Examined Life - Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor

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Include Me Out, Dave Beech

This piece by Dave Beech from 2008 has been very helpful to think through the ethics of the invitation to participate.

Include Me Out, Dave Beech

"...... participation always involves a specific invitation and a specific formation of the participant’s subjectivity, even when the artist asks them simply to be themselves. The critique of participation must release us from the grip of the simple binary logic which opposes participation to exclusion and passivity. If participation entails its own forms of limitations on the participant, then the simple binary needs to be replaced with a constellation of overlapping economies of agency, control, self-determination and power..."

"One way of getting a handle on the limitations and constraints imposed on the participant is to contrast participation with collaboration. It is the shortfall between participation and collaboration that leads to perennial questions about the degree of choice, control and agency of the participant. Is participation always voluntary? Are all participants equal and are they equal with the artist? How can participation involve co-authorship rather than some attenuated and localised content? The rhetoric of participation often conflates participation with collaboration to head off such questions. Collaborators, however, are distinct from participants insofar as they share authorial rights over the artwork that permit them, among other things, to make fundamental decisions about the key structural features of the work. That is, collaborators have rights that are withheld from participants. Participants relate to artists in many ways, including the anthropological, managerial, philanthropic, journalistic, convivial and other modes. The distinction between them remains." Dave Beech

http://www.artmonthly.co.uk/magazine/site/article/include-me-out-by-dave-beech-april-2008

Yvonne Rainer's No Manifesto Reconsidered

Yvonne Rainer's No Manifesto reconsidered

Objects & Movement, collaborative workshops with hospice patients

The aim of this session  (2/3 at the hospice) was to explore movement in relation to an object, as a way of bringing different awareness to an everyday object, beyond its function.

We used an exercise "Conversations with An Object" p117 from Body Space Image: Notes Towards Improvisation and Performance by Miranda Tufnell and Chris Crickmay as inspiration for a group warm up exercise. This involved improvising a movement or action as we passed a cup between us without using words. We investigated function, material, surface reflection, the object in motion and body shape in relation to the object. These improvisations grew to consider the physical transition or handing over as the object passed between one person to the next. This was really inventive and continued for about 15 minutes.

We had a video by Ivo Dimchev based around Franz West's objects as a possible example to show, but felt we didn't need this after such a good warm up process.

The session progressed to working in pairs and improvising movements in relation to a glass vase and a round fish bowl, chosen at the last session by the two people we were working with. The emphasis was on gesture or shape rather than 'doing' something with the object.

Through a process of doing we came to realise that the scale of our improvised movements where determined by the size of the objects we were working with, as we were seated at a table with only so much that we could reach. Also, a continuation of a group exercise, rather than breaking off into pairs, might have offered a bit more freedom to fully explore the range of what was possible.

Adaptives, Franz West

Movement & Space, collaborative movement workshop with hospice patients

The third workshop (3/3) focused on movement in space in relation to the architectural space and furniture within it. The intention was to explore whether by moving through space with a different intention we experienced the room differently?

We each took turns to make three shapes within the room and repeated this three times. We took turns to re-enact each other's sequence of actions, through a process of remembering and improvising what wasn't remembered. We then returned to our own sequence and simultaneously 'performed' this together, negotiating the points where our paths crossed as they occurred. We experimented using a metronome to unify our movements. It was a really enjoyable and playful session with lots of laughter.

At the end we had a quick look at Trio A by Yvonne Rainer as this resonated closely with the simple range of repeated movements we had been working with during the session.

Trio A, Yvonne Rainer

There's a lot of potential to develop the range of movements we came up with, particularly at the points where our paths crossed, to consider structures for unifying the floor space as a compositional tool and with regards to tempo. 

We came across a choreographic toolkit D-Lab: a Virtual Commons for Choreography and Collaboration by Dance Exchange in association with Liz Lerman. This is a really useful toolkit.

collaborative movement workshop with hospice patients

A collaborative performance making process with patients attending day services at the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice, led by Kirsty and Steven. 3 workshops will take place in January 2016.

Patients are invited to explore and develop simple movement in relation to another person, to objects and to architectural space. Video is used to mediate people's perception of their own body and to encourage experimentation. It is also used as a reflective tool to support awareness of the body as an expressive medium, as well as a sensing being. 

