zeros...

this is actually an image from Ken but I thought I'd post it on his behalf!

Do you recognize these?

Bon travail!

Félicitations! The DVD is great, just got it in the mail this morning. Watching this, just remembered how fast we worked during that week, I miss that sense of focus.

I am still working on ideas and things that emerged from this week of work. The idea of giving reference, for exemple: Explicitely telling from where this idea come from while dancing. Also, with my last project, Relevé de terrain, I am working the idea of memories of places and sensations located in the body. www.echellehumaine.ca/releve

+ the blogging idea is a great tool!

By working together, ideas get acknowleged by others and they gain more weight, are clearer. It opens new areas of investigations.

revisiting

diagram 3
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

So more than a few months down the road... interested to see if square zero led to other projects, ideas, ventures...

groupings

P1010670
Originally uploaded by fleurkitamoto.

just got some photos in from the last night - wanted to share

interesting web site

Hello all,

All our stuff in is the container now, en route to Vancouver. I am camping in my appartment in Toronto until I go meet Miriam in Smithers to dance in Ingredient Of Movement. I am very excited about this but the time in between is a little strange. Sam is flying to Vancouver, he begins his new job Monday and will look for an appartment.

So I was killing a little bit of time because it was so busy in the last month and pretty stressful too to organize everything.
Anyway, I was surfing the internet and found this adress and tought it was interesting, check it out :
http://www.danceheritage.org/

Infos about the problematic and efforts in deocumenting dance.

See you soon hopefully. I will be in Montréal, dec 6 to 15, performing at Studio 303 on the 10 at 20:30.

xo Julie

balance

IMG_1597
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

Now I'm spending a bit of time on other things... will soon be unpacking boxes i sealed up just a year ago. Meanwhile, in more recent history, hard to believe it wasn't even two weeks ago...

the documentation is in various piles (real and virtual, tangible and not, personal and collective)

build

this is an image cat took... i'm uploading it with her beside me while stuart creates his flickr account for the square zero pool across the room...

technical aspects

parts

one of our installations uses images of body parts of the artists

i did this collage of them all this afternoon - the program caused some repetition, which i find quite interesting

layers

IMG_1564
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

support, transparency, windows...i like the crane in the background

funny, my camera has been wandering over this process, so the issue of "authorship" is also coming in and blurring here...whose ideas? whose eyes?

when something happens, it's not just the originator or the actor(s), but very much the context, timing and accident that make it what it is....

identity cards

evidence

IMG_1560
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

i'm sure there will be more pictures posted of our beautiful "evidence wall", mounted on the garage-style windows of the theatre. it is gorgeous to see with the light coming through, and fascinating to watch the passersby stop and check it out.

Good show last night.

process

IMG_1454
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

i'm trying to think of how to describe the mix of condensation and expansion going on - distillation?

lots of material for thinking about ways of doing things, expectations, aesthetics and so on..how to forumulate an idea, detach from the idea, commit to the idea, execute the idea


and then, we simply do it...ah, yes.

inside and outside all at once

it's amazing to me how hard it has been to stay on top of documenting the process of making a show about documentation

to be able to step outside of the work long enough to take a photo or write down a thought

this is motria, working on the material from pam's piece, taken by stuart at some point today

deuxième journée

videos of bodies, traces of wheels on paper, apple cores in bags, biting julie's neck, working and re-working schedules and lists and paper trails, media visits, getting here, dealing with fear, apprehension, tension, letting go of ideas, finding new ones - what if we tried... how about if we... finding connections, appreciating mistakes, learning how to lead and listen at the same time, trying to laugh and think at the same time

day 3 tomorrow

beginning

IMG_0288
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

yesterday was the first day on site...i am amazed at how much we got done (and how much there is to do!)

my head is still spinning with ideas...

this photo is a carry over from a project i did this year - for me the crossover between "surveillance" and "documentation" - how tape becomes "truth"...(or not)

off to the theatre now! see you all there

arrive

It's amazing to feel that these threads which have been connected over oceans and borders are starting to knit together as people begin to arrive in Ottawa...

It'll be great to see you all on Monday!

sited

thanks to Katherine & Bryce for the new site

Fast Writing

I just finished a non-stop writing exercise.

I was surprised by some of my thoughts and how much time effected me. The feeling of time passing, having a goal of occupying a certain number of minutes. I was also struck by the documentation of a voice from a recent phone conversation in my head. And how it lingered throughout my writing. The voice is of someone I have not met and this lead me to think about how we document or catalogue or anticipate a certain future...

