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othering scores

  • What are othering scores?
  • a.pass workshop
  • Kamer 13
  • othering scores cards
  • Jellyfish, space-age-apartment, artistic nudity, space station

What are othering scores?

I have been developing techniques that I call ‘Othering scores’ (2016). In these individual sessions and workshops I propose tools and exercises to destabilise one’s habitual perceptions of self, and offer rituals to ‘decolonise’ the body and invite participants to imagine and sense divers body-identities, create what I call personal body-fictions.

These are dressing up scores for 2 people: the outside eye + the inside eye: we need a witness to be able to see ourselves. Any kind of clothing can be used for these scores. Fabrics, objects, hair, wigs, make-up can be a nice addition.

HYPERSELF

Create a possible or impossible version of you. The hyperself is a parallel version of you, which maybe doesnʼt have a place in this world but exists in a parallel universe. A hyper version of yourself. Write a letter from the hyperself to yourself.

OTHER

Observe each other. Who would be a character, that is other or opposed to the person you see. What kind of personality is most far away from them? Through questioning, find out: What is definitely not them? Which kind of persona do they reject? What kind of aesthetics are confronting for them? Create their Other. Write a letter from the Other to yourself.

MIRROR

Transform the other person as a mirror of yourself. Describe yourself through the other person. Identify with the other, find similarities. Formulate the other through your eyes and thereby find yourself. Guide them to become you. Now you can have a conversation with yourself. Ask them about difficult aspects of yourself. Write a letter from the Mirror to who you are mirroring.

ALIEN

Start with automatic writing: Describe all the facets of you, focussing on the alien parts in yourself, what you don’t understand, can’t really identify with. From here, continue to choose materials and costumes to dress up. Imagine you’re an alien just landed from outer space and you have no idea what you’re looking at and how to use it. Try to create an image that canʼt be pinned down. Whenever you recognise what you’re creating, change! Write a letter from the alien to yourself.

VISION

Observe the other person, what is there, what is missing, what should be enhanced in your perspective? What is your vision for this person? How do you see this person? Create your vision. Write a letter from the vision to your ‘creator’.

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a.pass workshop

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The alien tea-party / in search for an elastic alien self

February 2017, invited by Pierre Rubio, a.pass Brussels

In this workshop I proposed practices to create sensitivity towards the relations we build with images and aesthetics. I invited the group to encounter alternative forms of being-with-oneself through creating an auto-fiction story through self-image-modifications.

We used surfaces, materials, clothes and props as entrances into parallel realities within ourselves. The clothes and accessories became our vessels to travel into unknown, unconscious parallel forms of being. Trying to establish a perspective from outer-space, the future or a parallel universe we revisited common aesthetics with an outside eye.

Looking for alternative beings, bodies and genders we connected to inner visions and then imagined how they could be actualised into material presences—as bodies. An invitation to explore the elasticity of one's image and as in a process of channeling.

At the end of the days we came together as our newly discovered alien-fiction-beings in a ‘tea-party’ gathering. Their voices were enhanced through microphones, loop-machines, effect-paddles and speakers and recorded as a divergent radio-show. Excerpts from this experience were presented as part of Radio Triton by Pierre Rubio.

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Kamer 13

A residency and exhibition in Kamer 13, Gent / 2017. A group a participants were one-by-one invited into 'Othering-sessions' during the day. In the evenings the gallery was open and visitors could visit the space, where the the remains in the space and the audio recording of the sessions where exhibited.

Below you find the transcription of the scores of the sessions.

