From documentary to generative preservation
Published on February 2nd, 2023
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With the paradigm shift towards materiality, contemporary dance and performance art have shifted the focus to the relationship between the ephemeral and the permanent, the medial and the material, the physical and the substantial. In parallel, a number of research directions have emerged in scientific areas, such as science and technology studies (STS), praxeology, cultural-scientific materiality research, and the so-called new materialism. In various approaches, they have ascribed intrinsic value and meaning to objects, substances, materials, and have challenged an anthropocentric view of the concept of the performer. The conference aims to connect such developments and reflections in dance and performance art with those in science.
International Conference of the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts”
Curated by by Gabriele Klein / Organised by Gabriele Klein and Franz Anton Cramer
Since the 2000s, the “material turn” in science and art has led to a paradigm shift. Accordingly, work processes and their materialities (researched and used documents, rehearsal recordings, archiving of productions) have increasingly been brought into focus and artistically reflected in dance and performing art. Thus, in the performative arts, which are considered “ephemeral” and in which the body has been negotiated as the supposed sole agent, the role of material and its documentation and archiving is becoming much more important.
This paradigm shift is framed within a major transformation of the concept of artistic work. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that artistic work processes such as researching, noting, documenting, and archiving, which previously shaped the artistic work process but were hardly relevant for the recognition of the artwork, now become required in project applications. Research processes should be disclosed and documented. Stage performances should be represented in the media. And, if necessary, the production materials should be made accessible to the public. This new orientation of artistic work processes means that the concept of work must be realigned.
With the paradigm shift towards materiality, contemporary dance and performance art have shifted the focus to the relationship between the ephemeral and the permanent, the medial and the material, the physical and the substantial. In parallel, a number of research directions have emerged in scientific areas, such as science and technology studies (STS), praxeology, cultural-scientific materiality research, and the so-called new materialism. In various approaches, they have ascribed intrinsic value and meaning to objects, substances, materials, and have challenged an anthropocentric view of the concept of the performer. The conference aims to connect such developments and reflections in dance and performance art with those in science.
The conference transfers the guiding questions of the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts” to dance and performance art. The questions to be addressed are:
• How are artistic artefacts (in dance) created by means of written artefacts, and which material traces are created in the process?
• How are working practices in (dance) art (e.g. writing, recording, embodying, visualising) constituted and how do they become materialised in script and image?
• Which cultural differences exist in these work processes?
Thursday, February 2
16:30-17:00 Introduction to the conference: Gabriele Klein, Amelie Deuflhard
17:00-18:00 Keynote Aleida Assmann/Konstanz: The Materiality of the Arts and their Temporalities
18:00-18:45 Panel 1: “Archiving Memories”: Aleida Assmann, Johannes Odenthal/Berlin, Gabriele Klein (moderator)
19:30 Show: Sasha Waltz & Guests: In C
Friday, February 3
10:00-10:15 Franz Anton Cramer/Hamburg: Introduction into the day
10:15-11:00 Sybille Krämer/Berlin: Notational Iconicity, Diagrams, Spatiality: The creativity of artificial flatness
11:00-11:45 Annet Dekker/Amsterdam: From Documentary to Generative Preservation
11:45-12:00 coffee break
12:00-13:00 Panel 2 “Archiving Im/Materialities”: Lou Forster, Claudia Henne, Sasha Portyannikova, Lucia Ruprecht, Franz Anton Cramer (moderator)
13:00-14:30 lunch break
14:30-15:15 Cristina Baldacci/Venice: ‘Things that Death Cannot Destroy’: The Afterlife and Performativity of Images (Linda Fregni Nagler)
15:15-16:00 Gabriele Klein, Franz Anton Cramer: Choreographic Writing. Material Practices of Artistic Production
16:00-16:15 coffee break
16:15-17:00 Penelakeke Brown/New York: Lecture Performance
18:45-19:15 Public Discussion: Sasha Waltz (in conversation with Gabriele Klein)
19:30 Parallel Shows:
Sasha Waltz & Guests: In C
Jonathan Burrows/Matteo Fargion: Rewriting and Science Fiction
10:00-10.15 Franz Anton Cramer: Introduction into the day
10:15-11:00 Timmy De Laet/Antwerp: Enactivist Dance Archives: Bodies, Artefacts, and Multiple Materialisms
11:00-11:45 Hari Krishnan/Middletown: Dancing through Interocular Archives: Mediated Histories of Bharatanatyam and the Early Cinema in South India
11:45-12:00 coffee break
12:00-13:00 panel 3 “Writing Practices in Performance Art”: Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion, Axel Malik, Ursina Tossi, Gabriele Klein (moderator)
13:00-14:30 lunch break
14:30-15:15 Bojana Cvejic/Oslo: We work with the matter that resists us … but how do we share it transindividually?
15:15-16:00 Bojana Kunst/Gießen: On Material Traces and the Economy of Production in Dance
19:30 Parallel Shows:
Sasha Waltz & Guests: In C
Jonathan Burrows/Matteo Fargion: Rewriting and Science Fiction Image credit: Axel Malik
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