Dez 10–12, 2020

Liminoid Encounters: A Three-day Live Program

Date: Dez 10, 2020, 18:00 Uhr

Duration: Dez 10–12, 2020

Location: Zoom Event

Location: Live Stream on Vimeo

Liminoid Encounters explores apertures for meta-explorations, for the beyond and beneath, for the interface between the fixed and the finished, for ambiguous states of becoming. As a live digital event, Liminoid Encounters not only responds by its very format to the necessity of operating during the current pandemic, but equally seeks to address the possibilities and limits of the medium in which it operates. Can we »humanize« the technology we use; can its algorithmic binary codes do justice to the multisensorial and multidimensional complexities of human existence? How can we act in the space between the personal and the collective in order to maintain both human and supra-human spheres? The current Covid-19 zoonosis is a prime example of an event which underscores the delicate vulnerabilities and deeply interwoven interdependencies of human existence and co-existence with non-human agents.

The notion of the »liminoid« dates back to cultural anthropologist Victor Turner (1974). Critically situated in the tradition of structural functionalism as an anthropological tool used to analyze tribal communities, in particular, Turner sought to challenge the dominant structural positions of his time, moving toward the idea of anti-structure and the informal in the social life of a modern and industrialized society. His concept subsisted its modern and anthropological origins as a philosophical idea to grasp states of emergence, heterotopian and transitional modes of flows, the »betwixt and between« (Turner).

Liminoid Encounters offers a diverse range of transdisciplinary approaches and live experiments – from poetic readings, dance and screen performances, to writing, conversation and telepathy gatherings – that exceed Turner’s modern anthropological idea, advancing toward one of contemporary situatedness. Today’s precarious planetary and social existence, in particular, governed as it is by power-seeking, exploitative neo-liberal and cognitive capitalism, can be seen as a deep liminoid transitional state that urgently demands a contemplation of »what comes next«. A hopeful aperture to re-imagine alternative futures, a shift toward a genuine, more just and mindful emergence of social co-existence and responsible planetary guardianship.

In the run-up to the event, a three-week Ecosystems of Knowledge  on the notion of the liminoid also took place. Ecosystems of Knowledge is a platform created by Akademie Schloss Solitude for fellows to work and reflect collectively on specific topics, openly sharing practices and processes of knowledge. In the dialogical discursive sessions, further aspects of the liminoid were explored and discussed. As far as design was concerned, the three iterations were guided by Atelier Ad Hoc Architecture (Maria Daria Oancea & George Marinescu), Olivia Berkowicz & Carla Garlaschi and Valentina Sciarra.

to the Zoom waiting room

Shortly before the event starts (Thu 6 pm/ Fri 7 pm / Sat 6 pm) you will be able to enter the Zoom waiting room with you Zoom account. If you don’t have a Zoom account you have to create one. .
We will let you in as soon as we start: https://zoom.us/j/94208027949
Please make sure you are using the latest Zoom version to avoid streaming problems.

Start Live Stream on Vimeo

If you don’t want to create a Zoom account, please join the Live Stream on Vimeo here:  https://vimeo.com/event/542490

 

If you have any problems joining Zoom or Vimeo, please drop us an email at
host@akademie-solitude.de

Program Liminoid Encounters

Day 1: Thursday, December 10

18–19.30h (CET)

Welcome by Elke aus dem Moore (director Akademie Schloss Solitude)

Short introduction by curator Berit Fischer and roundtable with all contributors to voice the different approaches.

19.30–19.45h (CET)

Solælune (Nardeen Galuaa & Alieldin Ayman)
I, In Empathy, 2020
Live screening

»To refuge« is to cross a border, an act of consuming the past to give rise to a possible new future. Refugee is a state of dual existence, two separate entities, rescuer and rescued. The selfless consciousness is consumed to pave the way for the dormant yearning self in total awareness. Alchemy’s magnum opus is the transmutation of base elements into the philosopher’s stone, the transcendence of the human soul into its divine form. The refugee is the dual–natured Ouroboros.

I, In Empathy is a meditative interactive virtual experience that reflects on unsettlement and the liminal state of existing in a continuously fragmented, yet interconnected way, based on the bonds of empathy and by occupying different narratives concurrently. I, In Empathy explores the fickle space between the two »sides« of a refugee, visualizing the erratic temporal span that takes place during the transition and interpreted through symbols of spiritual alchemy.