THE ALIEN

1) You will enter now a hyper-reality. A parallel reality, an illusion, another fictional reality, similar to the one we perceive now. The laws of logic and sense, which we understand now, will no longer apply to this parallel reality. Every recognition or identification must be deconstructed. Free yourself now from the colonization of identified identities. You can no longer be recognized. concentrate on your breath, just observe it, don't correct it... how the are goes through your nose, into your lungs, opening your chest, filling your belly, how it circulates in your body ... bringing fresh air to all your cells... Now take as much air as possible in and let it circulate in your whole body. Imagine that this air is clean and white, and while circulating through your body, is cleaning it. With every breathing-in you take more white air inside you, cleaning every part - your feet - and all the memories connected your legs lower legs, knees, upper legs, every part slowly becomes white, radiating white light. hips, belly, chest, neck, head , arms, hands all connected images dissolve into this cleaning white light. With every breath you soak more white air into you, sending it to all body parts. Especially the ones that are more fixated to certain images. With every breath you dissolve all the images of the contexts in which you see yourself. dissolve all the images with which you identify yourself. Clean yourself from the pollution of your own identification. dissolve all the logics that constrain you. All the images of yourself that constrain you. Clean all body parts with this white air through your breathing until you feel lighter. Let the air circulate through your skeleton from feet up the spine into your head. Let it clean all visual memories from your flesh and finally let it radiate through your skin. Cleaning it from outside gazes from the representational bondage. Let it be free and radiating. Break down the borders of identity that limit your being. Expand the limitations of your physicality. Dive into the purity of existence/ Into your invisible body, your imaginary body. Your multiple body. Dissolve your physical body. Feel all the atoms and particles, that it consists of. They are free and flexible. They can take on any form. There are no limits. 15 min

2) slowly get up, with closed eyes and explore this space. T ry not to be limited by your learned identification of objects. Explore freely - encounter the forms and materials around you with complete innocence. 10 min

3) describe your impressions 5 min

4) describe what kind of form you have in a non-identified reality. ->put music on 5 min

5) dress according to that describe why and what I do. 30 min

6) open eyes express how does the new form makes you feel 10 min then go to the mirror describe what you see/ the visible 5 min

7) re-arrange space according to your new character choose objects, explain why what are they good for how do you use it? 10 min

8) fictionalize how would you move, stand, walk, lie, talk, voice, laugh, language What would you do? Where would you live? Where would you sit? How? 15 min

9) What is your name? So you are ... what music ->put music on relations/political system/century 15 min

10) express yourself with music, dance, song, movement 10 min

11) pick your favorite object explain what you can do with it 5 min

12) how is this reality different than the one before? How are you different? 5 min

13) Do I fit in your current reality? how would I fit? What do I have to do to fit? Can you make me fit? Who would I be in this reality? What would my relation to you be? 20 min

14) Is it possible to create a hyperreality together? Where are we now? In-between what? Would we be anything? How are we tied to our reality and identity? How could we change it? 10 min

15) Do you want to go/come back?

16) lay down, close your eyes. Map all the images you created in fron of your inner eyes, let them resonate, let your words resonate. Can words change reality? let the words come 5 min

17) Breath, focus on body, circulation, air, physicality. Arrive on the floor, focus on breathing, let thoughts pass by.

18) Dissolve all the images you created into white. Every single one. Look at it and consciously burn it into white fire. Counting 10-0 all images are dissolved 5 min

19) open your eyes. You are back in reality as you know it. Dress as you normally do.

20) analyzation

THE HYPERSELF

1) The real is produced from miniaturized units, from matrices, memory banks and command models - and with these it can be reproduces an indefinite number of times. In the next hours we will reproduce a hyper-reality. A parallel reality, an illusion, another fictional reality similar to the one we perceive now.

2) Try to focus on the essence of your being. The material - skeleton - flesh - skin Clean it with breathing from all images .../white air concentrate on your breath, just observe it, don't correct it... how the are goes through your nose, into your lungs, opening your chest, filling your belly, how it circulates in your body ... bringing fresh air to all your cells... Now take as much air as possible in and let it circulate in your whole body. Imagine that this air is clean and white, and while circulating through your body, is cleaning it. With every breathing-in you take more white air inside you, cleaning every part - your feet - and all the memories connected - your legs- lower legs, knees, upper legs, every part slowly becomes white, radiating white light. hips, belly, chest, neck, head , arms, hands all connected images dissolve into this cleaning white light. With every breath you soak more white air into you, sending it to all body parts. Especially the ones that are more fixated to certain images. Clean all body parts with this white air through your breathing until you feel lighter. Let the air circulate through your skeleton from feet up the spine into your head. Let it clean all visual memories fromm your flesh and finally let it radiate through your skin. Cleaning it from outside gazes from the representational bondage. Let it be free and radiating. your body is white - a blank material, pure and innocent 10 min Now Imagine if you could become someone else, who would yo be? Which hyper-version of you is out there, in another parallel universe? what is your gender? Would gender exist? What is your skin color? What would you do there? What would be your destiny? How would you live there? What kind of relationships would you have? You can produce any effect you like merely by imitating it 5 min

