Saturday, September 14, 2013

Propositions for metro tunnels, A ceromony of ritual anthropophagy to protect against infonoise


1st Proposition- Tunnel, Metro Botanique

 (see definitions of new words at bottom of post)

In my proposition I was looking for a space in which we could practice a ceremony of ritual ‘anthropophagy’, or what I see as a modern equivalent ‘Innoculation/vaccination’, as protection against what could be considered a current intrusive force or even to some, like myself, an enemy to the relationship between my interior and exterior space - ‘Infonoise’,

This ritual was intended as a way of interiorizing and appropriating this force.  For this I wanted a space that would amplify this force and give those taking part in the ritual a sense of being totally immersed in this force to the Exclusion of all else.

Warning!: Anthropophagy or Inoculation can be painful. To be pierced or injected with even a small amount of what might in other circumstances be considered a poison will always have some side effects. The long term effects however are considered to be beneficial.

2nd Propostion- V. busy tunnel, Gare Central

Due to the response of people to the 1st propostion, that it was too painful and uncomfortable, and also lacked sensitivity to the acoustic space as well as a feeling of being in a hermetic group or on stage, I modified my first propostion to try and produce a more integrated approach. Here I looked for the same tunnel amplification of sound and visuals, but allowed participants the freedom to move towards the pathogen/enemy in a more gradual way so that they were able to measure their approach according to their capacity, there was also an option to opt out if required.  To avoid this sense of hermetic grouping participants had more freedom to spread out randomly. I also chose a space that was full of people to dilute this sense of group and draw less attention to avoid the feeling of being staged. I also chose a space with crowds of people to add to the level of infonoise and produce more of a contrast for the cupping score.

‘The person is always in transition,….. Current concepts of society as a discrete, bounded entity, which maintains a difference between "interior" and "exterior" are wholly inappropriate in this and in many other societies’.

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, ‘From the Enemies point of view’ Humanity and divinity in an Amazonian Society


‘Ritual anthropophagy is a branch of anthropophagy in which the cannibal eats his enemy not for greed or for anger but to inherit the qualities of his enemy. There are notions of tradition and ceremony involved’.



Inoculation/Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material (WHITE NOISE) to stimulate an individual's immune system to develop adaptive immunity to a pathogen (INFONOISE). Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate morbidity from infection..
Wikepedia

Infonoise: Exsternal stimulus that engages the senses to the degree of overwhelming internal neural systems.
robinamanda

2 comments:

  1. Together with Robin's explanations on the aim of research, I strongly agree with her readjustments of the exercise on the second day. But for the very beginners, as I am, in practice of anthropophagy the white noise part might be a little advanced...
    Apart from that I am questioning the very tricky question of these exercises' relation with the space. A practice that seeks isolation from the conditions of space (this I think of because of ritual and innoculative quality) because of the very conditions of the space (that Robin describes as exterior space)... How could such a practice relate with the spatial conditions? For me the isolation from the space (with theatrical situation, additional stimulus over the existing one, the attitude dismissive of other people) was already there within the proposal, so from the very beginning. Thus, it was disconnected with the space as if we were in some kind of laboratory condition. If it works for you too Robin I could ask you, how you could have related these propositions to their actual space.

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  2. Have you read Oswaldo de Andrade's "Manifesto Antropofago"?

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