COLLECTIVE AFFECTIVITY
Location: Place Luxembourg
Duration: 1 hour
Score: Create a space of contemplation towards an object chosen according to affective forces.
Interest: This practice aims to re-inform the public space through the scenography created towards the affective objects and within the whole constellation of participants.
Reflections:
The collective affectivity leads to a wider understanding and experimentation of an affect for an object and tries to decode which are the strategies used to get information from the object selected and the quality of each process.
Empty points: Which are the forces that generate this affectivity? How do we connect with the affective object? How do objects ask for an action towards them? Which type of responsibility do we have towards objects then?
the possible understanding before experimenting was: a network of attention is crossing or subverting this space of pre organised functions and needs. so a network of parallel focus will produce accidents with the functional ways and relations, and can create another relational space filled with different fights for intimate contemplation and loading of this act during 1 hour
ReplyDeletethe experience of the experiment:
i could nd bring my object of affection. i had to shop a affection object quick. so i tried to chose on spot. a flat with light in the last floor. as a a point of promising affection. but nothing happened. the object or focus of affection didnt didnt fullfill its promise.
the starring, concentration, didnt brought me in a deeper layer of anything.
after the battle with my scenografic tool, the paper, against the wind,
the shortining of my scenografic mark, the fight to fix it with my legs, i
swoped my position nearer to the object.... but still nothing happened.
what means the fight for the fulfilment of a promise of an affection in the public space?
the tool should be rethought towards wind and rain, as well as what does the quick choosing of an focus in comparation a dialoque of contemplation with an object you already created a relation with??
relational scenografies seem quite fragil, and perhaps become a form when a realtion is not etasblished, or become a gesture that become a in the urban surrounding...
how to deal and act when the affectiv promise does not happen???
ReplyDeleteWhen I understood Maite's proposition I looked for an object of Affection and it wasn't so suprising that my attention landed on a tree, another living being, as I'm going through a faze of being extremely attracted to trees. I positioned myself in a way that would allow for an uninterrupted period of contemplation (not in the route of passersby). My experience was a period of very intense and almost uninterrupted contemplation. The experience was made more intense by the high level of activity in the square and in a way my need to escape. Place Lux is an area i work in a lot as a journalist so I was a little concerned about being seen by people i know and being questioned or being judged. In a way this made the desire to be fully immersed in a contemplative state all the more intense as I needed to rid my mind of these worries.
What were the forces that generate this affectivity?
I think the memory of being affected by a similar object in the past. For me at the moment trees are very powerful archetypes as they relate to a lot of strong recent experiences, so I chose to respond to this force despite my awareness of the obvious cliche in this choice. I think this affective attraction is also related to the isolated position of the tree in a mainly urban environment, this prompts a sympathetic response in me.
How do we connect with the affective object?
For me this was through a continuously focused visual/physical contemplation. So using my whole body I concentrate on the tree and try to free my mind of everything else. Of course this doesn't work all the time but when I remember I bring my attention back to the tree, concentrating on the color, texture, temperature etc...
How does the object ask for attention or speak back?
I don't think the object asks for attention, I think it just connects with something, a historical knowledge/union, a morphic resonance, or universal connection which is inherent in the observer but may remain unnoticed if we aren't attentive or tuned-in or if we don't believe it's possible to have an affective relationship with an object. For me the object starts to speak back in that its appearance and the intensity of my relationship with it changes. To be literal this takes the form of a change in perception in the way I feel/see the object, to try and put it into words the image becomes pixalated with the background action becoming less defined and the objects presence becoming more dense, this creates a connection between me and the tree, which as it becomes more intense, free's my mind of its usual sense of temporality, which then translates into a feeling of an increased sense of internal space.
Responsibility towards an object?
I think the responsibility we have towards an object is to take it seriously as a participant in a performance. I think it's this seriousness that allows for the shift in perception and energy that's necessary for the space to be re-informed and for the object to speak back.
This practice aims to re-inform the public space through the scenography created towards the affective objects and within the whole constellation of participants?
I think in this sense the proposition was successful in that the constellation of participants created an interest in passers-by who clearly saw it as a group performance, what kind of performance they didn't know as I was asked a few times but that some of them were aware of this dynamic is clear. I think for this constellation to be more apparent it would be necessary to use some kind of recognizable communal marker (the paper sheet on which we sat acted as a clear codifier but it wasn't suitable for the weather conditions) and maybe a larger group spread out over the space or in a formation where each is visible to the other. But i do think the space was re-informed energetically and visually through this practice.
At the luxemnburg it was hard for me to find an object of affection, this is why I chosed an object of interest out of commitment to the proposal. However, the more I get to know about my object and the more our dialogue (I wrote sccraps of it on my carpet) became poetic, then the poetic touch put an emotional layer which ended in my commitment to the object itself. An understanding (through emergence of meaning) and a shared history of standing together in the public connected us to each other. Towards the end I really felt a strong need to make a move for a physical contact. I don't feel a further responsibility towards the object, other than to share to make public the very intimate relation we had, but I think this is more a responsibiility towards the experience we shared.
ReplyDeleteFor me this was an individual performance, which was contextualized within the network of other “afect-experimenters”, but I’ve never felt it to be a collective one.
After reading Claudia's and Robin's comments I am rethinking about the collectivity of the exercise and I think I am getting to understand Maite's question more: how to make a strongly intimate/private issue, i.e. affection public?
DeleteIn Place Luxemburg with all that happening at the same time in Turkey, I had an implicit reference in my mind in approaching my object of affection (a covered and locked traffic sign deprived of its functionality) to the performance of "Standing Man" burst onto the scene during the Gezi protests. One man standing in the main square of İstanbul where all the collisions took place, looking at the old opera house (waiting there for a couple of years now, as evacuated) for 8 hours, then stimulated thousands of standing people all over the world in the following weeks... affection... public...