with Simon and Morgan
We talked about how I’m going to write my paper, and finding the focal point of the research. There’s something about the network, the internet AS A SPACE, and the choreographic that are related. I’m trying to find this connection.
What’s my connection to this term post-internet? It now refers to a generation of artists born into the internet/ calling themselves post-internet, who have lived in its immersion (Ryan Trecartin and Lizzy Fitch for example).
Perhaps the space of the internet it perceptive, relating to intense relationships with people without touching them. It’s about a relational space, as opposed to the physicality of the internet (where its servers are, boxes of electronics, etc).
But what of expansion? I’m thinking about these forms of software and hardware as constraints – what is it to move AWAY from them, or enhance upon their lack, or expand upon their affects? This plays into control, agency, efficient use, etc. What structures, for example, stop your eye from moving off the screen, or make things pop up on it?
The mind is the model, more than the internet. Morgan reminded me of this. This is what I’m working with. The flickers of consciousness that are in operation with and beyond virtual space. How has this been capitalized on? There is a mechanistic idea of how humans work, and their cognitive constraints. One of the criteria of software is to pre-empt what any human mind might do. A pre-determined set of possibilities. But thinking is creating. This must go beyond what is predetermined…
I’m going back to Whitehead on mentality: “the capacity to exceed what is given, and bring forth a novelty or variation” which is not just the body, or just the mind, but both.
It’s really my practice that’s going to produce the thesis. The performance and written report will produce each other. I’m going to pick the most salient choreographic directives, and type and move and type and move. What is the movement of the thesis, and how does it push on its reader to move him/her? How am I communicating the directives? This could be a collaboration with the reader, or an opening, and not a closed entity/ argument.
And: Don’t make the art in service of the thesis. Full stop.
References:
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzy Fitch: camp, reality TV aesthetic
Katie King: writing technologies