Between control and uncertainty by Marta Wörner Sarabia

"Between control and uncertainty" is a practice-led research that combines the kinetic study of the body as a structure and the implementation of media and expanded choreography tools to de-pattern the conventional relationship between body and space in performative environments. Moreover, on a meta-level, the investigation reflects on the tension between control and uncertainty in the act of research itself. With the firm belief that the body has inherent philosophical and epistemological knowledge which can be activated by experiencing and observing movement, I embraced the challenge to name and contextualize that knowledge. This inquiry started from my fascination for the kinetics of the body and its ability to reorganize itself in comparison with other micro and macro structures that do not move that way, such a, for example, the microstructures of materials like metal, rocks or the macrostructures built by the geography of the city and the Port of Rotterdam. The interdisciplinary research addresses the dichotomy structure-destructure and its application and affections to the body. In this sense, the research proposes a tool for de-patterning the habitual relationship between the body of the performer and the external space and offers to the audience a door for de-patterning their relationship with performative spaces. The research has been framed under the inspirational umbrella of the idea of performing the Deleuzian concept of “becoming”, (deriving from the Latin verb “devenire” which means “coming down, falling in, arriving to”). The physical inquiry is focused on the action of “falling in”, "devenire". The exploration led to an articulated and defined set of physical and interdisciplinary exercises that are the core of the dance practice ‘falling in’. In concordance with the practice, the findings of this research can be seen as ways of controlling and ways of facilitating, allowing, provoking uncertainty within the choreographic practice-led research frame. This research artistically materialized in the performance Falling in. Notes on body space and matter premiered in 2019.

Reflections

‘Whether we are individuals or groups, we are made of lines’

What is it that makes us act? What is it that brings us to move into space? Following what directions? What principles?

The de-structuration of the space through the expanded choreography practice is an attempt to understand how we can stimulate mechanisms to break open or provoke cracks in internal and external structures and systems of control that push us to think by categorization, rigid segments, that do not embrace uncertainty. The attempt is carried out through the experience of our body and its relation to space.

‘The first kind of line which forms us is segmentary, of rigid segmentarity’. This line is a line of ordering, categorising, convention. It is a line of opposite binaries and the line of simplifying. It can change the direction when freedom wants to take over.

But, Deleuze says that we are also made out of lines of flight "ligne de fuite" where "fuite" means the act of fleeing or eluding but also flowing, leaking.

The lines of flight are "an infinitesimal possibility of escape; it is the elusive moment when change happens, as it was bound to, when a threshold between two paradigms is crossed".

The practice itself led me to a source of literature exposed here and to the philosophical conclusion that however, breaking open those segmentary lines is dangerous.

Could we finish following just our lines of flight without destroying ourselves?

How much uncertainty could I bring to my research methods and my practice? And which were the tools I would need to control?

On the other hand, the observation of the microstructure of the matters you can see in the projection of this practice and its comparison to my body as structure led me to a parallel and connected movement research called "falling in".

Practice

Lines of Flight and expanded choreography is a research practice frame in the context of the practice-led research "Between control and uncertainty".

The research practice was carried out between October and November of 2018 with the production support of the company of performing arts and new media PIPS:Lab.

This project led to three different outcomes: findings based on the inquiry of the movement of the audience in the specific setting, reflections on the underlying philosophical meaning of my practice and a performative experience that allowed the two previous outcomes.

The practice questions the conventions of the relationship between audience and performative spaces, addressing and broadening the concept of stage within the contemporary performing art practices.

Moreover, the project comes from the overarching curiosity about the de-structuration of the space in relation to the body and the affections between those two elements, space and body.

From the de-structuration of the space through the scenographic practice, I use a mobile steel installation which projects visuals on its surface and a soundscape to build a fictional de-structured universe. A universe that challenges the body to find its place inside a fluent setting through a process of becoming or falling in.

In this sense, the practice is a study about the movement of the audience inside of a fluent setting that moves with them. It is a dance between a mobile installation and the nomadic movement of the bodies of the audience.

The question behind the practice can be articulated as to how de-pattern or to bring uncertainty to the performative space through the use of scenographic and choreographic tools like media, sound, and the choreography of a steel structure.

In the practice, the audience is challenged to relate differently to performative spaces, performing a choreography that exists as two levels: the movement of the audience and the choreography of the object that relates to them.

In this sense, the audience, that is “on stage” at the same performative level as the performers and the installation is free to move along the performative space but is directed through scenographic and compositional tools.

The audience is immersed in an experience that challenges themselves to allow new codes relating to audience participation, as no action from them is requested but they are necessarily part of the composition of the piece. They are stimulated to move but no fix direction is trace as a true path, the audience is invited here to find their own dialogue between control and uncertainty, as well as to relate their own movement decisions to the concept of freedom.

Lines of flight and expanded choreography.

Inspiration

Port of Rotterdam, metal, concrete, liquid, body.

This interdisciplinary performance flourished from the artistic inquiry into the relationship between the kinetics of the body and its ability to reorganize itself and its comparison and interaction with other structures that do not change or move that way. The research practice has as a starting point the observation of the different microstructures of the inorganic materials like metal, water concrete and the established macro-structures in the city. The aim of the project was to inquiry into the underlying philosophical meaning of the outcomes of those observations, taking the body as an always becoming, fluent, structure and the solid macro-structure of the city as a metaphor for the solidified structures of our thoughts and beliefs.

The practice is inspired by the Harbor of Rotterdam and its ability to re-organise itself by the continuous movement of its everyday replacement of containers, building an always becoming structure which shapes continuously changing patterns.

The idea this time was to explore the concept of a choreographed fluid city. A fictional word in which the solidity of the architecture that moves us in our daily life, precisely defining the relationship between the building and the inhabitants’ movement, becomes fluent. The concept addresses the dichotomy solid-fluent/structure-destructure and its application and affections to the body.

The experience of the audience was depicted in this paper, driven by three questions, resulting in the question that was more interesting for me: "How did you move"?.

This video is a recording of the first performative result of this research shared with the audience, on the 18th of December of 2018 at Fuse-NDSM, Amsterdam.

The video is recorded by one of the members of the audience, who moved with the mobile installation.

In the recording, you can observe the mobile steel installation with video projections on its surface.

The video projections can be distinguished by live video images, recorded live by me from a black box that contains different materials, and pre-recorded video projections that I recorded during the observation of different matters and its structure from my close environment.

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