3) -open eyes- don't look in the mirror as long as possible. Start creating your hyperself. take time - explain choices, if possible 20 min

4) stand in front of mirror, describe what you see, fill blank white body with a character take your time, sit or walk through room 5 min

5) fictionalize how would you stand, sit, walk, lie ...? arrange this space which object would you like, why? which furniture, why? How would you sit on it? Would you sit? What could these objects be good for in this parallel world? Which sounds/music would be here? 10 min

6) how voice, laughing logic of life, work? relationships? political system? houses? living? 10 min

7) Does he/she/it have a name? so you are ... love, sex, family, lifestyle, music, books, films put on your favorite music. express yourself with music. 20 min

8) Take an image to go further What would you like to see for her/him/it? 5 min

9) Make yourself comfortable/ go to space in this room that attracts you most lay down/close eyes – go into the memory of this image and its stories. Which images come up? -> automatic speech 5 min

10) in-between - hybrid What is this image producing in you? What can I not see right now? How is the visible/costume related to the invisible character that you are? What is beyond this visible? Where does ... come from? Where is the person you were before now? How are you related? What is ... liberating? How is ... language? 10 min

11) How would ... create a hyperself? What would he/she do different? Could you do it? Correct it according to ...? 20 min

12) fictionalizing/analyzing what is different - how different... name? lifestyle, love, politics ... 10 min

13) alone? who would be her/his desired company/companion? You can make me as your companion... What would I look like, be like? Explain choices What would we do? relate to objects, furniture discuss how: "I would” 20 min

14) analyze together hyper-real + companion What would we like to keep, what get rid of? do it 10 min

15) stay with a version we like choose song together that fits dance together 15 min

16) lay down, Dissolve all the images you created into white. Every single one. Look at it and consciously burn it into white fire. Counting 10-0 all images are dissolved 5 min

The Other

1) Questions / Interview -What are you not? -which color do you hate? -are you more male or female? -do you wear high heels? do you feel superior/shy... towards others? 10 min

2) take image: -what is a counter image of who you are? -describe image in 'I'-form "I am not" 10 min

3) dissolve images/self images/white fire/body images breath away cleaning concentrate on your breath, just observe it, don't correct it... how the are goes through your nose, into your lungs, opening your chest, filling your belly, how it circulates in your body ... bringing fresh air to all your cells... Now take as much air as possible in and let it circulate in your whole body. Imagine that this air is clean and white, and while circulating through your body, is cleaning it. With every breathing-in you take more white air inside you, cleaning every part - your feet - and all the memories connected - your legs- lower legs, knees, upper legs, every part slowly becomes white, radiating white light. hips, belly, chest, neck, head , arms, hands all connected images dissolve into this cleaning white light. With every breath you soak more white air into you, sending it to all body parts. Especially the ones that are more fixated to certain images. Clean all body parts with this white air through your breathing until you feel lighter. Let the air circulate through your skeleton from feet up the spine into your head. Let it clean all visual memories fromm your flesh and finally let it radiate through your skin. Cleaning it from outside gazes from the representational bondage. Let it be free and radiating. connect to pure materiality perceive body ad a mere shell/form of material a skin/ a shape/ a body ->new born blank body/pure innocent form leave your outer shell – your mind enters into the noosphere - the sphere of collective human thought a self-reflective omnipresent universe a superorganism connected to endless possibilities of being. Imagine how to overcome the physical borders of this body how you expand - become everything free your mind and body from the colonisation of your own identity open yourself to perceive the fiction of social reality, to break down this optical illusion of division and individuality. clean body-white air, breathing, dissolve your identity, what you like, what you do, how others see you, what you expect from yourself, what others expect open all your senses - eyes ears, skin, to become other, to transform, free them from limiting concepts, from definitions. Now that you are disconnected/detached from your physical representation, your body is ready for a transformation. 10 min

