[Here you can download booklet with diagrams: re-hallucinating context diagrams booklet]
The departure for the project of Walking Theory (TkH) at Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers in January 2010 – How to Do Things by Theory – are two cities, “the Belgrade” of TkH and “the Paris” of Les Labos – two dissimilar contexts, situations and realities, the power of whose margins and minorities are not evident. Bringing the contextual approach of TkH’s practice in Les Labos implied discerning a new context of operation, demanding its own line of investigation. Hence, we invited whomever felt interpellated to reflect and intervene in the context they considered (or wished) to belong to. The context entails a scene of acts and events, a site of discursive struggles and an atmosphere enveloping common sense. Its location and activity is delineated by the performing arts in Paris, and Belgrade. From the attempt to denominate this territory as “indepedent scene” – a discussion which revealed historical and conceptual differences and misunderstandings – we arrived at a more precise definition that replaced “independence” with “relative autonomy”. Relatively autonomous or semi-autonomous today are those individual artists, groups and collectives, projects, initiatives, organizations, movements, concepts and spaces, that seek to transform the conditions and terms of work and production, representation and distribution. We referred to our meetings as “re-hallucinating contexts”, whereby “re-hallucination” supposes a sight distinct from the common perception. For a moment things might appear unbelievably different, impossible seems more possible, and another play is played before our eyes. The same people could be recast in new roles, and new concerns and places emerge. Truthful representation of a territory is anyhow condemned to an infinite regress of mental maps of maps.
During a number of working sessions with Virginie Bobin, Grégory Castéra, Alice Chauchat, Sabine Holzer, Délphine Jonas, Fabricia Martins, Yves Mettler and Nathalie Rias, and a few meetings with various other actors in Paris, we elucidated great many items in diverse categories: ideas and names of people, projects/initiatives, organizations, events, policies, institutions and other places of assembly. The index which provides reference and explanation for the choice of all items is available on the website www.howtodothingsbytheory.info.
Collective brainstorming required a painstaking diagnosis of the current situation, and the disagreement of partial views transformed individual entries. The result of this process are four diagrams on the modes of organization, events and places, cultural policies and discursive communities – a cartography that describes a geographic territory less than it proposes an orientation in a situation in time. Thus, these are diachronic diagrams, which in their partiality produce new realities, instead of reflecting an actual one. A few paths are open to their use. Can these diagrams act as scores to navigate a relatively autonomous scene in Paris? What are the rhythms and intensities that could emerge from overlaying them? Which items coagulate across various parameters? What could some of the items we uncover here gain in future?
“Re-hallucinating contexts” ends in two study trips, where the participants of Paris and Belgrade visit each other’s respective cities, after which some of the questions above might be answered. Two more activities will hitherto follow. During the visit of the Paris participants to Belgrade in January 2011, the participants from Belgrade will construct their diagrams of the scene in Belgrade in collaboration with their colleagues from Paris. What is still awaiting the Paris group with TkH is another diagram of Paris, in which re-hallucination shifts from diagnosis to a prognosis of further development. Will we dare, and manage with the attachments to the same concerns that often separate us more than they unite us, to speculate, project a diagram of a desirable future? You will read about it in the next JDL!
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