Does documentation have to be retrospective? Is there a way to document what we imagine in a moment?

I think this is partly why Lia Rodriques' score that Julie mentions apeals to me. To enumerate every detail in a moment. And then expand it to detail our active mind not just our movements.

A few of my unedited thoughts from the exercise.

10:33pm 8.3.05
Writing on keys rather than writing with a pen. Does that make a difference in what I actually put down? Does the tool change the contant? I can feel the smooth key and I acan hear the clicking of my thoughts. the thoughts are now making noise. And I think maybe i won’t worry about ....I can hear Glen’s music and i feel that we are doing a duet.

.. i hear a truck drive by and i feel the resonance of the phone conversation I just had - i just hung up and i can still hear alan;s voice in my head even though i had never heard it before this evening never heard it before 7 minutes ago and now i know something about him since i heard his voice or at least i think that i know someting about him. just perception.

...i am now thinking of the anticipation of meeting someone new of thinking of who this person is and inviting him into my home and already feeling there is an idea of what he is about and what he is like. and i wonder how i have this impression and where it developed from. and what impresion i myself have given him in exchange. and how i can shape that impression or not shape it. we think about costumes and stage spacing and styles of movement - we choreograph these things. and i am glad that i don’t choreograph myself all of the time. the stess of others watching. it would be like trying to document and stage what would happen before it does. to predict what will happen - by stating the prediction documenting what you think will happen - thereby planting the idea in the receiver’s mind. you are shaping their impression of the future with "fact." you are telling them what they will see and what they will belive and you are creating a history of the future. a first impression.

To name

To document something we do is also to say I did that, there is a proof.

The document is usually a proof we did something, and as you all seem to recognize and admit, the document is subjective, always a point of view. I agree, there is a contradiction. There is an appeal to work on the idea of false document, the lie. The documentation of an event that never occured, the boasting of an event, document a conspiracy.

If the document is a proof, a witness, it is also from that moment going to be a reference. The reference allows us to connect things together. The multiplication of references make ideas look old. This is the contradiction of avant-garde. Since avant-garde is not anymore, not even exotic anymore, we are afraid of naming things and therefore I see a lot of the same thing being repeated but continuously altered with the color of the day, giving it a false new look. I see an avoidance of documentation in the fear that if it is documented, it might become clear that it is not as new as it was represented to be. The connection between works would become clearer and detract from their perceived originality.

The incursion of somatics in dance (Body Mind Centering, Alexander, Skinner Release...), techniques now largely used in dance is symptomatic of the end of the idea of the invented movement, as moderns (Graham, Humphrey, Limon...) were exploring. The Graham technique has a trade mark and the company tried in the past to restrict the use of this technique to themselves, with not much success. But dancers now rarely only train in a unique technique. Somatics focuses on fundamental possibilities of human movement in very detailed ways. They have been so popular because it allows dancers to navigate between techniques and approach a variety of movement and traditions with more comfort and safety. Most of the movements are now found and chosen, they are "ready-mades", they belong to the mass, to everybody.

The distance between the ready-made on stage performed by a dancer and the one experienced by people in real life is still huge, a gap that would be interesting to document.

Maybe choreography classes shouldn't be oriented towards invention of movement, towards the creation of "vocabulary". There is more interesting ways to approach choreography. Instead of creating dance, it is about creating a way of creating dance, these are scores and there is infinite room for creating new scores.

I am interested to explore ownership in dance, in performing existing scores that have been documented.

One of the beautiful score of Lia Rodrigues, an extraordinary choreographer and thinker living in Rio, Brazil. The score is simple but difficult to do. You have to enumerate every movement you do in the most detailed way, in real time.

Reconstitute a part of Trio A (Yvonne Rainer) from documents.

There is a guy who wrote a choreography, in a form of a book, and this book has been published and the choreography performed by various companies. His name is Thomas Lehman, a Berlin-based German choreographer. The book is called "Schreibstück". I should have a copy soon.

Scores of the Fluxus group.

any more ideas ?