4) Please follow me. Now I will project my view on you. I will create an image with this body that is disconnected from who it was before. In fact I will create the opposite of what is was. ->music on (my choice)

5) dressing without words 20 min

6) fictionalize -how would she/he stand, walk, sit ... -male, female, no genders? -discover the room -which object or furniture would he/she use? -re-arrange the room according to him/her. -arrange his/her space. -how would he/she move in here? -what voice? -work, interests, where does he/she live? century, political system - opinion, relationship... -how does he/she laugh? 10 min

7) does he/she have a name? so you are ...? personal questions... love/sex/problems/family/lifestyle/books/films/music ->put music on does he/she like to dance? ->dance re-enact situations - morning, going to work/meeting friends express yourself with music! express yourself with movements 15 min

8) discover problematic sides -take cards -analyse cards for character -your secret -(invisible things nobody can see right now) -how can this character be more ... 10 min

9) (lay down) -close your eyes, dream about your other life- what images appear? go into the image ... automatic speech 2 min 10 min

10) are you a hybrid now? analyze the character in-between what can I not see? what is invisible to me right now? how does the presence of ... change the person you were before? what are similarities/differences? how is the visible (the costume) related to the invisible (the character emanating from costume)/ what is invisible? what is beyond this visible? where does ... come from? who created ...? how does this visible change, influence invisible processes? where is the person you were before now? how are you related? what is liberating in you? how is your language affected? 15 min

11) correct/improve (this character)... how could you be improved/better? use my body to improve yourself. explain a version that you can identify with more... ask her ... tell her how she is more you. why is she improved... choose music do I have a name? same as yours? version 2? what would you ask me as improved other? how would I rearrange the space? where would I sit and why? what would you like me to do? I, as the improved you/other, can create my vision of you. because only I can see who you really are. 30 min

12) vision of other music - I choose I explain what I do and why... how is vision connected to other? what feels better? same name? new name? which music - dance together... 30 min

13) while experiencing opposites as multiple perspectives, we observe the dream of our own presumption. say positive things about each other.

14) complementing each other: How can we be one? what do I have what you don't ... 10 min HUG

15) laying down Dissolve all the images you created into white. Every single one. Look at it and consciously burn it into white fire. Counting 10-0 all images are dissolved 10 min

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othering scores cards

These cards were created for the exhibition ‘In order of appearance’ in De Koer / Gent, 2017. The cards can stay with one person, until they feel the task has been fulfilled (this could be 10 Minutes or 10 years), then they can pass the card on to another person.

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Jellyfish, space-age-apartment, artistic nudity, space station

Some words about feelings and text by Helena Dietrich and Godart Bakkers. My feelings represent where we came from, what was before us and what will be after us. These two are really what’s in between. This is going out of my feelings discovering the rest of the world, or even what is outside this world. She is really representing that in a way. The desire to explore. But also the feeling that you have is being restricted or tempered by this cultivation in a way. Because in the end it’s slowing it down, specially if you know it will end where my feelings are end then it’s a very strange contradiction, all these effort we put in to it. But I have to say the obvious two is that you have a woman and I have the male and it obvious looks like the text makes sex… there is this big desire to bring something together and to make something out of that that we bring together.

So the woman in the text, she came from the jelly fish where she still has a connection with, she still wants it, to grab it. The water around the jellyfish change in to a blue wall and she is not swimming anymore but confronted with this hard surface. She is not floating but she is naked, she feels with her whole body the surface of the wall and she tries to feel this with every part of her skin. She presses her whole body against it; it’s really about the exploration… Second is the pair of hands that explore her body, and maybe this wall is outside of my feeling that I bring in to the text. She had red nail polish, I feel like she is also the woman that lives in the apartment, the red house. Inside the house is red and outside it’s blue. Red as the color of action, being active and blue stands for receptivity, so the outside is totally absorbing everything that is coming from outside and the woman is absorbing that with her skin. The blue comes back in the space station; that is the text, it’s again another surface and we’re wondering what is inside, is the jellyfish inside? It’s a possibility that the jellyfish comes back in the water but we don’t know. There is something about the surface and the reflection in the water that doesn’t allows us to look deeper. A little bit mysterious, and then we see this very organized nature, this very humanized, cultivated nature. Therefore we see the land of the text with a house inside. We have the essence of the text which gave birth to the woman that lives in the house. There is an outside of the house and then finally we see the world of the text, the space station, a base where the woman can be standing in the wall. She totally wants to go to space; she wants to get up, being shot to space, even in the sexuality, the metaphor with the rocket. This explosion of this excavation, this search for space…

