Media mediate: on performativity
November 22 2003
13 :30 18 :00
A series of talks on the concept of performativity as mediation between the technology and the human in dance, software, language, media theory, music, gender, performing arts theory
With
Geoff Cox(UK),
an artist, teacher and projects organiser as well as currently Senior Lecturer in Computing at University of Plymouth, UK, where he is a member of the CAiiA-STAR (Science Technology Art Research) research group and part of i-DAT (Institute of Digital Art & Technology).
Rudi Laermans (B), lecturer in cultural sociology at the University of Leuven, is an essayist and critic and publishes in Etcetera and several professional journals.
Xavier Le Roy (F) studied molecular and cellular biology at the University of Montpellier. Dancer and choreographer
Arjen Mulder (NL) is a biologist and media theorist and has published several books of essays on the relationship between technical media, physical experiences and belief systems.
Melanie Sehgal
lives in Berlin. Studies in philosophy and cultural science with focus on contemporary language and media theory. She is currently working on a thesis on the concept of the virtual in history of philosophy.
Uli Oertl, agent of T.Turner:
songwriter, dj, organizer; aka rolling thunder, aka king
of fishes, aka dj enran
Respondent:
Benoit Deuxant
Quotes on Performativity
Geoff Cox (Uk):
Our argument is that, like poetry, the aesthetic value of code lies in its execution, not simply its written form. However, to appreciate generative code fully we need to 'sense' the code to fully grasp what it is we are experiencing and to build an understanding of the code's actions.
To separate the code and the resultant actions would simply limit the aesthetic experience, and ultimately limit the study of these forms - as a form of criticism - and what in this context might better be called a 'poetics' of generative code.
Xavier Le Roy (F):
My body as raw material of social and cultural organization and as the practice of critical necessity.
Rudi Laermans (B):
Mc Luhan once again: The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelation from which new form is born. For the parallel between two media holds us on the frontiers between forms that snaps us out the Narcissus-narcosis. The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release form the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them on our senses. (
) If it ( hybrid art) works, it does not lead to a synthesis but to an interaction in which the combined media confirm their independence without clashing This breaks down the individual narcotic effect of each independent medium. The one medium prevents the other from assailing and intoxicating the viewer sbody, and from being able to put it in a state of unconscious fascination.
Arjen Mulder (Nl):
We want to experience ourselves as we are not. And differently everytime. The term mass media is no longer applicable. (
)Emulation is the manner in which the posthistoric computer generation keeps its trances available in order to experience them all, to be able to keep becoming them all. All of them
Melanie Sehgal:
Looking back and not behind. On Performativity
turner (boston, 2002): "about my life the question is always, is your
body wearable?"
turner (düsseldorf, 2001): concerts are thrilling, i love it, when the
air slowely gets hot. and it almost always gets hot. when i sing i
forget how many people we are. 5 or 500 it doesn´t matter. my body
works always with about the same effort. it´s my finger on the play
button, it´s my body, which is stretched between the guitar-strings. it
is the air, which is striking my voice.
