Who’s Afraid Of The In-Between?
A lab hosted by Mariella Greil & Werner Moebius at Prisma Mexico 2009

Maybe manifesto
Maybe we move into the space between yes and no
Maybe we perform the spectacular spectator or performer
Maybe we overcome virtuosity and redefinition
Maybe we question the brute somatic nature of the body and make-believe transformations
Maybe we are all stars and invest in generosity
Maybe we share the in-between
Maybe we look for respect, hospitality and friendship
Maybe we become hybrid
Maybe we distort and recycle our style
Maybe we enjoy cunning concepts and teasing procedures and their strictures
Maybe we move beyond camp, eccentric, heroic and their opposites
Maybe we inverse the structure of the sublime
Maybe we decide for sensitive ambiguity
(response to Yvonne Rainer’s NO Manifesto and Mette Ingvartsen’s YES Manifesto)

Die Kunstpraxis als Werkform.

The lab creates space and framework for exploring emerging practices. “Who’s afraid of the in-between” contributes to a critical discourse on knowledge production in collaborative research and work modes both rehearsed and performed beyond closed categories.

writings from the in-between
emily, july 2009, mexico

the in-between is inherent. it is rich with experience, preserving a space where memory trails into possibility. it is not a state to be achieved, only recognized, and delicately. to focus on the in-between will cause it to shift. the instant we acknowledge a state as being in-between, we have arrived.

in order to find ourselves in-between, we engage with concrete structures. a vacuum is not in-between: it is nowhere.

where are the two poles that we would find ourselves between?
knowledge and ignorance
technique and pedestrianism
planning and sensation
consciousness and unconsciousness
self-consciousness and abandon
isolation and interaction
movement and sound
proprioception and desire
beginning and end

where would we find ourselves that we should feel in-between?
perhaps we will try to find sensitive ambiguity together.

once, in the laboratory, we exchanged rules. each of us wrote a rule on a small slip of paper and put it into a hat. then, we all selected rules that we were bound to follow for the duration of an open improvisation. i selected the rule to NEVER BEGIN!!! i could not predict how this would unfold. i could not conceive of never beginning.

i stationed myself against a white wall at one end of the space. there, i could feel the wind on my body from outside through an open door and i could see the shadows of trees shifting at the corners of my eyes. i had an easy view of the entire improvised event occurring in the space. NEVER BEGIN. i could not move but to breathe. my hair was moving in the wind; i could not move my head. my eyes searched round and round, roving the space; i could not move my head.

sounds, movements, sensations, interactions shifted before me. but i could not move. i stood still. i began (shit!) to feel an immeasurable pressure in my thighs and feet. my hands trembled; my legs trembled; my face contorted; i began to cry. i breathed; i focused; i stopped crying, and began crying again. i arrived in a space between proprioception and desire. i was present between every decision and every action; i filled the space with longing. the space filled with my longing. every actor’s action was infected with my desire.

is it possible to invite another person into my in-between? can i have company there?

is it possible to be alone in the in-between? do i depend upon the presence of company there?

where were we, that we should feel in-between there and someplace else?

where are we going?

does the in-between imply movement, instability, journeying? is it possible to arrive at the in-between?

are we comfortable in the in-between? is it possible to be comfortable in the in-between? do we want to be comfortable in the in-between?

“…if entire systems of representation, of meaning, had been extinguished inside him, entirely new systems had been brought into being.” Oliver Sacks, An Anthropologist on Mars

the in-between is a constant negotiation. the in-between is dependent upon binaries. the in-between denies binaries. the in-between rejects binaries.

i know only that i am in-between. i do not know why, or how. why do i strive for articulation? if i articulate this, will it disappear?

i am an artist who was raised in the united states. i find myself in mexico. all the time (walking, seeing, hearing, speaking) i have a heightened sense of myself living between my individual beliefs, hopes, and sensations, and those of the country i inevitably represent. can i shed this in-between? do i want to shed this in-between? why am i so uncomfortable in this space between myself and my perceived geopolitical identity?

i am a movement artist who was raised by a family of musicians. all the time (moving, listening, sounding) i have a heightened sense of myself living between my senses. do i want to focus on this in-between? will i damage my in-between by concentrating on it?

where is the space generated by this laboratory of in-between?

i am not afraid of the in-between. i fear its obliteration through description; articulation; location.

photos by Dominik Greil + Bilwa

drops will flood
Concept + performance: Emily Sweeney
Visual design/installation: Emily Sweeney + Bilwa
Sound: Bilwa

Presented in the Wasserturm Favoriten as part of fluten WORK:SPACE
September 25, 2009

WORK:SPACE for artists working in various media
13. – 26. 09. 2009, Wasserturm Favoriten, Windtenstraße 3, 1100, Vienna, AUSTRIA
At the center of attention is what Brian Massumi called creative contagion, a synopsis of various media meeting the architecture of the watertower. Through exchange of experimental approaches, we diffuse an open system that tests affirmative-critical work modalities. WORK:SPACE is formatted somewhere between lab and performative exhibition.

