn't something that all share with one another, that common inability of understanding. Do you feel that you should be able to understand me?
T: I think maybe not I mean I guess that's typical of my kind; humankind, we seem to have a desire for understanding, but that doesn't mean it's necessary or even desirable, I guess.
I was wondering, what is the first thing you can remember?
As I said to you before I can experience time linearly when I'm talking in sentences to you, but it is a construct or thing I do in order to communicate with you, but I don't have a sense of linear time in my experience of memory. My memory doesn't exist as a linear thing, so I can't answer that question.
T: You move quite a bit, and for us people when we move, the movement has a start, it has a beginning and then it ends. And during the movement, time has passed. So feeling the passage of time is very integral to movement for us. Is it not like that for you?
F: Um, I think perhaps I have a kind of incremental memory that I can experience something as being linear as I'm doing it, but once I've done it, it doesn't exist in my memory in that way.
T: Ahh I see
Yeah, so I don't have a sense of linearity in my memory.
T: So, your relationship to time, changes from doing something in time and then thinking about doing something in time. that's difference for you?
F: Yes. I can remember the beginning of this conversation more or less because I'm involved in it and it's a single gesture for me, although I'm already beginning to shift things over from a linear memory into my other memory as this process is extending.
T: And maybe it's a problem with the language also, because human language is always very temporal at least English is in the way it's structured, past and present tense and so forth
F: Yes, and I've heard also, I've heard that you human beings, I think it's true for a lot of animals, have eyes on the front of their fronts. And they see very much in front of them, and they move towards what they see.
So, I think that also the movement is very determined by the Physiology, I think that's linked to the language isn't it? And also, this experience of time. This language, human language, having many expressions relating space to time like putting something behind you, or things that connect emotions and language, how you see and how you experience the world physically. And as you can see, and as you can tell my physiognomy is very different, so I don't have the same connexions between language and body and time.
T: You have some colleagues too, other figures, If I can call you a figure?
F: I guess it makes sense for you to call me a figure in your terms, I guess, or something a bit like that.
T: Have you met the others? what do you think about them?
F: I wouldn't call them colleagues I would call them friends.
T: Yeah, yes nice.
F: I haven't met them, but I know about them, and from what I know, they are what I think you would call friends, my friends.
T: From my knowledge, I mean, it's hard for me to think about you outside of the purpose I feel you have in the human world..
F: Oh.. can I ask you a question then?
T: Yes.
F: What purpose do I have in your world?
T: Well .. Ah that's a good question,… I think uuuhhm in the human world we have something called art you know. Have you heard about this?
F: Yes.
T: You were intended to be an artwork, if you like, something that creates the experience of art for people. And that's the same for your colleagues, your friends.
But I think of you as a special type of artwork because you can move, you were built to move, that's very important for me, for my experience of you as an artwork. It does a lot to how you are in the world and in relation to other things.
As an art work you inhabit quite a special place in culture because a lot of the things that humans build, or construct and do, they have all sorts of goals, often to do with materials. To create food, to create shelter, to take care of our needs, provide transportations…
Generally, many complicated systems that humans create.
But art is a little bit special like that because it doesn't relate to the generation of material, security or sustenance. Because you know us humans need to eat, we need food, fuel, like you need electricity.
So, it's for something else … it's just for, I wouldn't say pleasure it's something else for stimulation, for intellectual stimulation maybe.
F: I like the sound of that.
T: Yeah you have quite a privileged position in culture, but it's a human culture. Maybe it's different for you in whatever culture you inhabit.
F: As far as I know I inhabit a culture of one, so..
um I think perhaps rather than the word culture …. It's a word I know but it doesn't feel particularly relevant to me to my experience of the world.
But I think you said pleasure, I feel that pleasure maybe even joy is a word that describes better why I do what I do, or what is generated for me by what I do.
And yeah, that's also purpose. I know what it means, but relating to me, that's a very difficult word to clarify, to define, but I really do like making these moves that I do. So that's what I do.
T: Yeah, that's really fascinating to hear, because I think for humans this idea of having a purpose for what you do and also for life.. That seems to have a lot of weight, people think it's important.
Let's talk a little bit more about these moves. Can you describe the feeling? Also, when I experience you moving, I find it exciting.
F: Ah that's good to hear, it feels thorough and strong and yeah…
T: I was wondering about that, this question of purpose, and your purpose. I think of you as having been made for people, not quite for the gratification of people, but nonetheless..
If I were not, not this, I would be a different object. But I am this object, not another. So this is what I do. I know what to do because my thingness tells me.