Yvonne Rainer's Hand Movie (1966) is used to demonstrate how small everyday movement can be choreographed to create a 'dance'.

Rainer's first film, Hand Movie, was shot by fellow dancer William Davis when Rainer was confined to a hospital bed, recovering from major surgery and unable to dance. 

breath, voice & text with Nadine George, Voice Studio International,

 
Since 2008 Steven and Kirsty have been regular participants of Nadine George's professional development training for senior arts and health practitioners with her company Voice Studio International.

In November 2015 both took part in a 3 day workshop exploring breath, voice and text, using a scene from Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.

This was a hugely valuable experience, once again, and provided new insights into how the body speaks of so much more than what is said.

Arts activities recommended for hospice staff | London Arts in Health Forum

Arts activities recommended for hospice staff | London Arts in Health Forum

Art as a tool in clinician education | London Arts in Health Forum

Art as a tool in clinician education | London Arts in Health Forum

introduction, Arts & Medicine Module, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

We designed and delivered an "Arts & Medicine", Experimental Practice, Choice Module in Feb - Mar 2014. This involved working with 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students from Contemporary Performance Practice, Acting, Musical Performance and Ballet, alongside patients attending day services at a hospice in Glasgow. We shared some of the methods we developed while working in various healthcare settings, and guided students to devise their own creative exchanges with patients at the hospice.

We used performance-based exercises, techniques adapted from Anne Bogart and Tina Landau's Viewpoints technique, group reflection and feedback, and general discussion to explore the issues, ethics and practice of working as an artist in this field.

student's workshop plan for working with patients, Arts & Medicine Module, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Students prepared scores in advance of working with patients at the hospice.

The score below involved patients generating text, improvising hand movements with string, and playing improvised notes on the piano accompanied by one of the students.

observational drawing, Arts & Medicine Module, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

An exercise in close observation and heightened looking involved drawing from a range of objects used in a neonatal ward. Students were asked to draw the space around the object, to do a blind continuous line drawing and to enlarge a small detail of the object.

notating a scene from a film, Arts & Medicine Module, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

This was an exercise in looking and interpreting information into a condensed form so that it could be re-performed elsewhere. The students watched the waiting room scene in Jacques Tati's film "Play Time" and notated whatever caught their eye or they felt was significant to the scene. They could use whatever visual or written style felt appropriate. Some chose to notate colour, hand movement and sounds.

The students then chose someone else's notation and worked in pairs / threes to re-interpret and re-perform that scene. The results were extremely playful and completely different to the scene they had just watched.

This exercise was informed by Ray Lucas' research project "Getting Lost in Tokyo".

It's not what you think - Communicating Medical Materialities,conference at Medical Museion, Copenhagen

8-9 March 2013 we were selected to present a performative workshop to conference / workshop participants exploring the materialities of medical environments at "It's Not What You Think: Communicating Medical Materialities". http://www.museion.ku.dk/itsnotwhatyouthink/ The workshop call outlined the limitations of using language to analyse and explore the material world when these experiences are fundamentally embodied. 

We proposed a practical performance-based workshop based on material generated during our residency working with parents of premature babies in a Neonatal Unit.

Through our own research we came to understand that “too much talk” around this material carries the risk of objectifying and instrumentalising the words and experiences of other people. We were using a performative process to uncover another form of understanding. For the workshop, we proposed to redeploy and reflect on the processes we had developed to date, to explore how the specific materiality of the unit itself, and of the voices of the people inhabiting that space could be communicated and shared outside the original context. We hoped to discuss the issues this raised for us as artists working in medical contexts.

Unfortunately in all the excitement we didn't manage to take any photographs during the performance itself.

object invesitigation workshop, Communicating Medical Materialities, Medical Museion, Copenhagen

Lucy Lyons and David Pantalony guided a object investigation workshop exploring objects from the museum's collection using drawing, the senses and imagining. This was one of the highlights from the conference, and also the most challenging. Four tables were laid with objects from the collection categorized as body matter, chemical, metal and seeing/touching. Both Steven and I were at the body matter table, and were moved to work with the face of a young boy who had been deformed by disease, preserved in formaldahyde. On seeing this for the first time I wanted to cry and chose this object to work with out of respect for the young boy and to work through this strong emotional response. Initially, we were asked not to focus on the boy, but to draw the glass vessel he was suspended in, imaging how this might have been manufactured and the circumstances around this. We later learned from the museum technician that the boy had suffered from a cancer that is caused by extreme poverty and malnutrition, and that is very very rare these days. Discussion also covered the ethical questions of how human tissue is sourced for museum and academic research, but also the issue of how to exhibit this kind of material.

