Moving through questionsCARPA8 opening ceremony presentation (a lecture-performance)

Abstract

A lecture-performance that doesn’t use statements, only questions, exploring the relationship between dramaturgy and artistic research.

Jess and Katalin sit amongst the audience, apart from but visible to each other, with cordless microphones in-hand. Their voices are amplified and coming from speakers placed throughout the space.

KATALIN

Jess, is it our turn?

JESS

Are you full of apprehension, sitting comfortably, Katalin? A dramaturg amongst artistic researchers?

KATALIN

Are you here as a researcher?

JESS

Do I have to choose? And if so, is the choice only between being a dramaturg and a researcher?

KATALIN

Is there a binary?

JESS

What is a third-space between the two that we might want to create? Am I getting ahead of us? Is there value in considering or leaning into the binary? Perhaps at this moment, it might be a useful exercise to define ourselves: dramaturg or artistic researcher?

KATALIN

Isn’t that futile?

JESS

How do you perceive the relationships? How do you identify and perform your practice?

KATALIN

Aren’t dramaturgs historically regarded to be those who do research? Isn’t this assigned as one of our primary roles to seek and create knowledge?

JESS

If we identify as dramaturgs with that as the default, does that in some ways make our actions subservient to the project and the people we are working with?

KATALIN

Don’t you rather prefer bringing creative “mulch” to the process? Or even, do you sometimes bring material and ideas or propose actions that rub against the perceived boundaries of that artistic project, create problems or sabotage perceptions about knowledge? Do you wander, do you stammer in order to catalyse something unexpected?

JESS

When do I bring mulch to a project and how mineralised is the soil? Is the project vibrant, open to a collaboration that supports the development of new and unknown matter in the room? Or is the mulch dry and layered as sediment for non-researchers to excavate and activate?

Are there such people as non-researchers?

KATALIN

Why is it that when we talk about dramaturgy, we end up using loads of metaphors?

Is it the case with artistic research also?

JESS

Are there ways to rehearse an answer to this question? How might we develop a lab, arrive at an apparatus, prototype a process to answer it?

KATALIN

Could the use of metaphors be a way of accessing different areas where knowledge might be located, which are beyond the reach of linear, deductive, academic reasoning?

JESS

How might we create a place that contains diverse bodies of knowledge? A process that invites open-ending questions?

KATALIN

How would you devise an ideal space for thinking through doing? Through, in-between, circular, sideways, outside – what is the direction of artistic research?

JESS

Can I answer in this way? Do you think about feedback loops in dramaturgy?

KATALIN

Can we start over? How do you think about artistic research? How do you identify and perform your practice?

JESS

May I define myself as an artistic researcher if the central question I work with is: How do the techniques of our individual dramaturgical practices influence the design of our research and the shape of its output?

KATALIN

Are you then considering artistic research a modality that embraces not-knowing, lingers in liminalities and disrupts the taken for granted?

Aren’t our disciplines sharing the same relational space here?

JESS

If they are,how do our dramaturgical and artistic research processes (mindsets, heartsets) support the materialisation of research?

KATALIN

When is it that dramaturgy is emplaced in research processes?

JESS

What if we were to bring forward the observation that dramaturgy and artistic research are intra-actions? What if we were to focus on the materialities (qualities) of research?

Can we start over?

What can we find in the differences between our disciplines that can move forward our work?

KATALIN

What are the structural and creative openings that dramaturgy can do for research work? Or research for dramaturgy?

Can we start over?

How might critical and experimental thinking help destabilise institutional and cultural biases around the practice of research?

JESS

What are our blindspots? Where are our blindspots?How can we challenge the ideas about theplaces for knowledge production?

KATALIN

How do we confront this with the work of actions?

JESS

What can we do with the etymology of research – the repeating of a quest; the constellations orconcatenation and expanding of patterns?

KATALIN

Is recognising patterns a way of acknowledging repetitions in movement… of thoughts… of time…? […] Can silence be repeated? […] What is behind the silence of dramaturgs?

JESS

Can I have a moment of silence to think about that?

KATALIN

[…] Isn’t it as if… […]?

JESS

Is it as if or is it in actuality silence or moments of silence that allow the research to take place, take position in the body? And does that or can that lead us to a constant motion of artistic research?

KATALIN

How is your body working in this moment?

JESS

Shall we swap places?

They move and swap seats. Move again and swap seats. Move one more time and swap seats, whilst reading out the short dialogues below.

KATALIN

Perspectives?

JESS

Perceptions?

KATALIN

Focalizations?

JESS

Experiences?

They land in new spots amongst the audience.

KATALIN

Privileges?

How shall we decolonise our disciplines?

JESS

How do we want to bring attention into our gathering?

KATALIN

When is the time for action? How can artistic research and dramaturgy help to bring about those changes (societal, political, economic, ecological) that are much needed and are already overdue? Can we really make a difference?

JESS

Is it too much to expect this from our disciplines?

KATALIN

In a period of global transition can we afford to expect less? What is at stake for our disciplines if we ignore the urgency of our time?

JES

How do we want to bring attention into our gathering?

KATALIN

How can our gathering bring new, different perspectives into motion?

JESS

What did critical thinking fail to do up until now, that can be brought into action?

KATALIN

What is your urgent question, Jess, that you hope to be explored or maybe even answered here?

JESS

Can we begin to ask our cohort this question?

KATALIN

Will somebody take my microphone?

They offer their microphones to the audience and wait for questions.

JESS

Maybe we stop now and let our questions linger here for a while?