19.45–20h (CET)

Lisa Biscaro Balle
Live au Zenith, 2020 
A sequenced, 3-day live dance performance

The project was inspired by Biscaro Balle’s personal sense of incompatibility between her duo of inherited cultures. She views her training in contemporary dance in France while simultaneously absorbing Brazilian dances through her family heritage as placing her in a privileged position that has not only influenced her dance practice, but has also revealed to her certain norms, constraints and stereotypes inherent to each of these cultures. With Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle seeks to create a dialog with the music of Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, a one-time political dissident during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985). Many of his songs became popular anthems of Brazil. In Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle examines the central question of how to live out her cultural heritage outside its original context. It is a subject that exists in multiple relationships, which are constantly in motion. Over the course of the three days, she creates a daily image of these questions through her performances.

Day 2: Friday, December 11

15–16.30h (CET)

Giuliana Kiersz
Collecting Language, 2020 
A two-part writing gathering – Part 1 
(REGISTRATION REQUIRED, max. 12 participants)

How does language »collect« itself and how do we relate to this language? The writing gathering is conceived as a sensitive, political space to reflect on the overwhelming information we receive through digital platforms and consider how we adapt to/struggle with these structures. How does this information resonate in our body? What narratives are we creating? What worlds?

*Each participant is welcome to analyze and write in the language in which they feel most comfortable. Please indicate your preferred working language when registering. Registered participants will receive a preparation kit via email.

** Please register by December 3 by sending an email to:
register@akademie-solitude.de

The writing-gathering will not be recorded.

17–18.30h (CET)

Aouefa Amoussouvi
Waiting to Be Born, 2020
An experimental conversation 
(REGISTRATION REQUIRED, max. 16 participants)

With the experimental format Waiting to Be Born, Amoussouvi explores the »in–between« liminoid concept by presenting some of her works-in-progress as well as initiating a conversation on the ambiguity of the creative progress itself.
She will share her current inspirations and interests in an intentionally loose structure to reproduce the chaotic and passive workflow of thoughts passing through the mind. Participants will discuss the non-human, James Baldwin, epigenetics, »Women who run with the Wolves« by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and the need to decolonize digital technologies…

How will the group process these initial topics? How do connections appear between seemingly isolated thoughts? How much control do we really have over the maturation of ideas into a coherent project? Alone? As a group? No expertise on these subjects is required.
Taking Frederick W. Hickling’s Psychohistoriography methodology as an inspiration, both the content of the discussion and the group dynamic itself will also constitute raw material to be further processed into a poem by Amoussouvi after the session.

Registered participants will receive a preparation kit via email and the resulting poem, before and after the session respectively.

** Please register by December 3 by sending an email to:  register@akademie-solitude.de

There will be an audio-recording of the conversation.

Public Program:

19–19.15h (CET)

Sofie Verraest 
What You Have Heard of Brussels, 2020
Live reading

Sofie Verraest will be reading an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, a story of suffering and renewal, and the moment of transition when all life trembles in the balance. After the loss of her partner, E., stripped of her former self, tries to find out who else she might be in the chaos of present-day Brussels. She came to the right place: »What you have heard of Brussels is true. Of all the cities in the world it is the city closest to Heaven.«

19.15–19.30h (CET)

Valentina Sciarra 
The Stone King, 2018
Video screening

The video brings us to the natural site »Strupanitsa« (Bulgarian: heaping), a rock phenomenon and the largest ancient landslide in Bulgaria. It is a large fall of rock blocks, most of which take the form of cubes or parallelepipeds with dimensions exceeding 15 cubic meters.

The audio accompanying the video is an excerpt from Italo Calvino’s final and unfinished book »Under the Jaguar Sun«, which he dedicated to the five human senses. The text has a similar narrative rhythm reminiscent of the act of walking, recreating a sense of movement and an interior journey.

In Calvino’s story, the protagonist is a nameless king. Holed up in his castle-prison, the king cannot move for fear of losing his throne. The only sense remaining to him which permits his connection with the outside world is listening. The king, motionless on his throne and a captive of his passion for power, learns to recognize all possible sounds, which, if repeated, might guarantee his permanence. The noise of the city reaches him almost imperceptibly, until one day he hears a young female voice singing. He is attracted to that voice, he would like to answer, but he cannot. The voice has gone.