™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™

peeping through our windows

The latest indignity from Microsoft:
"the data collected are unique to every customer, just as human fingerprints are unique, and the issue becomes how long the company holds onto the details and whether they could become personally identifying later on"

round two

for all who can and wish to, we're writing again tomorrow at the same time (19:00 en Belgique).

drawing and other mediums also encouraged as are other languages

photo: complicity theory

the write time

invitation to all to participate in the first shared automatic writing session

Sunday, July 17 at 19:00 (Belgium)

what time is that where i am?

we write for 20 minutes, the pen doesn't stop moving, eventually repeating if necessary, use a clock , the first 10 minutes, we write about what's in front of our eyes or ears or skin or nose, after ten minutes we allow imagination, fantasy, past, future ...... to come in anyway we feel

We can share results as you want to on the blog...

thanks to Catherine for the idea and instructions!

instant memory

I was struck during the coverage of the recent bombing in London of all the cell phone pics and videos as well as the instantaneous "first-hand" accounts that were on the online news sources within seconds. Then this weekend, there was an article in the Globe and Mail that talked about this movement towards non-journalists reporting the news, recalling the "fake" tsunami photo - if it's published, it must be real, right?

But in the rush to get the scoop, how much is published in error, whether well-intentioned or not?

I'm curious about how we could use this phenomenon of "instant reporting" to create some performance scores, inevitably twisting the "news" to our own ends, viewpoints, biases...

the catalogue project

SZ catalogue sketch
Originally uploaded by kgillieson.

i am thinking about coordinating a catalogue for SZ and would like to see if anyone is interesting in participating.

first some themes around the visual identity of SZ, as it ties into the concept for the catalogue: it is about playing with forms of 'residual technology'; low-fi and old-school reproductive technologies like typewriters, photocopiers, super 8, camera film, with electronic, digital and surveillance technologies; documenting the body through residue (footprints, body parts on photocopier, etc.) and embodied interaction; and effects such as visual noise caused by reproducing reproductions (layers of graininess).

the publication concept incporates these ideas; the basic catalogue would include of a set of pages with images, interviews, blurbs & bios, screenshots from the website, etc. this basic set would be bound with front and back panels using lo-fi technology: metal pins or duo-tang fasteners, for instance. it would be hand-assembled and, crucially, expandable.

over the course of the festival we would document events, do interviews, report on performances, performers, audience, or anything else through immediate collection, (digital photos, MPEG stills, other recordings, handwritten notes from participants, typed up interviews or vignettes, fingerprinting the attendees... just kidding!) they would be put together in the form of sheets available on the next day. these could be typeset, handwritten, collaged and photocopied, anything. choice of materials (paper, plastics, cardstock, fabrics) and method of reproduction (printing, photocopy, rubber stamps, spray-painted stencils, etc.) is totally open. they just need to be the right size and have the right holes punched for insertion into the catalogue.

this means that the final publication is an 'assemblage', the possibilities for inserts is infinite, and each catalogue will be unique, the creation of the person picking up various inserts along the course of their visit to the event.

what do you think? any comments welcome. - katherine

wired julie

this past weekend while ken & i were in toronto at fip
we took advantage of being with julie & pam to get some photos taken for publicity. the shots were taken by a friend of ken's, jason nolan

doc.u.ment.a.tion

eye1
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

This week I am mounting my final project for my MA dissertation. At the same time, I am trying to keep up with the documentation for it, because I know that with the time and space constraints involved, once this thing is done, it will really be done...

so i am videoing and editing as much footage as i can cram in, as i try to make sense of it all in writing...

I don't have anything specific to say about this, except that it amazes me how much time and energy it takes to really do it (knowing that in some future time i'll still be kicking myself for what i failed to capture).

Looking forwards and backwards at the same time...

new to you

I want to introduce two new members to the square zero team:

MOTILE: some of you might remember MOTILE from last year's festival, at Club SAW. MOTILE brings together performers of mixed ability and is led by the dynamic duo of Shara Weaver and Renata Soutter. We are still jointly sorting out exactly how MOTILE will be involved - at this point, it looks like they will work partly separately and partly with us at La Nouvelle Scene to create a work around the theme of documentation.

(gulp) is very excited about bringing this amazing group of performers to square zero.

Catherine Massin: Catherine is a mover, painter, writer and psychologist who comes originally from France and has been based in Belgium for many years now. She will be joining us remotely over the summer as she travels around Europe and then will join us in person in August. I will be sending around an email from her with a short bio and some images from a recent show.

welcome...

How this thing might work...

Based on some off-line discussions, (gulp) thought that it might be helpful to post a picture of what we think might happen at square zero.

What we imagine is some sort of central performative piece that would involve various elements - dance, sound, installation, objects, video etc....that would be performed for a sit-down audience in the theatre space. However, since the venue is allowing us (enthusiastically, we add) to make use of the whole space - lobby, hallways, parking lot, roof and so on...we also want people to come up with other bits, be they installations, performances or whatever that could go on at various intervals in a variety of spaces. These can be solo and/or small group projects.