Emily’s notes on drops will flood:
The water tower, which was built in 1898/99 and provided the 10th and 12th districts of Vienna with drinking water, has a total height of 67 meters. The steel bowl at the top can store about 1,000 cubic meters of water. In 1910, the city of Vienna ran a water pipe directly from the mountain springs outside the city, putting the water tower out of commission 11 years after it was built.

after water—after tremendous weight—air, space, light
after water—thirst
after water—its memory remains heavy on limbs, in lungs, flooding our ears
after water—we are free; we are parched

Each time I climbed down the ladder into the water tank, I was swallowed whole. The space was empty, abandoned. Yet, while working inside, I felt the weight of 100 years and 1,000 tons of water pressing on my tiny body from all sides. Moving and breathing became difficult. I soaked myself with water and negotiated the landscape of the water tank, which is in actuality very dry, coated with dust and rust. I felt thirsty and my throat was parched. The sound of my own breathing was amplified by the shape of the bowl, which disoriented me and brought to mind the excellent conductivity of water. The tone being played through the speakers is a sine wave, which was generated by recording the feedback of a recording of the sound of dripping water being played in the giant bowl. In other words, the tone that you hear is what the space of the water tower did to the sound of dripping water: it bent it into something new.

„entweder oder oder und“ (either/or, or and)
dance: mariella greil + emily sweeney
live electronics: werner moebius
violoncello, voice, analogue electronics: audrey chen

NEITHER

to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself
by way of neither

as between two lit refuges whose doors once
neared gently close, once away turned from
gently part again

beckoned back and forth and turned away

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam
or the other

unheard footfalls only sound

till at last halt for good, absent for good
from self and other

then no sound

then gently light unfading on that unheeded
neither

unspeakable home

-Samuel Beckett

performed at theater akzent in vienna as part of the european rhythmics congress
october 5, 2009

BREATHSCAPE
an inhabited installation

Concept, video, set, and performance: Emily Sweeney
Sound: Bilwa
Costume: Johanna Porola

March 5 – 12, 2010
SUMU Residency Space, Gallery Titanik, Tuku, FINLAND
opening: March 4, 2010, 18:00 – 20:00
On view March 5 – 12, 2010
Tuesday – Friday, 12:00—18:00
Saturday – Sunday, 12:00—16:00

Notes:
“Inhabited space transcends geometric space.” Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Breathscape is an inhabited installation that integrates body-sounds and videos with live performance to generate overlapping rhythms and feedback loops. It is a meditation space for breathing, for cultivating layers of presence.

It was winter in Finland in a small underground room with a cement floor. Ice formed on the outsides of the windows, which put one at eye-level with the frozen River Aura. There was a constant loud hum from the ventilation duct. The space was breathing. We invited people that we met in Turku to come and breathe in the completed installation, sometimes alone and sometimes in pairs. Our breathing was recorded and used during the times when we were inhabiting the space, which we did over 5 days, for 6 hours on each day. Guests entered the space, walked past Bilwa on their right, and stood or sat on the floor or on a bench directly in front of the installation space.

What does my body say to your body? What does your skin hear? What do my movements say to your muscles? What does my breath say to your lungs?

While at Steim we focused on recording the breath of a movement artist (Emily Sweeney) and a vocalist (Audrey Chen) as part of an ongoing project titled “Breathscape.” We have recorded breath under different conditions and in various locations and wanted to continue this research at Steim. While in the recording studio, Chen and Sweeney responded to the sounds of one another breathing, as well as recordings of their own breathing played back to them.

Video from installation at SUMU/Arte in Turku, Finland:

Offered as an interdisciplinary course in conjunction with the Embodied Learning Symposium at Marlboro College, Vermont (USA), Spring 2011.

Our selves are porous. We take behaviors from one other, and occasionally memories, rituals, or desires. We create representations of ourselves that float free from our bodies. We tend to see ourselves in others. I have occasionally felt too permeable.