The video was made possible with the support of Gaudenz B. Ruf Award 2018.

 

Lisa Biscaro Balle
Live au Zenith, 2020
A 3-day sequenced live dance performance

The project was inspired by Biscaro Balle’s personal sense of incompatibility between her duo of inherited cultures. She views her training in contemporary dance in France while simultaneously absorbing Brazilian dances through her family heritage as placing her in a privileged position that has not only influenced her dance practice, but has also revealed to her certain norms, constraints and stereotypes inherent to each of these cultures. With Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle seeks to create a dialog with the music of Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, a one-time political dissident during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985). Many of his songs became popular anthems of Brazil. In Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle examines the central question of how to live out her cultural heritage outside its original context. It is a theme that exists in multiple relationships, which are constantly in motion. Over the course of the three days, she creates a daily image of these questions through her performances.

Day 3: Saturday, December 12

12.30–14h (CET)

Giuliana Kiersz
Collecting Language, 2020 
Writing gathering – Part 2 
(REGISTRATION REQUIRED, max. 12 participants)

How does language »collect« itself and how do we relate to this language? The writing gathering is conceived as a sensitive, political space to reflect on the overwhelming information we receive through digital platforms and consider how we adapt to/struggle with these structures. How does this information resonate in our body? What narratives are we creating? What worlds?

*Each participant is welcome to analyze and write in the language in which they feel most comfortable. Please indicate your preferred working language when registering. Registered participants will receive a preparation kit via email.

** Please register by December 3 by sending an email to:
register@akademie-solitude.de

The writing-gathering will not be recorded.

14.30–17.30h (CET)

Maayan Danoch
Telepathy Works, 2020
A workshop on collective consciousness and movement
(REGISTRATION REQUIRED, max. 16 participants)

Telepathy Works is a physical-mental practice addressing collective consciousness and movement. It aims to stimulate synchronicity of thought and action between two people (or more) and summon telepathic moments. It promotes telepathic thought as a human ability that can be developed rather than a supernatural phenomenon.

Seeing the human body as a central common denominator to all human beings, the practice relies on and advances body sensibilities as a prime resource for connecting and communicating with others. Through various exercises, we will enhance our capacity for listening and becoming attentive toward ourselves and others. We will work with different modes of mental imaging and explore their power to change what we perceive, feel and do. Finally, we will enact longer processes via which we will establish an (imaginary) emphatic relationship with another person. Within these frameworks, we will use the tools gained to initiate an instantaneous common process with our partner independent of verbal dialog or protocols of collective decision making. The workshop will take place in an online format for the first time. It thus invites an investigation and a critical reflection on how bodily and interpersonal knowledge can be shared through digital media.

* No prior experience needed; people with different movement abilities are welcome.

** Please register by 3 December by sending an email to:
register@akademie-solitude.de

The workshop will not be recorded.

18–18.15h (CET)

Genevieve Costello
House Rules (Lower Body Protest (LBP)), 2020
Live screen performance

Printed as part of the hospital letterhead on your patient surveys in tiny, bold text:

Diagnosis,

Lower Body Protest (LBP).

You are a professional swimmer and your leg breaks. No one knows why. Although everyone else in this universe relies on their legs for walking, it’s against social norms to use vision below the waist.

You try to swim with your broken leg. It gets worse. The effects spiral, too endless to name. They become widespread, mixed up. Life as you know it is impossible. You keep doing the best you can, because what else can you do. You go to doctors of all kinds; they don’t know what to tell you. Not much is known about treating legs. Standard medical approaches for LBP? softshrugs, painkillers, musclerelaxants, indifferentandinfinitereferrals to specialistsandCENTERS. Most people have their legs and can use them. Legs, are, usually, just, THERE.

You tape your hospital letterhead to the door to remind you it’s not all in your head. You try to not care that it might as well be while you remain in this legless world.

Diagnosis,

Follow up,

a) You become a torture designer.

b) You become a freak.

c) You work out how to throw a little party.

d) You ___________________.

