Chris Green's Posts - Performance Philosophy2024-03-29T07:49:17ZChris Greenhttp://performancephilosophy.ning.com/profile/ChrisGreenhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/376131604?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://performancephilosophy.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=0zg73om97bv11&xn_auth=noOn Collaborationtag:performancephilosophy.ning.com,2013-05-20:6528949:BlogPost:145222013-05-20T23:23:38.000ZChris Greenhttp://performancephilosophy.ning.com/profile/ChrisGreen
<p>I recently attended a symposium at Middlesex University, On Collaboration 2. After having attended the first of these symposiums and been interested in the variety of responses to the theme of collaboration and my own interest in it I decided to attended this second instalment. Here I want to discuss my own thoughts on the idea of collaboration and my intention for collaborating. After the symposium, my collaborator and I had a disagreement about the <i>why</i> for our working together; her…</p>
<p>I recently attended a symposium at Middlesex University, On Collaboration 2. After having attended the first of these symposiums and been interested in the variety of responses to the theme of collaboration and my own interest in it I decided to attended this second instalment. Here I want to discuss my own thoughts on the idea of collaboration and my intention for collaborating. After the symposium, my collaborator and I had a disagreement about the <i>why</i> for our working together; her thoughts on this may be found here: <a href="http://katherynowens.com/2013/05/19/thoughts-on-collaboration/">http://katherynowens.com/2013/05/19/thoughts-on-collaboration/</a></p>
<p>Firstly, I would argue that there is no such thing as a failed collaboration. Granted, there may be intensions that have failed or instances of things not working out between collaborators however, I do not think the act of collaborating can ever fail in the sense that there is always something to be learned from working together. Difference plays an essential role in collaboration, there is difference within the self and once these assemblages become multiple then difference proliferates. It is this difference that harbours creativity. Perhaps, as a result of capitalism, we feel that we are required to constantly produce and to justify our actions in order to show that there is no ‘time wasting’ happening as, ‘time is money’. This can be extremely damaging for collaboration. I recognise that in some settings, there must be clearly defined intention in collaboration in order for people to not be exploited (although, this would then not be collaboration at all) In the case of performance making however, I believe that collaboration does not need to be so clearly defined.</p>
<p>It is presumable that, when we enter into collaboration within a performative, context we come with our own intentions and reasons to the <i>why</i> for our collaboration. Because of this, it is not essential to make these intensions known to the person or persons that we are collaborating with as something will come through our working together. There is obviously always going to be tensions when we collaborate as a result of difference, these tensions exist when working alone however, they become more outwardly clear when working with others as we may (in my own case at least) find ourselves in verbal arguments. This is important, collaboration is the place where our internal arguments have an opportunity to be aired and worked through. In my own collaborative practice we have already identified that we have similar interests and concerns that is why a dialogue was ever formed between us in the first place. She argues that, we need direction, as we both want to apply for a PhD we need to be able to justify our working. Although I agree with this, I would argue that we do not need intension, we do not know what the outcome is and by identifying an intention this would limit a creative process and would place full intension on the outcome. And yet, here I am justifying our collaboration.</p>
<p>I am beginning to realise the negative outcome that being negative can have. The fear of failing and the need for creating a product go hand in hand, the irony being that so much more can be achieved once we get passed this fear as to fail is to of still achieved something in the sense that it can be defined <i>as</i> failure. This in turn can be related to negativity, as to be negative about the work you are making a collaboration means that you are identifying that any failings are not coming from you and that you are unhappy with the work so, if it is to fail you can identify that you expressed concern before hand. Through that it is a kind of diminishing of responsibility this also refers back to the pressure of producing.</p>
<p>During the conference there were a number of different issues raised about collaborating, one that stuck with me most was how difficult it was to work with others. On the other hand, I find it much more difficult to work alone. This may be because I have come from a performance background where working together played an essential role in how we created work. Often, we were forced to work together; I think that this is one reason that I find that choosing to work together is a privilege and something worth exploring within itself. </p>Silencetag:performancephilosophy.ning.com,2013-04-21:6528949:BlogPost:137442013-04-21T10:42:51.000ZChris Greenhttp://performancephilosophy.ning.com/profile/ChrisGreen
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<p>“On the information sheet in a New York hotel, I recently read: ‘Dear guest! To guarantee that you will fully enjoy your stay with us, this hotel is totally smoke-free. For any infringement of this regulation, you will be charged $200.’ The beauty of this formulation, taken literally, is that you are to be punished for refusing to fully enjoy your stay … The…</p>
