Episode #1
Starting with the first episode of Flutgraben Performances 2020 I began to write letters about aspects of my own work as reply and afterthoughts to the other artists‘ insights on their own work.
Letter to Asaf: On Multiple Attention
Dear Asaf,
With regards to your notion of “split attention” I felt that I would like to add a few words about my own moving practice that I am working on together with Sandra for some years now, most recently in the piece “Chora” together with a group of twelve dancers. We are working on the idea of splitting, or rather spreading each dancer’s sensory attention to at least two different sensing “antennas” at a time, using this as a source for movement as well as to allow for a specific relation of audience and performers. It’s one of the key concepts of the relational moving practice we call space choreography. [ . . . ]
Letter to Jefta: On The Gaze
Dear Jefta,
[ . . . ] I do feel a resonance between this story of a meeting of a human eye and a crocodile eye – the striking moment of dehierarchisation it meant for the reanimalised human –, and one of the basic concepts of my own artistic practice: the idea of understanding the role of the spectator not as merely looking at a work of art but as being in a situation of mutual watching – that is: looking at a work of art that is looking back. By this I do not mean a directed gaze of a single performer trying to involve a passive viewer into an action. What I am interested in is not tearing down the fourth wall of the theatre, it is not about the end of the spectator. [ . . . ]
Letter To Ixchel: On the Growing of a World
Dear Ixchel,
Many things you are mentioning feel familiar to aspects of my own work: the evocation of what you call a “visual ghost” in the encounter of an event and a spectator, its materialisation through sensations that lead to a certain kind of awareness, the specific quality of its mutual exchange, and its relation of presence and absence. In my response I would like to write about a particular aspect of my work while trying to relate it to your concept of the “visual ghost”: its distinctive evolvement in time and space. [ . . . ] A characteristic feature of space choreography is its specific areal quality of a landscape – a landscape that is both autonomous from spectators and receptive towards their presence, allowing them to bathe in it at any moment but without a need for this to happen. [ . . . ]
Letter To Sergiu: On Ancient Theatre
Dear Sergiu,
With regards to your insight into your current work and your interest in ancient texts, or perhaps in discovering seeds that were sown some time ago, I would like to tell you a bit about my own investigations into ancient Greek theatre that are closely related to one of the key elements of my artistic practice together with Sandra. All of our works are group pieces with a specific understanding of this group as space chorus, which refers to the group’s relation and receptivity towards its surroundings, towards each other, and towards spectators. My explorations of the ancient Greek theatre and its conception of space began to manifest during [ . . . ]
Episode #2
In the second episode I did “Out Into The Open”, a car ride for one guest. Both me and a visitor were been driven by taxis from Flutgraben artists house, each of us sitting in another car, talking on the phone while driving to the wasteland where my next piece (together with Sandra Man “Aeon”) would take place later in the year, and continue our talk while walking there before returning to Flutgraben and joining the other visitors and artists there. The main topic was inspiration.
At the Wasteland, 2020
Episode #3
In the third episode I presented an Insight on my “Space Models and Twist Diagrams” both of which are rarely shown publicly but are an important aspect of my work.
View from “Space Models and Twist Diagrams” Insight Presentation, 2020
Twist Diagram for Choros, 2018
Model Close-Up from Adam + Eva, 2018
Episode #4
In the fourth episode the twelve Flutgraben Performances artists of 2020 were split into two groups. Each group was watching another movie in another room at the same time, all groups where connected via Whatsapp and had to text to the others about what they were watching. One group had to focus on the bodies and their movements they saw in their movie, the other group on the spatial situations being shown in their other movie.
CoMovingSpace, 2020
The two movies shown were “Exterminating Angel” by Luis Bunuel from 1962, and “Night of the Living Dead” by George A. Romero from 1968.