18.15–18.45h (CET)

Seyed Mohsen Hazrati
QQQ [Can vehicles talk to each other?], 2020
Live screen performance
In eternity without beginning, of glory, the splendor-ray of Thy beauty boasted.
Hafiz

A story about creation. How a vehicle has been chosen to be equipped by some terrestrial elements, decorated by different kinds of senses, fed by a pure fuel, to start its mortal journey on the ground.

 

Warning: The video contains fast flashing images. It may cause discomfort and trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

18.45–19h (CET)

Valentina Sciarra
The Stone King, 2018
Video screening

The video brings us to the natural site »Strupanitsa« (Bulgarian: heaping), a rock phenomenon and the largest ancient landslide in Bulgaria. It is a large fall of rock blocks, most of which take the form of cubes or parallelepipeds with dimensions exceeding 15 cubic meters.

The audio accompanying the video is an excerpt from Italo Calvino’s final and unfinished book »Under the Jaguar Sun«, which he dedicated to the five human senses. The text has a similar narrative rhythm reminiscent of the act of walking, recreating a sense of movement and an interior journey.

In Calvino’s story, the protagonist is a nameless king. Holed up in his castle-prison, the king cannot move for fear of losing his throne. The only sense remaining to him which permits his connection with the outside world is listening. The king, motionless on his throne and a captive of his passion for power, learns to recognize all possible sounds, which, if invariably repeated, might guarantee his permanence. The noise of the city reaches him almost imperceptibly, until one day he hears a young female voice singing. He is attracted to that voice, he would like to answer, but he cannot. The voice has gone.

The video was made possible with the support of Gaudenz B. Ruf Award 2018.

Lisa Biscaro Balle 
Live au Zenith, 2020
A 3-day sequenced live dance performance 

The project was inspired by Biscaro Balle’s personal sense of incompatibility between her duo of inherited cultures. She views her training in contemporary dance in France while simultaneously absorbing Brazilian dances through her family heritage as placing her in a privileged position that has not only influenced her dance practice, but has also revealed to her certain norms, constraints and stereotypes inherent to each of these cultures. With Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle seeks to create a dialog with the music of Brazilian composer Chico Buarque, a one-time political dissident during the military dictatorship in Brazil (1964–1985). Many of his songs became popular anthems of Brazil. In Live au Zenith, Biscaro Balle examines the central question of how to live out her cultural heritage outside its original context. It is a theme that exists in multiple relationships, which are constantly in motion. Over the course of the three days, she creates a daily image of these questions through her performances.

The whole event takes place in English language

Participants: Aouefa Amoussouvi, Lisa Biscaro Balle, Genevieve Costello, Maayan Danoch, Seyed Mohsen Hazrati, Giuliana Kiersz, Solælune (Nardeen Galuaa & Alieldin Ayman), Sofie Verraest, Valentina Sciarra

Curated by: Berit Fischer

Notes on video and photo recordings during the livestream

In the context of the online event entitled Liminoid Encounters on December 10-12, 2020, image recordings will be made during the livestream. You are informed of the type and purpose of the image recordings, the legal basis and your rights in the following.

Data protection officer:
Thomas Lang, lawyer
Specialist lawyer for labor law & certified data protection officer
Oberer Kirchhaldenweg 9 b
70195 Stuttgart, Germany

Tel.: +49 (0)711 – 12 57 85 49
Email: office@datenschutzadvokat.de

The image recordings are used for the following purposes: Making the recordings available to the participants of the livestream
Legal basis of the recordings: Legitimate interests in the use of the recordings for the abovementioned purposes in accordance with Art. 6, para. 1, sentence 1, lit. f., 85 GDPR in conjunction with §§ 22, 23 German Art Copyright Act (KUG).

Retention period of the image recordings:The visual recordings shall be stored for as long as necessary for the abovementioned purposes. The image recordings may be stored internally without restriction, e.g. to secure copyright claims by providing evidence of original recordings and, in addition, for reasons of contemporary historical documentation. In the event of publication, the photographs may be published as long as the respective publication media, articles or contributions are publicly accessible.

Your rights: You may assert your right to information or correction, deletion and restriction of the processing of the photographs and you may additionally lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority. You may object to the processing of photographs and data concerning you at any time. A detailed description of your rights is provided in our Data Privacy Statement, which can be viewed at www.akademie-solitude.de/en/privacy-policy/