'Signal, Event, Affect' conference/colloquium, Aarhus University

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be invited to, and attend, a conference-colloquium in Aarhus, Denmark, entitled ‘Event, Signal, Affect‘. There was a deliberate attempt at trying to create a different sort of space in which to share our work, and there was as much time for discussion as there was to present. Coupled with a small number of participants, a session of conceptual speed-dating, plenty of meals together and spread out over three days, it made for a really pleasant gathering (see also Christoph’s comments on the conference-colloquium facilitating lures for friendship). The sessions – Site and City, Crowded Events and (H)ac(k)tivism, The Signaletic Event,  Event Culture and Affective Interactions – provided some sort of loose structure and the keynotes were inspiring. Unfortunately, Nigel Thrift was unable to attend but this meant that Brian and Erin had more time to talk about their work and forthcoming project, Generating the Impossible. I’m really very grateful to Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen and to Jonas Fritsch, not only for their invitation but also for organising and pulling off such a great conference-colloquium. It was great to catch up with the group from  the SenseLab, and also to meet the likes of Leila Dawney (a fellow geographer), Merete Carlson (who I have since met in Berlin, at IfREX) and Christian Borch (whose papers I have since been reading).

My paper, Experimental aesthetics: The Office of Experiments, was a chance for me to start thinking and experimenting the Office of Experiments. Not experimenting with, “which would induce the idea of a separation between the experimenter and what she is experimenting on or with … [but] a practice of active, open, demanding attention paid to the experience as we experience it” (Stengers, 2008: 109). Here, there is no clear distinction, as in French, between the terms ‘experience’ and ‘experiment’. Whether or not it was a success is unsure, but it did at least generate a discussion and a set of questions. These have enabled me to re-think writing the Office as a temporary and distributed space. The short paper is embedded below with the help of issuu.

Reference

Stengers, I. (2008) A Constructivist Reading of Process and Reality. Theory Culture & Society, 25(4): 91-109

Double act: Sans façon

Day 4. Thursday morning got underway with an overview of the work being done by Sans façon:

…an investigation between French architect Charles Blanc and British artist Tristan Surtees, [which] has developed into an ongoing collaboration through an art practice.

We undertake diverse projects, both temporary and permanent, predominantly exploring the complex relationship between people and place. We like to see the role of the artist and art as a catalyst in a process of raising questions and inviting one to look and think differently about a place, hoping to create an opportunity rather than an inanimate object.

They do not have a particular medium and instead have attempted all sorts of varied projects. Emphasising that they try to avoid collaboration where it involves incorporating technicians into a project, they work hard to ensure that everybody is on-board from the start of a project. What drives them are the hidden aspects of place; they understand place as having a range of different layers (or operating on a variety of registers?). An interest in micro-geographies (or micro-histories?¹) and telling small stories went hand-in-hand with an appreciation of the richness of working-together, with each other, with locals, with academics, with all kinds of people. Both Tristan and Charles explained how they looked for comissions that encouraged the development of an idea, rather than knowing in advance what a project might be and/or look like.

What really got them thinking differently, they told us, was a get-together (or “inter-disciplinary creative development programme”) called ‘Rough Mix‘:

…an opportunity for theatre makers to collaborate with other practitioners, try out new ideas and introduce them to an audience. We bring together a small group of practitioners from different disciplines and give them time to start developing new projects in a supportive and collaborative atmosphere. The practitioners work together with a group of performers over a two week period before making a work in progress showing at the end. We believe that this project offers a unique opportunity for both established and emerging artists.

To me, having spent time at the SenseLab, it sounded like a particular platform for experimentation. From this meeting, or series of encounters, Charles and Tristan became involved in set design for a piece of theatre, which went on to do rather well. I wondered just how important it was to have a person operate or act as a node for holding the group together and also knowing how to direct it, albeit gently.

Their practical session, following a coffee break, asked us to design an alternative audio-guide to the city. Drawing on one of their previous projects, Sans façon explained that they wanted us to make people move by following footfall rather than a set of descriptions, to compose an experience rather individual sounds. The group split into two (those who knew the city well, and those who didn’t) and then went off in pairs to listen to the city and help compose, back in our groups, some sort of sonic experience where we would walk a score.

I took the afternoon off to explore the city (and read the newspaper), which made for a welcome break from a rather intense week. However, I rather regretted not going along on a tour of anechoic and reverberation chambers, which some of the others had managed… At around 16:00, we reconvened for a series of short presentations by anyone who felt like they had something to show and share. The time allocated for pesentations was an opportunity to do something different, to show a rough-cut of something, to be explicitly experimental, to present unfinished or on-going work. The projects were not as much of a focus of the week as I had imagined prior to arriving at the workshop, and instead served as a soft-focus for the practical sessions. The work presented was really great, especially considering how little time we had had during the week but raised the question (again) of how to respond to work which is creative. This is certainly a struggle for social scientists. Victoria suggested that we might respond by saying all that we had thought of while engaging with a particular piece, rather than critique it. This would not preclude questions but they would be of a different kind (e.g. how would you like to present this piece? how did you score it? how much direction was there with the project?).

The evening featured experimental music performances by Michael’s band, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo,

making music that explores detail and difference through repetition and layering

and Matt Rogalsky, whose pieces focused on exploration of abject, invisible/inaudible, or ignored streams of information, over at Inspace and part of the Dialogues  Festival. It was quite a strange experience and I found myself unsure of how to respond, or what to think of the evening. I like to think that I am generous, and I certainly did not leave (as a fair few in the audience did); but nor did I find myself really moved (some were whooping at the end of the night). Perhaps I just had my mind on the election. Excuses, excuses!

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