Dancers visit one another via our imaginative bodies.

imaginary is also real

Concept + video: Emily Sweeney
Performance: Jil Stifel + Emily Sweeney

I created the video by merging unedited footage of my collaborator Jil and me performing the score below (*) for 25 minutes. I selected portions of the coincidental side-by-side composition that I found particularly engaging. This work is in its earliest stages. I am developing it as a video and performance piece.

Notes:
We express ourselves through actions. Thoughts are actions that have physical properties within the brain and are therefore acting on the physical world. Targeting thought in certain ways can impact the physical world. Imaginary is also real.

My cognitive process is spread throughout my body. The state of my body/mind influences my capability for opening to interactions. Dancers alter our body schema when we move together, generating a collaborative associative state. What does this do to our sense of ourselves in the world? What has dancing done to my thinking? What type of thoughts do I distribute while dancing? To my fellow dancers? To my audience?

“Homo Sapiens is a tendency, not an entity. Every living organism is on its way to becoming, and the human organism even more so because among all living beings that we know about, we are the most open-ended.” -Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants

*Score: our physical methods for entering into this dialogue across space and time
Each solo should take place in a space where your body feels comfortable and free to move. It should also be an energetic location where you feel capable of connecting with me, for whatever reason. Wear anything you want to. Include whatever accompanying sound you like, or move in silence.

Solo/1: Dancers find movement convergences

• Improvise for 25 minutes while meditating on your image of the other dancer moving.
• Ask yourself: What does it feel like to move as she moves? Which decisions would her body make in this moment?
• This is loosely meditative and requires no significant preparation, like a first meeting.
• Find stillness whenever you feel that you have lost the thread of connection with the other dancer’s logic and have begun to follow primarily your own body once again. Each time this happens, reconnect to the other dancer in stillness until you are brought back to movement.
• Document your improvisation with video. Please place the camera close enough that your movement fills the entire frame and something of your internal experience can be perceived by the viewer. Upload your footage.

| resonance | workshop
| resonance | is a workshop for movement artists based on practices that enable heightened states of sensory perception. We share methods for reverberating mindfully with other artists during duet and ensemble improvisation. We focus on listening, sensing, and acting from sound, movement, and memory impulses. We explore expansions and contractions of energy and sound in our bodies and in the spaces where we work. We trace the pathways that movement material takes between outside and inside: input – filtering – output – sending. Rather than reacting to other artists, we cultivate a stance that allows us to observe, consider, and respond with as much of our selves as possible. The group explores questions like: How do we transmit messages that perpetuate in different forms through the space instead of dying out? How do we translate or morph messages into different media like writing, drawing, or assessing? How can we use vibration, reflection, sounding, panning, resounding, writing, and remembering to create a resonating body?

Workshops can be designed for various durations: from one 3-hour session to multiple sessions spread throughout a week. The culmination of each workshop series is typically a public performance by the workshop leaders, participants, and invited guests.

This workshop has been led by sound artist William Bilwa Costa (USA) in collaboration with Martín Lanz Landázuri (Mexico), Emily Sweeney (USA), Malin Astner (Germany/Sweden), Kristin Orav (Estonia), Daniela Lehmann (Germany), Raisa Kröger and Signe Koefoed (Germany).

workshops/performances 2011
2011: sine~waving workshop/performance, Schwelle 7, Berlin DE, w/ Malin Astner, Emily Sweeney, Amelia McQueen, Klaus Janek, Christian Schroeder, Dennis Tan, and workshop participants

2011: resonance workshop/performance, Deck 3, Berlin DE, w/ Raisa Kröger, Signe Koefoed, Emily Sweeney, Florian Tuercke, Christian Schroeder, Christian Weiss, Dennis Tan, and workshop participants

2011: resonance workshop/performance, Agora Collective, Berlin DE, w/ Audrey Chen, Luca Marini, Daniela Lehmann, Emily Sweeney, Andrea Serafim, and workshop participants

| resonance | laboratories and performances
the ideas explored in | resonance | have also been shaped into several performances by William Bilwa Costa in collaboration with artists working in various forms.

2011: resonance…, The Kitchen NYC USA, Dance and Process performance with Martín Lanz Landázuri

2011: resonancity – sound and urban space, Extrapool Nijmegen NL, collaboration with Florian Tuercke – acoustic experiments in public spaces and performance at Extrapool

2011: resonance laboratory/performance, XBunker Exhibition Space, Sønderborg DK, w/ Christian Schroeder, Florian Tuercke, Christian Weiss, Rosa Isaldur, Ewa Huber, and Samuel Schaab