Blog assignment - Performance art practice as research elective
Welcome
Here I am sharing my thoughts, process and plans to carry out a series of performance experiments in a major gallery in Nottingham UK and to meet the learning outcomes of the module. I am building on the elective:
Trust in Change: On world politics- overcoming structural political boundaries by thinking with the body VestAndPage.
I am an older female artist. I work with four alter-egos who make performances artworks using different media. In my practice I explore ideas of agency and becoming, in both a personal growth sense and at a political level, I want to become the person the universe needs me to be. In the experiments my 4 alter-egos will perform in response to a major art/science exhibition, Cosmic Titans. This is an exciting and daunting opportunity.
What are the given practice as research approaches and methods I am choosing to explore? How have I applied this method / how it resonated with me?
Approach 1: Rhizomatic research methods
This method was introduced to us during the elective and the technique was used when we undertook many exercises, particularly i) global political institutions and ii) climate change.
In the elective we looked at rhizomatic research (concept from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari) using data, memories, conversations, evidence from different sources. I expanded and widened my approach to researching a performance in a non-linear way. For example: opening 50 tabs about blackhole mergers, flicking through them superfast for gist, connections, words jumping out, I brought back memories of space education, approached baffling scientific documents as a strange language and watched endless clips of stars collapsing.
I’ve attended two lectures by internationally known physicists, had lunch with astro-physicists who work on art/science collaborations and met one of the artists whose work the alter-egos are responding to and researched others. I’ve tried to look at the research through a diffractive lens, noting on-going differences, interferences and experimenting with what that might mean for the performance. It made me think differently about data collection and documentation e.g. experimenting with slow-motion filming to draw out nuances, audience and scientist feedback.
Also… another method we used in the elective was creative writing. I found this helpful, particularly writing from different perspectives (as in the global politics exercise where we were writing then embodying /speaking the words.) I very rarely write with/through my alter-egos, as they don’t have scripts, however I am using this method in one of the experiments below.
Approach 2: Site responsive
In the elective, Ethan Sammons Ericson invited us to perform with him in response to the trees in the Sonsbeek Park. The tree attunement process we undertook was a fluid interaction between us as artists, individual and groups of trees (more fluid than a site specific response might be.)
I had done a site responsive performance before but found this new method which comes from a folkloric / mythic tradition to be very useful in its stepped attunement process using multiple sensory inputs. The method invited us to connect to and reflect on different levels, the individual trees , the types of trees / genus / wood and the broader geographic political social context, all this added complexity.
Applying this method gave me new insights into the extent to which I was telling the story of the place /trees? In relation to my performance experiments in Cosmic Titans what was my own narrative about the artist’s work I was responding to – as well as the alter-egos? I asked myself about where the agency was in the space and why that mattered.
Photo from Ethan Sammond Ericson
Other methods: i) creative writing. In the elective I found writing from a different perspective helpful. In the global politics exercise we were writing then embodying /speaking the words. I very rarely write with/through my alter-egos, as they don’t have scripts, however I am using this method in one of the experiments below.
ii) Also I am aware I’m using another method highlighted in the elective: guerilla tactics. I am inserting my body (and characters) into the exhibition space, and responding to it. Although its legal, I have permission, my alter-egos do not necessarily behave in a controlled way or would like the work.
What questions am I looking to investigate in the experiments?
· How can I use my emerging practice framework (see diagram below) for my alter-egos (e.g. Tatyana Bogdanova my gymnast alter-ego, Donnah, and Doris – in her new iteration) who will be in intra-action in the museum speculative space at the same time?
· What forms and methods of documentation would allow me to clarify learning and generate data.
· How can I work in this context with an audience, considering addressivity and working on how I know what is being received?
· How is it for my alter-ego to work with other artist’s work?
· In what ways is this space speculative? Traces / spectres of what’s gone before?
Below is my emerging practice methodology - I developed it as a result of the Body in Performance Module – I’ll also be testing / using this for the first time in designing the experiments. It includes theoretical and artistic references.
The performance experiments – where they will take place / context?