(gulp)'s role will be to facilitate the creation and implementation of these ideas, and to weave them altogether into some kind of package. We imagine that over the week there will be "closed" times for people to work, and "open" times where visitors/audience can come and see.

if you have ideas for scores or activities or things you would like to see happen, the blog is one place to post them - we can also start using a wiki-space for collaborative planning if anyone wants to dive into that.

To give a few examples of the kinds of things that might go on, we came up with a few germs (any performance bias is guiltily acknowledged! help us think of more!!!):

*translation: content gets translated from one medium to another

* description: verbal or other descriptions about what someone else did/is doing. Can be subjective, true, false, objective, incoherent....

* replay/rewrite: actions (sounds, movement, video) gets replayed with new interpretation over top/stories being told

*erasure: something gets made by removing what's there

*copying: trying to copy recorded footage from the footage and not from memory

*setting: immediate setting of improvised material - how do you recall, recreate (tape marks, verbal cues, spatial orientations)

*getting audience to help remember something, use that in the creation of something new

*accumulation/repetition score (obvious, but pithy)

*partial information: going on a trace or a clue provided by a previous event

*objects audience can take, manipulate, leave

*playing video live feed and then with slight time lag/latency then even more lag

participant/observer

Back to something more theoretical for me, that might lead to something tangible as well: in response to Alexis' 'document the cat', I am thinking more about the participant/observer conundrum and of ways that documentation becomes the event (for example: my 'meta-documentation' of events over the course of this project...)

I was reminded of something I read about in second order cybernetics, which is about studying systems in a way that includes and acknowledges the role of the observer. This seems to hit right at the core of the documentation problem: the idea behind cybernetics is that we can produce descriptions of anything (including performance) with it, but that our knowledge of what we describe is mediated by the description itself. The bias lies in that we make models that suit the purposes for which they built.

Elizabeth's post on symbolism and references of large-scale monuments is relevant; maybe all documents are imbued with symbolism in the same way, whether or not it is intentional. As a designer, I need to forget about being 'neutral' and accept that I will always put spin on content, because one can't exist without the other. Maybe I (and anyone else who is interested?) could build on being conscious of the inevitability of re-interpretation, like in the telephone game.

By the way, the Schroedinger's Cat metaphor seems a bit gruesome. It would be good to propose nicer terms for this phenomenon. Would certainly be interesting from a visual/language point of view to create words as part of the project. Something related to performance? Do you have terms for how audience mood and feedback affects your improvisational (or other) work?

pulling threads (1)

This post is an attempt to gather up some of the ideas that have been raised on the blog since it started. It's meant to highlight some concepts that have emerged, but don't think that comments are now closed on any previous posts or threads! In fact, if this inspires you to add a comment on any of the posts, go for it!

Here are a few threads, in no particular order:

*Observation changing the observer (see Document the cat , and discussion in comments)
1) performer as observer (making choices as she improvises/works)
2) observing audience - what the audience chooses to see
3) chain of comments on bias in documentation - that it is never really objective

Miriam's post Document This
*Documentation and power
*Documentation and freedom
*Documentation as proof of existence
*Documentation as a historical record - past/future or future of the past...(also in Alexis' Improvised Histories)

Motria's post "For what is and for what is missing"
*Documentation and the ephemeral - documenting a vision or moment that will never recur
*Accidents of light and time
*Documentation and what it doesn't capture

Elizabeth's "Monuments" and "Leaving a Message"
*Documentation and scale - statement, impact, symbol

hope you are having fun with this as we are!
(gulp)

monuments

IMG_0997
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

Of course here i see lots of monuments... this one is of the great fire of London. Apparently it is 212 feet tall and if you lie it on one side it touches the point where the fire started (a bakery). The fire destroyed something like 4/5 of London, but very few people died. However, so many had died from the plague already...but the fire got rid of that!

Makes me think about the importance of scale in documentation - symbollically, reference-wise, literally, metaphorically...

document the cat

There has been a whole discussion about documentation and observation... (see the comments under Miriam's entry Document This...) which leads us quite directly to 'Schroedinger's Cat' and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and how the very act of observing of something changes it. As it's stated on the web site, The Big View:

"The notion of the observer becoming a part of the observed system is fundamentally new in physics. In quantum physics, the observer is no longer external and neutral, but through the act of measurement he becomes himself a part of observed reality. This marks the end of the neutrality of the experimenter. It also has huge implications on the epistemology of science: certain facts are no longer objectifiable in quantum theory. If in an exact science, such as physics, the outcome of an experiment depends on the view of the observer, then what does this imply for other fields of human knowledge? It would seem that in any faculty of science, there are different interpretations of the same phenomena. More often than occasionally, these interpretations are in conflict with each other. Does this mean that ultimate truth is unknowable?"

