A Collective Speculative Journey
Swedish Visual artist Per Huttner and choreographer Carima Neusser will organise a workshop in Sao Paulo in collaboration with Torrance Art Museum. The workshop brings together participants from visual art, choreography and neuroscience and is open to the public. The workshop is a collective and speculative investigation into what the every day of human life would be like if our bodies were equipped with more eyes than the two we have. What would that mean for human anatomy, the body’s movements, our philosophy, technology, fashion and art? We will also look into how technology can offer eyes to see and embody experiences that were previously out of reach for us – an exploration that mankind has engaged in since the time of first telescope and microscope and that continues where man can carry out surgery via the internet and control rovers on Mars from earth.

Together we want to search for new questions and perspectives by letting our minds and bodies roam free. We are in other words more interested in how this speculative thought experiment can offer new ideas on mankind’s current predicament and our creative practices than to imagine alternative futures or pasts. The workshop will start by smaller groups undertaking collective and practical investigations into one of the above questions under the guidance of Per and Carima. After that a visual artist will reflect on how art might look like if we had another eye in our neck (would that render 2-dimenional art useless?). A choreographer will think about how choreographers and dance audiences would deal with having immortal eyes that passed on visual memories from past generations. Both examples are of course emergent, because both performer and audience are in the same predicament – so both artists will also have to think about how the places for presenting dance and art would be different. They have to reconsider the relationship between artist and audience. A Neuroscientist will make a speculative lecture about .

The presentations will be experimental and outside of each practitioner’s comfort zone. It will include interactive exercises as well as slide talks and other forms of reflections. The workshop will be rounded off with a discussion where the audience and contributors all discuss together.

Workshops
Huttner and Neusser will use the meetings to develop a new performance. The three workshops will form an itinerant laboratory that accumulates knowledge as it travels as and brings previously unconnected groups into dialogue. Huttner and Neusser bring long experience of interdisciplinary and intercultural work to the project. They have worked in the four countries before and have a relatively good knowledge and understanding about current questions in anthropology and neuroscience. In each country there will be a one-day workshop that creates a platform for exchanges between the invited practitioners, guests and audience. You will find more information about the topics addressed and who will participate here.

Outcomes
The project will lead to:
–    A platform to develop new research questions in neuroscience , dance and visual art and where the three disciplines (and others) can continue important discussions.
–    A starting point for how contemporary results in neuroscience can be appropriated in non-scientific fields.
–    A better understanding of how bodies and cultural values inform our outlook on our surrounding world.
–    Artist Per Huttner and choreographer Carima Neusser will use the experiences in the workshops to develop a performance where visual art and dance co-exist.

Partners (to be confirmed and to be expanded)
– Federal University of Sao Paulo – Sao Paulo
– Casa do Povo, Sao Paulo
– Bilioteca Vasconcelos., Mexico City
– CICO, Mexico City
– Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
– Winslow Garage, Los Angeles, CA

 

The project is funded by Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse, Stockholm stad and the Swedish Arts Council.