Apr 23, 2016

Exploring Space

An exercise

This exercise, presented during Anthropocene Campus 2016, is aimed at improving and transforming our personal awareness of space and spatial dynamics—expanding on the concept of “knowing” in the Anthropocene.

Image by Katy Otto

Introduction

This short exercise has been developed to provide an alternative mode of thinking about space through an embodied experience. Developed from the workshop “Knowing (in) the Anthropocene” during the second Anthropocene Campus, its motivation comes from ideas explored by the work of artist Tomás Saraceno through his Aerocene project. Through the production of aerosolar sculptures—large sun-powered lighter-than-air membranes—Saraceno provokes a rethinking of our engagement with energy, elemental forces, space, and other matters: To become aerosolar is to imagine a metabolic and thermodynamic transformation of human societies’ relation with both the Earth and the Sun. It is an invitation to think of new ways to move and sense the circulation of energy. And it is a scalable process to re-pattern atmospheric dwelling and politics through an open-source ecology of practices, models, data—and a sensitivity to the more-than-human world.11Tomás Saraceno et al., “Becoming Aerosolar: From solar sculptures to cloud cities,” in: Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin (eds), Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters among aesthetics, politics, environments and epistemologies. London: Open Humanities Press, 2015, p. 33.

Rethinking and reimagining space asks us to become more aware of our own spatial relationships. Our exercise is designed to allow people to explore this and to expand their personal awareness of spatial dynamics in new and perhaps unconsidered ways.

In doing so, we grounded the exercise in an approach informed by performance and movement research (see Resources below), which pulls us back into the experience of the body. It is through the body that we experience the world, and the aim of embodied research focuses on our wider range of sensory and bodily states and experiences.

Our aim in developing this embodied exercise is to expand participants’ thinking about their relationships with space. It will provoke participants to consider the different ways in which they can sense and understand space and encourage them to consider how they might perform differently its dynamics and relational politics.

Exercise

Preparation This exercise can be performed in a group ranging from six to forty people. To do so you will need a working space that allows participants to move around freely. If indoors, move all tables and chairs to the edges of the space. If outdoors, choose a space not too large—it should have boundaries so that participants are able readily to engage with each other.

Instruction To provide a safe ground in which participants can operate, begin with an introduction to the exercise, framing the environment as an open and exploratory space. Suggest that there is no correct way to engage; however, also emphasize that it should be a safe space, and all behavior should be respectful of oneself and others. Any participants who are anxious at the prospect of performing should be encouraged to observe instead, and share their thoughts in the discussion afterwards.

Invite participants to walk/move within the boundaries of the space. In its simplest form, this variation of the exercise provides an “empty” space for exploration and encourages dynamics to emerge. The exercise acts as an opening for participants to extend their sensibilities to space/distance/proximity/dynamics. Allow participants to investigate the space and their relationships within it for between five and eight minutes before the exploration is brought to a close.

Discussion Bring people together for a discussion about the exercise. With a larger group of ten or more, it might be useful to divide into smaller group discussions before returning to the larger group discussion. Ask people to discuss what they noticed. This could be things such as internal thoughts or feelings; ways that they moved within the space; the kinds of interactions they experienced with others; the kinds of dynamics they noticed or engaged with; things participants noticed within the space itself such as objects or qualities. These reflections can be used to connect with broader themes: for example, illustrating the unspoken dynamics of a group, how we perform in an empty space, how we want to construct narratives, and that an empty space may indeed be richer than we usually imagine.

Variations

The exercise may be used as a more directed activity to explore particular aspects of interest: for example, an attunement to elemental properties or an awareness of more-than-human actors (especially if outdoors); the particular dynamics of spatial politics through performing and modeling.

A: with instruction

During participants’ exploration of space, you may choose to instruct them at various times to focus on particular senses, dynamics, or experiences. This may include:

noticing: using different senses to open up awareness to the dynamics and activity of the space;
looking: making/not making eye contact with others; observing more closely the elements in the space;
moving: different ways of moving within the space;
touching: exploring touch and contact in the space;
vocalization: exploring the dynamics that emerge through making sound, or talking;
group dynamics: exploring the dynamics that emerge when members of the group either find synergies of movement or act chaotically

B: with direction

The exercise may be seeded with a directive that the group uses to perform and explore the space. This could take the form of:

A score: a simple narrative that can direct the exploration of space: for example, start with chaos and find group unity within the space; start as individuals but find groups of affinity through movement.

Motivations: individuals in the group can be given certain characteristics to direct their interaction within the group: leader, follower, friend, recluse, etc.