Monday, May 9, 2016

Der Widerkehr des Verstauten (inspiration, process)

Vor kurzem habe ich mich an diesen Artikel erinnert, von Sven Hillenkamp für DIE ZEIT, der Flohmarkt der Eitelkeiten


Das waren damals für einige Arbeiten von mir ziemlich wichtige, ausschlaggebende Gedanken (für z.B. Pflege: Zwischen Zwangshandlung und kultureller Heldentat und public attic / ausgestellter speicher). Heute bewegt mich die Idee von "Schattenmuseen" immer noch:

"Mittlerweile übersteigt das Eingelagerte das Ausgestellte um ein Vielfaches. Ausrangierte Kunstwerke und abgelegte Relikte bestücken gewaltige Schattenmuseen."

Saturday, April 30, 2016

How Brains Make Moral Judgements (inspiration, process)

This is Rebecca Saxe, cognitive neuroscientist, talking about what really interests me at the moment: cognitive science, science of the mind--and the human capacity to think about other people's thoughts.

"...the crux of the problem is the machine that we use for thinking about other minds, our brain, is made up of pieces, brain cells, that we share with all other animals, with monkeys and mice and even sea slugs. And yet, you put them together in a particular network, and what you get is the capacity to write Romeo and Juliet. Or to say, as Alan Greenspan did, "I know you think you understand what you thought I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." 

[...]

"Until recently, what we knew about the brain were the things that any other animal's brain could do too, so we could study it in animal models. We knew how brains see, and how they control the body and how they hear and sense. And the whole project of understanding how brains do the uniquely human things -- learn language and abstract concepts, and thinking about other people's thoughts -- that's brand new. And we don't know yet what the implications will be of understanding it."

Friday, April 15, 2016

About Paying Attention (inspiration, process)

Something I really find interesting and inspiring:
In her TED talk, developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, author of "The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life" talks about how babies and young children learn, about the differences between adult consciousness and young children's ways of paying attention, about the plasticity of the brain and the brilliance of the "research and development" work that children do.


"And if you actually look in their brains, you see that they're flooded with these neurotransmitters that are really good at inducing learning and plasticity, and the inhibitory parts haven't come on yet. So when we say that babies and young children are bad at paying attention, what we really mean is that they're bad at not paying attention. So they're bad at getting rid of all the interesting things that could tell them something and just looking at the thing that's important. That's the kind of attention, the kind of consciousness, that we might expect from those butterflies who are designed to learn. [...] But if what we want is to be like those butterflies, to have open-mindedness, open learning, imagination, creativity, innovation, maybe at least some of the time we should be getting the adults to start thinking more like children."

Friday, November 27, 2015

New work: "extrem interessant" at the Sammlung Prinzhorn

Partizipatorisches Kunstprojekt von Janet Grau: „extrem interessant“ für die Ausstellung Dubuffets Liste in der Sammlung Prinzhorn.


Als ich Ende 2012 nach Heidelberg gezogen war, entdeckte ich die Sammlung Prinzhorn. Besonders toll fand ich die künstlerischen Reaktionen auf die Sammlung, wie die "ungesehen und unerhört"-Reihe. Ich habe gleich Lust gespürt, selber auf die Sammlung zu reagieren, am besten mit einer partizipatorischen Arbeit, ein Schwerpunkt meiner Kunst in den letzten Jahren. Diese Arbeit, „extrem interessant“, ist nur eine unter vielen Möglichkeiten, die ich hätte, auf so eine tolle Sammlung zu reagieren.

15 Werke aus „Dubuffets Liste“


Gezeigt werden Gespräche, die jeweils zwei Personen über Bilder führen. Jede von ihnen hat die Reproduktion eines Bildes ausgewählt, so dass immer zwei Bilder besprochen werden. Die Reproduktionen sind für die Kamera nicht sichtbar.

Für die Gespräche wurden aus der Fülle der Exponate 15 in eine Vorauswahl genommen. Es ist eine konzentrierte Subgruppe der Ausstellung mit Werken, die Dubuffet definitiv gesehen und beurteilt hat. So könnte man seine Bewertungen neben heutige Reaktionen stellen. Dabei würde etwa deutlich, dass einige der Werke, die Dubuffet spannend fand, nicht so wichtig für zeitgenössische Betrachter sind.


Dokumentiert wird nur die Rezeption


In der Dialogsituation sind die Bilder unmittelbar für beide Dialogpartner präsent. Sie schildern ihre ganz persönlichen Eindrücke vom Betrachteten. Sie beschäftigen sich relativ lange mit den Werken, sie tauchen miteinander in die Bilder ein, entdecken beim Sprechen weitere Details, bücken sich, um genauer zu schauen. Wörter reichen oftmals nicht aus, Gesten werden zu Hilfe genommen. Weil die Teilnehmer nur Kopien vor sich haben, können sie sogar die Bilder berühren und drehen, wovon sie tatsächlich häufig Gebrauch machen.


