Choreo-graphic Figures
Choreo-graphic Figures (2014-2019) is an artistic research collaboration with artist Nikolaus Gansterer and choreographer Mariella Greil, which attempts to give tangibility to those forms of ‘thinking-feeling-knowing’ produced within collaborative exchange, specifically between the lines of choreography, drawing, and writing. This research enquiry also involved working closely with critical interlocutors Alex Arteaga, Christine De Smedt and Lilia Mestre; guest collaborators Werner Moebius and Jörg Piringer; video-grapher Victor Jaschke, who generated much of the photographic and video documentation of the project, and artist and designer Simona Koch who designed the original project publication. Within this project, the conversation-as-material is activated as a way of generating a linguistic vocabulary for describing a series of ‘figures’ identified during the three-year enquiry, where the term figure is used for describing the point at which the indeterminate or undifferentiated awareness of ‘something happening’ (figuring) within a process of collaborative enquiry becomes recognizable and qualified through a name.
Within this exposition, the process of conversation-as-material is shown for six different figures. Each example shows through the evolution of transcript material into the textual distillation, alongside documentation of how that textual material has been presented as part of a wider multimodal assemblage of audio-visual-diagrammatic materials which is understood as a ‘choreo-graphic figure’ (choreo - meaning more than one, graphic - mode of inscription). You can also access each of the ‘figures’ individually through the links to the right:
(1) Figure of Clearing + Emptying Out: This figure is recognized as the experience of ‘beginning’, opening or ‘clearing the ground in readiness’ within the arc of artistic-aesthetic exploration.
(2) Figure of Spiralling Momentum: This figure is recognized as the dynamic experience of generating energy or fresh momentum after a lull in activity.
(3) Figure of Temporary Closing: This figure is recognized as the experience of cessation within the arc of artistic-aesthetic exploration.
(4) Figure of Vibrating Affinity: This figure is recognized as the experienced intensity of ‘vibrating’ attunement with another within the shared field of collaborative exploration.
(5) Figure of Wavering Convergence: This figure is recognized as the dynamic of constantly shifting attention and connection experienced within a triadic model of collaboration, where the intensity of the one-to-one relation becomes unsettled by the presence of a third attractor/distractor.
(6) Figure of Consonance/Dissonance: This figure is recognized as the dynamic of connection, disconnection and reconnection with others within a wider field of collaborative activity.
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For the wider context of the project Choreo-graphic Figures see:
Cocker, E., Gansterer, N., & Greil, M. (Eds.). (2017). Choreo-graphic figures: Deviations from the line. De Gruyter.
Cocker, E., Gansterer, N., & Greil, M. (2019). Choreo-graphic figures: scoring aesthetic encounters. Journal of Artistic Research (18). Accessible here