Cosmic Titans: Art, Science and the Quantum Universe
At Lakeside Arts, the University of Nottingham’s public arts centre. The performance experiments will be made in response to a major exhibition - the Cosmic Titans.
https://www.lakesidearts.org.uk/exhibition/cosmictitans/
I choose this exhibition because of the direct connections to the BID module performance and essay. Artists included in the exhibition have used concepts from Karen Barad, her work on entanglement and quantum identities and the work of Ruth Gregory on superposition (the idea of particles being in two places at once / multiverse etc) . I felt the exhibition missed the body and the human. I asked the exhibitions curator and the scientific advisors if they would allow me to carry out a series of experimental performance and they agreed.
Sketch out the performance experiments based on the methods / approach?
What are the performance experiments?
· 5x 20minute performance responses to the artworks in the exhibition – plus 5minute transition time = duration 2hrs (2hrs 15mins) 10am-12.15pm 8th April 2025
· There are 4 alter-egos: Doris, Donnah, Tatyana and the little one – each alter-ego responds to one artwork and will walk around the space.
· At the end of each of experiment / sketch there will be a collapse which mirrors cosmic events in the universe that collapse and re-form as something else.
· Each alter-ego will respond in the moment, a broad outline will be in place but it will be live and exploratory.
· There is also the experiment as a whole, the gallery is open to the public.
Communicate and articulate artistic decisions in the experiments
Artwork: Ringdown by Conrad Shawcross
Alter-ego – Tatyana – will respond in her own way exploring concepts of discipline and control in a cosmic setting. She will look at the science, taking the time constraints and sound as the frame from the artists work. Based on the rhizomatic research she will use her ribbon skills / technique to interpret the phenomenon of the black holes merging and synthesize this with her gymnastics discipline.
Artwork: Blind proliferation by Conrad Shawcross
Alter-ego - the little one – key operation here is play – the alter-ego would moving between three locations, next to and under each of the desks in the physicists’ desks, actions include shining a torch, using her magnifying glass, throwing dice and sitting on the floor by the edge of the light cage.
I am choosing to film a rehearsal of the alter-ego and project it under the table, giving the opportunity for playing with the projection, mirroring and differing. This operation is new to me, it connects to ideas and emotions of awe, wonderment and curiosity prompted by the piece; it engages with ideas of the multi-verse and quantum identities being present live. It works with the Shawcross’ notion that children are good at sensing when things are not what they seem, there is never a sense of completeness and so unease is also present. I want to explore the tension in response.
Artwork: An Early Universe by Alistair McClymont
Alter-ego Donnah will respond this piece, she will move around the dark / loud environment. She chooses to move through three phases of the creation of a new universe… chaos, fluctuation, stasis. Donnah loves the chaos, rolls with fluctuation but stasis is new for her. She will intra-act with 3d printed sculptures (prototype models made by the scientists in dialogue with the artist. These are magical objects I am currently exploring.
Artwork: Begriff des Körpers by Daniela Brill Estrada and Monica C. LoCascio
Alter-ego Doris – will respond to this exhibition, the key notion here is of comprehending the body in space. Exploring spacetime as it curves around objects, and particularly as it curves around the heart. In this experiment I am writing creatively from alter-ego Doris’s perspective, not my own.
Identify and manage risks when engaging with the given methods / approach?
Isn’t performance art always a risky business? I feel vulnerable every time I perform. In this case in a serious art centre, I am finding it daunting.
General risks
The artists involved might not have given permission. I managed this by producing a detailed proposal and reaching out to them individually. Being specific about how and where I might use their work (as it will inevitably be in the documentation / film of my performance experiments.
I am dealing with 3rd party intellectual property and binding my performance to it in a way I haven’t done before. I managed this by doing research, talking to other artists and being clear about how I present the work.
i) Rhizomatic research – One risk and real nervousness of mine, is that taking a fluid, non-linear approach to researching the topic is that the response it seen as trivial or pseudo-scientific. I had to accept the overwhelm. In managing it I have been explicit in my programme notes that I am using the physics / science as a metaphor, allegory, aesthetic interpretation.
ii) Site responsive / guerilla tactics – risk of the alter-egos in this space. Whilst they perform in the public space some of the alter-egos have not intra-acted before with an audience, one is pretty much always very angry and often destructive. I am managing this through briefing the invigilators and relying on them enforcing agreements / commitments in my proposal. Or on the other hand, there’s the risk that the alter-egos do not behave as themselves, constrained by the formal environment / over-controlled and the work suffers. .
Note: The final space for the blog will be given to the feedback on the experiments after I have completed them.