Another exercise involved feeling an object with one hand and doing a blind drawing what you felt with the other.

Video documentation of the workshop here.

rehearsals for Communicating Medical Materialities, Medical Museion, Copenhagen

In preparation for the workshop we were invited to give at Communicating Medical Materialities conference at the Medical Museion, we developed some of the exercises we had devised with material from our residency in the Neonatal Unit. We experimented applying the cut ups texts from interviews with parents, consultants and midwives to objects, (in this case a medical training baby doll) and furniture, and asked two friends to deliver these lines to each other, moving the objects as necessary and orientating themselves around the furniture, directing their voice and attention to the other person, each using breath as a meter.

 

One person applied cut up texts to the other person's body and then delivered these lines, using breath as a meter and moving the person's body when necessary.

The Drama of Medicine: All the Ward's a Stage, Association of Medical Humanities Annual Conference, Leicester

Kirsty presented a paper on our residency at the Neonatal Unit, called "Her Head is Turned Towards The Window" at 8th annual conference of the Association of Medical Humanities, "The Drama of Medicine - All The Ward's a Stage, University of Leicester. Our paper was presented under the theme, The Stage (settings and environments). Other themes includedDramatis personae (people) and Plays and Plots (stories).

Live Propositions, a series of one-to-one performances, Moore Street, Glasgow

During November and December 2010, we were offered an unused flat as a space to work with by Molendinar Housing Association. We used this as an opportunity to explore some of the processes we had developed during our residency working with parents of premature babies the Neonatal Unit, Southern General Hospital (2009-10).

We each literally brought elements of our own practice into the space: paintings, found objects and a number of photographs from our own personal collections. Ideas evolved around what made that particular space distinct in terms of architecture, neighbours and neighbourhood, and what it might mean to invite someone into this temporary studio space, and what form that invitation might make.

Exploring the format of a flat viewing, an invited audience were directed around the flat guided by gentle instructions.

research & development for Neonatal project, Phase 2 with Director, Rachel Clive

In September 2010 we asked writer and performance director Rachel Clive to work with us for a day to develop some techniques for working with the cut-up texts made with material from parents, midwives, doctors and consultants during Phase 1 of our residency in the neonatal unit. The intention was to test on ourselves some of the approaches we may develop for use with parents and medical staff during a second phase of the project. In particular during a workshop encouraging parents and staff to reflect on their own experience and perspective of the unit.

To provide context, we projected some of the images taken while in the unit, played some audio recordings of ambient sounds from the wards, and one interview with a set of parents. Rachel gave us some performance and vocal warm up exercises, and we created collaborative "body sculptures".

Rachel also interviewed us using the questionnaire we had devised for use with parents and clinical staff during the residency as the basis for her questions. She also directed us through some vocal exercises using the cut-ups from parents and medical staff, and we made several spatial arrangements of objects to create a space parallel to the environment of the neonatal unit. She then asked us to place ourselves in relation to this. We learned a lot throughout these exercises, and found it really useful to put ourselves in the shoes of the parents in this way.

our interpretation of an incubator & the space around this using found objects

We need to make this a safe, enjoyable and purposeful workshop for parents when the time comes. Our work with Rachel confirmed that when working with parents, the exercises and outcomes must be clearly relevant to them, especially during the discussion and deconstruction of the experience. 


We came up with a check list:

• Have a clear idea of outcomes

• a workshop for peers, ie parents with parents

• a New-parent specific peer workshop

• Prepare participants with clear information about our aims and provide a clear outline of the workshop activities.

• Ask parents about what they would like to get out of the workshop in relation to our plans.

• Speak to consultants at the neonatal unit about what could be gained from the workshop for parents and for themselves.