Can we create one text out of these? If we would make it a story, with a beginning and an end, if we really are going to use it as a text as a phrase or a page in a book.

What I feel is that except for the jellyfish, with his ‘free floating’, you always feel very strong decisions. This is the outcome of this decision and this is the outcome of that. And maybe that is where the jellyfish comes in; this ‘not knowing where I’m going’ subject. And besides that you have all these very conscious surroundings where everybody decided what to do. Even the woman is also very clear posed, and the room as well. All strategic and very conscious and the text is the same, we decide this but leave it open as well to control it again in the end by deciding where to put what.

I also have to think of the structure of the jellyfish, the materiality that you can push. I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I think everybody ones ripped a jellyfish apart. Put a stick in the jellyfish. But what does this mean for the text? That you want to touch it, or put a stick in it? Grab it? It’s more about the feeling of the structure. A jellyfish is just hanging around, not going somewhere and it’s easily ripped apart without any feelings. You just put your feet on it and rip it apart. At the other hand we see this structure that will bend, but wouldn’t brake, there is only tension, no evil hands. More an exploration.

What is the text, is it the whole image? Is it here? I feel it’s the whole image because maybe the text is also leaning against the wall. There is something that the text is in the back, or in the ass. Fascinating you say that. I more feel the text is the woman, who really wants to be grabbed. I feel the text wants to be grabbed, taken. And it is surrendering as well. She doesn’t look drunk, the text is almost saying… the text is not making decisions; it wants to be taken and moved around. In the end it wants to be held close. It doesn’t have anything to do with love for me.

So this is how it would come together. So what is the text than? The text is a naked woman standing against the wall. There is lust, you don’t feel any resist, she is surrendering… She also feels helpless. I think she is in extase, you feel some sensation. And the hands on here ass try to open or close it. Or it’s pulling here towards him. Just two hands that hold here. Maybe that is what the text want, being hold.

If we look for the difference, if I have to define my feelings towards the text, my text, it’s really timeless, and if I see your text it’s a sort of periodical and defined time. What does that mean for you, concrete?

I like that, I always have this idea that I would like to invite people to come for the weekend, to stay over in another world for a whole weekend. And I had this idea with a friend, we were thinking ‘you come and get a whole range of pills and stuff’, it’s like ‘so now you first have to go drink this and then you have to do this and then you go to this room…’ it’s like the whole kind of thing that you enter. And every room has his own thing that it does. So the trip is a ‘complete trip’ and not just a one hour trip sitting in a room and spacing.

This feelings are an invitation to hang out, to share it, but in an intimate way, an intimate and passionate way. People have to spend time to see the passion that I have towards this text. It takes time, but if you start hanging out you will forget time and maybe enjoy yourself, it’s about play, about playing.

And there is Bob Dylan in my feelings that I have towards the text.

So the text for me is a fascinating free floating creature, that’s able to stitch. Yeah, I would say that, and maybe add that ethics doesn’t have to do with it. Now I’m curious towards your feeling to the text.

So we’ll see what the text will be. Let’s see what the cards say, where the text is about. Do you have any ideas? Are you afraid of it? Let’s ask what our feelings are towards the text. And also let’s define the text.

This text is the result of a session performed by Helena Dietrich and Godart Bakkers. Using the by Helena Dietrich improved Tarot-card reading technique. A performance the artist will also perform during Soscastoa in De Ruimte February 2016. Godart Bakkers wrote their séance down and reversed the text to the reader will start with the results which lead him to the questions asked in the beginning. The result is based on the psychoanalysis’s of the performers, the author and the reader.

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