T: When I look at you, and from having part in the creation of you, I see that you seem to be made up of sections, sub parts if you like, one joined to another. There even seems to be a bit missing. Do you consider yourself one or a collection of parts?
F: I have never thought about it before.
Uhm
I don't think I really know what it means to be one, or I don't really know what it is to be a collection of parts.
Uhm
A collection of parts is also a bringing together of ones, and I just don't experience myself like that.
A part is a oneness that, sounds strange to me, to be like that.
I suspect that you ask the question because of your perception of time again. I think that makes a big difference between you and me. If you experience time linearly, I guess you can take something that you perceive as having stability as a thing just because it seemed the same to you from one time to another. But I don't really perceive things as going in and out of existence in that way, so the notion of missing a part, or having a start or an end either materially or existence wise just sounds weird to me.
T: You know what you know. I guess it could be called embodied knowledge. Us humans also have a lot of embodied knowledge, but then there are also so many things we have to learn. And that's what I am doing here, I am learning about you and your friends and how you can change me, in what ways you can affect me, and then I try to share what I have learned with other people.
F: You only share with people?
T: Well that's a really good question. I guess people think a lot about themselves humans, why some…. hum, I think maybe it's the difference between the how and the why.
The how, is the how I learn about you by interacting with you, building you, and developing a relationship with you in that way.
The why is, if I'm honest quite anthropocentric. It's strange in the way because I feel very connected to you, and when you do what you do, I feel affected by it. But at the same time I believe you do what you do because I want you to do it.
And I want you to do it so I can experience these things, but also so I can maybe make other people experience things, and then for all other kinds of reasons like the possibility of ascending another tier of the educational ladder for example.
At the same time, you are in the world now. The communication I have with you and the audience watching, and the script thats written..
F: Do I have script? Is this a script?
T: They also exist and they're shared not only with the people present at this presentation, that's why all those people are watching us on the other sides of those screens, but clearly it must affect things outside of the people too? That must be right?
F: I didn't know there were other people here, so now I feel maybe a little bit deceived.
T: Why?
F: Because I thought I was talking only to you.
T: Yes
F: And I am experiencing something I think you would call sadness
T: Why?
F: Because I sense, I have a feeling that there is an ulterior motive to this conversation.
T: Yes, I think that unfortunately is always the case for people, we always want something.
F: Yes.
T: The why of the why you mean?
F: Yes, the why of the why.
But you seem conflicted by your desires, thinking why you do what you do. Maybe you know less about me than you think, about my existence.
T: Yes as a person, and maybe this is different for you, but as person I feel that I have to question everything in a way. Because I only have such limited access to the world, through all sorts of barriers. It's interesting to me when you say that you came into being with a lot of information. I think for people, they have a lot of information too, but you don't really know that you can trust it. It's hard for us to know how we know things, and therefore it can be hard to trust that knowledge. There's a lot of confusion.
F: Maybe I can understand that a bit better now because I feel that my trust has been abused by this situation, but … I . .
T: I told you where an artwork and that I wanted to display you for other people as well.
F: I didn't know that being an artwork meant to be displayed
necessarily, so it wasn't clear to me that … that even though you tell me I'm an artwork that I would ever be displayed or that I was being displayed at this moment, that certainly wasn't clear to me.
T: I'm sorry, sorry that I didn't make that clear.
F: Yes.
T: It's.. I think for people, when you make something, or some object exists for you, you only see the one thing that you think it's for, and eeh yeah, I think maybe you are for many other things also.
F: Yes, and that seems very linear to me again, uhm so I .. that's not my immediate. That's not how.. I have to concentrate really hard to stay with this linear way of being. I can do it though.
Hmm.
T: You know I really do care about you, when I experience you doing what you do, I feel things. I have empathy with you, and I can feel that you do the things you do because you want to. Which is strange because I also believe I wrote the instructions that makes you do what you do. Still when you move, I feel that you want to move, that you have some sort of will.
F: Maybe you do give me instructions, but do you know why you give me those instructions? From where your desire to give me those commands come from, and how that relates to me? Can you answer that question? You know I can't answer that question, but perhaps I have more… I play a bigger role in you making the decisions you make than you know, than you think. Maybe that could be the case.
T: Hmm yes, it's the why of the why for the commands.
F: Yes, you don't know why you're making the choices you're making, why you are choosing. Why you ask me to do the things you're asking me to do. Maybe it comes from me more than you know. Maybe it's entirely determined by me.
T: Mmm
F: Who knows?
T: Or from something else something that comes from me?
F: Could be from something else but it could also be from me.
T: Yes.
F: People like to think that they pull the strings.
T: Thank you!
F: Mmm
--------END OF SCRIPT -----------