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<p>“On the information sheet in a New York hotel, I recently read: ‘Dear guest! To guarantee that you will fully enjoy your stay with us, this hotel is totally smoke-free. For any infringement of this regulation, you will be charged $200.’ The beauty of this formulation, taken literally, is that you are to be punished for refusing to fully enjoy your stay … The superego imperative to enjoy thus functions as the reversal of Kant’s “Du kannst, denn du sollst” (You can, because you must!); it relies on a “You must, because you can!” That is to say, the superego aspect of today’s “non repressive” hedonism (the constant provocation we are exposed to, enjoining us to go right to the end and explore all modes of <em>jouissance</em>) resides in the way permitted <em>jouissance</em> necessarily turns into obligatory <em>jouissance</em>.”</p>
<p>(58, Zizek, <em>First as Tragedy, Then as Farce</em>, Verso, London:2009)</p>
<p>During the performance philosophy conference I collaborated with a friend and colleague in presenting a performance. Our performance was that of an invitation, an invitation to be silent during the breaks in speakers, we wanted to explore the notion of silence for a number of reasons. We were particularly interested in the notion of a community and how a community can shape an individual’s response (arguably, an individual is already multiple). We felt that, having experienced conferences as people with no experience of presenting at one, and perhaps, in my own case at least a fear that we need to affirm our understanding during these breaks. We knew that silence was something interesting to explore (particularly in this context) as we knew that this was destined to fail, almost instantly.</p>
<p>Our invitation was distributed in the form of a leaflet, left on chairs before the first keynote speaker began. On the front of the leaflet there were two instructions;</p>
<p>1. Please join us in being silent in the breaks between speakers.</p>
<p>2. Please turn over for more information.</p>
<p>On the following two pages of the leaflet there was an essay which contextualised the task (we were later told that this essay may have been too long for people). However, it was only an invitation for further context. The leaflet did not contain our names - as we wanted this to be anonymous. Hence why we had made the decision to leave the instructions on the chairs and to not interact with the conference participants.</p>
<p>Almost instantly, and expectedly this failed. People did not choose to take up the invitation for a number of reasons I believe. The first of those reasons and probably the most significant of all refers back to the notion of community and belonging. Perhaps, a conference<a name="_GoBack"></a> is a place where people come in order to talk to one and other; there is certainly a sense that dialogue is a key aspect of learning and understanding. It is also important to point out that many of the people at this conference (and many others) are actually friends, people they may have met at other conferences, people they may have encountered throughout different stages of their careers. So it was clear that this was always going to be the outcome in as much that talking was the norm and to not talk and to seemingly be doing ‘nothing’ would of meant that you would of being actually doing something very specific and excluding yourself from this networking experience.</p>
<p>Katheryn and myself both attempted to stay silent throughout the first couple of breaks in the conference, this was made difficult when performing the most simplistic of task. Asking for a cup of coffee and saying thank you without words and not wanting to appear very rude, proved extremely difficult. It was this need to talk in order to get what we wanted in the most simplistic sense and a need that we felt in order to talk to express a given emotion or response to a speakers comments. We found that in order to be able to concentrate and stay focused by expressing an emotion, we are able to move away from it (in some cases this is not true).</p>
<p>During the first break we were communicating to one and other through text messages until we decided that we did not want to do this either and that this was a form of non-verbal communication so we decided that we would turn our phones off and not use those. One of the reasons that we had thought about the notion of silence was to realise the idea of freedom of thought that did not need to be vocalised. However, it became clear to me that there was a number of different ways that one could feel like they had to justify their own intelligence in this case; once vocalisation was no longer an issue it became more about the written word. Watching Katheryn writing down lots of notes I felt like I had to do the same in order to show that I was understanding what was happening and that I had something to say about being silent. I’m not sure I did but I wanted to express that I felt like I had to do the same, as we were both doing the same task.</p>
<p>Speaking to people about the performance at the end of the second day, it was clear that people had read the invitation and one person had said that they were shocked that nobody had gone along with it. They also said that they thought that it was something that the organisers had put into place or that it was a handout to form a part of somebody’s paper. This was due mainly to the fact that we chose to not sign our names onto the invitation. We did not identify ourselves with the invitation; instead we chose to have it sat anonymously at the start of the conference. We felt that had we wrote our names onto it this would give it a sense of being authored and that people would be more likely to go along with it as it would then be somebody’s work which would lend itself to people feeling more obliged to take part. The purpose of invitation was to experiment with how people behave when they belong as part of a ‘community’. I think that the experience was useful and we will have no way of understanding to what extent the invitation made people think during the conference perhaps they thought about affirmation? Perhaps they thought about staying silent? </p>