Die Dialogpartner beziehen sich dabei in entspannter Konzentration auf einen Gegenstand, der dem Betrachter des Videos entzogen bleibt. Dieser ist eingeladen, sich anhand der Beschreibung sein eigenes Bild zu machen und sich in den Ausstellungsräumen auf die Suche nach den beschriebenen Werken zu begeben. Dabei kann er sowohl Dubuffets Urteil wie seine eigene Einschätzung prüfen und reflektieren.






The German Library Pjongyang (Guest)

One of my earlier works, Rückblick / Re-Viewing, is part of an artwork by Sara van der Heide, "Die Deutsche Informations Bibliothek Pjöngjang – The German Library and Information Centre Pyongyang" at the 1st Asia Biennial/5th Guangzhou Triennial the Deutsche Informationsbibliothek in Guangzhou, affiliated with the Goethe-Insitut.


Monday, May 18, 2015

New work going public: Break it Down @ SIGNALWEGE

Break it Down, 2015 (Videostills), Tanzperformance, Video und Installation

SIGNALWEGE. Eine Begegnung von Kunst und Wissenschaft* im Rudolf-Virchow-Zentrum

Universität Würzburg
Josef-Schneider-Straße 2, Haus D15,
97080 Würzburg

22. Mai – 4. Oktober 2015
Mo - Fr 11 - 18 Uhr
So 15 - 17 Uhr

*Ausstellung kuratiert von Dr. Ulrike Lorenz und Dr. Anne Vieth

Sunday, April 12, 2015

The riddle of experience vs. memory (inspiration, process)

Very inspiring and fascinating TED talk--the differences between the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self" will probably work its way into my work at some point in the near future...


"Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy — and our own self-awareness."

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Break it Down, shooting video (work-in-progress, 2015)

"They say knowledge is king, but what's a king to believe?"


After the split...

"Everything's connected"

Motor protein Roswitha schlepping Thomas

Our elegant ion channel

Break it Down, rehearsals (work-in-progress, 2015)


Rehearsing at the TANZRAUM in Würzburg, partner work (how to use your partner's weight as a support and how to move together, as if "connected").

The "cell" with roDDie in the "nucleus"! (before and after added ingredient: costumes) 

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The Protein Folding Problem (inspiration, process)

Before I started working on my recent project, I wouldn't have even known about "the protein folding problem"--but now I even find it inspirational and very interesting.

Many of the things Ken Dill talks about in this lecture are being built into the choreography for the performance "Break it Down":
The protein folding problem: a major conundrum of science: Ken Dill at TEDxSBU

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Scientific visualizations (inspiration, process)

Looking at lots of animations and illustrations showing molecular processes these days, getting ready for creating the choreography for my new work, "Break it Down".


Ever since watching microbiologist Janet Isawa's TED talk a couple of months ago, I've been checking out her impressive body of work online (onemicron.com), too.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Invisibilia (inspiration, process)

There's a really interesting new program on NPR, "Invisibilia." I listened to the first episode, "The Secret History of Thoughts," which covered many things I've been thinking about recently.


"Invisibilia is a series about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. The show interweaves personal stories with scientific research that will make you see your own life differently."


Gathering momentum, ideas and participants for new work ("Break it Down", work-in-progress, 2015)

Gathering momentum, ideas and participants at the "Break it Down" workshop on January 5th (TANZRAUM in Würzburg).

 


Thursday, December 18, 2014

Slowing down to really see what's happening (inspiration, process)

I watched this TED talk about a Norwegian television experiment, a series of real-time documentary experiments they're now calling "Slow TV," and it reminded me how fantastic it is when we are given the opportunity to watch something happening, to watch a process unfolding--something I've been interested in for decades, ever since I moved my practice out of the studio and into the "real world."

I haven't been able to watch any of these live on television, but I have enjoyed watching some of the 8-hour process "from sheep to sweater" (NRK TV National Knitting Eve).


"Break it Down" (work-in-progress, 2014)

Where I am working and whom I'm working with (to create the new piece, "Break it Down"):
Rudolf Virchow Zentrum 
in Würzburg
Sonja Lorenz
at the Rudolf Virchow Zentrum
Jugendkirche Würzburg
Tanzraum Würzburg

"Break it Down" (work-in-progress, 2014)

People I'm lucky to be working with on my new project, "Break it Down":
Young roDDie
Lisa Kuttner Tanzraum Würzburg
Andrea Kneis
Alexander Pollner
Dancefloor Destruction Crew
Michael Lamprecht
Dancefloor Destruction Crew

Visualization, using animation to help test hypotheses (inspiration, process)

This TED talk by Janet Iwasa  is really great, it deals with something I'm working with for my new project: visualizations of what is happening at the molecular level in our bodies right now, all the time.

Molecular biologists can't always see what they are investigating, but they can imagine it and create visualizations to test their hypotheses. This is really inspiring to me right now, and is forming the base for my new work, "Break it Down" (working title).