More food for thought...

Document This

So, this is my first bog entry in my entire life. So already Square Zero is a success in pushing boundaries through art.

I've been thinking about documentation almost every day since June 2004 when I decided to move to Canada as a Permanent Resident. In the process I have documented my relationship with my partner through photos, statutory letters from family and almighty bank statements, thus Proving our Love. I have documented my birth. I have a collection of police certificates that say I have no criminal record in every state I have lived in for over 6 months for the past 10 years. Minnesota, Connecticut, British Columbia and the federal department of Homeland Security all have prints of my unique fingers on file. I have submitted every employer and address since high school and every association of which I have been a member. I have written down the names of all of my family members along with their birth dates. I have held my breath when I handed the border gaurd papers that show my photo and declare my nationality. And now I hold my breath until I can cross back again.

It is a Process of filling out forms. Mailing them. Tracking them. Waiting for something back in the mail so it can be sent again to the correct final destination. A piece of paper says I can work. But I must fill out another piece of paper for a number so my taxes can be collected. Each paper, each process asks 'Who are you? ....Really? ....Prove it....note: only certain forms of evidence will be accepted." Amazingly, I am able to gather all these papers that say the Right things and Please the authorities.

The process makes me think of war and oppression. When a piece of paper could keep you from being put on a train to a work camp or worse. Or could let you cross a border to an ally. Or proved that your father is a person of power the 'wrong' political party and therefore you are an enemy. Or said that you are of a certain religion and therefore must not cross this line. How people create new papers to say the things they need to Prove about themselves to the people in power. To survive.

It makes me thankful to live in a relatively peaceful land. It makes me thankful for the privileges of my life. I try not to feel reduced to letters and numbers. I try not to treat my precious work permit like it is a small god on paper. Maybe my grandchildren will be able to look at these papers and enter my life in the year I kept track of everything for the sake of the freedom to live in the place of my choice.

How easily paper burns.

leaving a message

writing on a wall
Originally uploaded by little bit1000.

This is of an alley in Newcastle with writing down both sides of the walls. I was there this fall, a grey and misty Sunday, wandering about, and stumbled on this story. Hard to tell if it was a dream, non-rhyming poem or true tale of love and terror. Blue writing on white the most mundane thing in the world, but vertical and taller than you are, and you have to back up against the other wall to read the one you are looking at. Giving the document an impressive presence...

Hunting

I've been looking at a lot of apartments lately - there's something so odd about looking into some one else's domaine when they're not there and trying to imagine superimposing your life on it. You see how people create a world, filled with memorabilia and mess. Something about creating an identity through objects... but then it gets wiped clean when you move on, leaving a blank slate for the next occupant. But the space bears the scars of the previous person, holes in the walls where pictures hung, odd packages of leftover food in the cupboards, a handprint on a doorframe...

How we make our mark on our immediate world, what we chose to clean up and hide and what we don't even notice as our effect.

Improvised histories

I just started to dive into a book (Taken By Surprise – A Dance Improvisation Reader) that took its time arriving – I ordered it in Feb from Wesleyan University Press in the States. The first copy never made it past customs (who ever knew improvisational dance was so dangerous) and so they sent a second copy. In the first essay, I found the following quote, which seemed apt:

"Histories typically suppress the improvisation that occurs consistently in all human actions. They also deny the improvisation of the historian who selects and interacts with all documentation of the past in an attempt to decipher changes over time. (…)What would history look like if it were to acknowledge the fact of improvisation?” – Susan Leigh Foster

Looking forward to hearing from everyone over the coming months.

Categories: dance

welcome - first post

Hello! This is the blog for square zero - the second edition, a place for participating artists to share ideas prior to our in-person collaboration in August.

The theme for our explorations in movement, performance, visuals, objects, video, art and sound will revolve around the theme of "documentation" and all that it implies.

For my first post, I found a quote to share, from Tim Etchells of Forced Entertainment :

"The work is a document of the process leading to it -- a body that bares traces of its past." (Certain Fragments, p.75)

I like the idea of the final product also being a record of its process...and the play on words of "bares".