Collectif Experiencia 2011 collectifexperiencia.net experienciacollectif@gmail.

com 59 Rue Letort 75018 Paris

Collectif Experiencia
LightVVORK, 2011/2012

dossier
Collectif Experiencia gathers multidisciplinary artists of the new alter-modernist and experimental generation. We pursue a mission of creation as well as research. Our workshop experiments (research) aim to uncover a collective movement of the body as well as its unconscious state, to explore elements of time, space, and ethics in society. Our creations are mainly performance pieces, provoking and confronting our audience or the public. We do not limit ourselves to the contemporary stage, we will use any medium we find useful for our work. On the note of our works, it should be mentioned that we maintain a subversive character and a strong willingness to open and restructure the spectators means of traditional perception.

Introduction

Outline Artistic Ideas

1. 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. 8. Statement Corporal and technological experimentation Set Design Sound Performance Art Biographies of main artists Calendar

ANNEXES

1.

Statement
LightVVORK will explore the relations between elements of composition on the stage. We propose a visual construction within which each element is integral to the performance as a whole. Until today, in the stage discipline, one visual or narrative aspect has dominated all others. However, LightVVORK is about the links between three forms of separate origins, at once visual, sonic and corporal. Given the demultiplied physical and mental origins of the artists and actors contributing to the show, we will articulate the unification of differing cultures on one stage. However, we will reconstruct the idea of culture inside its society, for it manifests itself as an archipelago. Everything is connected, each principal artist represents a small island within the contemporary cultural archipelago, but one does not stop at infinite demultiplication, the performance will show the spaces between the archipelago, the spaces between each small island. Every island speaks: the noise music of Nolan Jankowski is inspired by the wandering condition seen in the alternative community in the United States, the empty stage plan created by Raul Zbengheci expresses a certain ambiance found in Bucharest where the buildings themselves speak to us more than the people inhabiting them and finally, the corporal experiments that will serve as base for the performances choreography try to find an unconscious that is at once collective and anarchistic. Each part, or island, functions without the aid of the others, but LightVVORK does not concern itself with the islands themselves, LightVVORK interests itself in the relations between the three and in the mental space that exists between these elements. In short, the connections and intersections between the origins interest us more than a single linear narrative, the idea is to create a total work of art that destabilizes what is considered to be the contemporary performance cadre. LightVVORK aims to work with layers and levels. The main objective is synthesis with the aid of technology. The stage plan proposed by Raul Zbengheci exists as a speaking skeleton, it forms a superficial structure that gives the ability to have a total abstraction within it, in a way giving it a stronger form of freedom within its boundaries. The movements proposed by Enora Keller will fill the empty space in the stage plan even if their creation will be carried out without a single limit. Therefore, there is already a play between interior and exterior, and beyond it, Nolan Jankowski proposes a sonic atmosphere that synthesizes the combination between Zbengheci and Keller, because his music explores the relations between two separated analog sources. Furthermore, the movements proposed by Keller resemble the music. They are carried out in an organic and unconscious fashion, they search a natural evolution of the corporal relation between the actors, an evolution that resembles analog sound, like a signal and its reverberations. The main idea is construction and deconstruction at the same time. One uses the reconstruction of de-multiplied elements to deconstruct materiality, duality, the binary relationship and finally to deconstruct the idea of gender. LightVVORK does not have a genre, it has an aesthetic narrative, it has a totality, but we do not limit ourselves by genre constrictions or labels. Our performance is an original idea where the barriers of the conscious and the unconscious no longer exist. In this sphere, there are no limits between individuals. We work so that the public can receive our production in a completely sensory manner. We think that this space can reconcile strangers with the world of live performance without falling in the problems imposed by language barriers. We do not pretend to make therapeutic art, but there is a certain aspect of the production that gives our work a therapeutic quality.

2.
Technological innovation
Our collective pursues a fluid artistic development without limits. Our experimentations with the body try to find a collective unconscious freed from chorographical and theatrical tradition. We use new technologies particularly for ascending to this liberating mode of being. Our music uses circuit bending to find a sound that is at once nostalgic and powerful. The music tries to touch on a certain truth by exploring errors or glitches in sound. We like to think that electrical errors are always present but rarely or never listened to. We would like to make them heard. The sound evolves in a natural manner due to the nature of feedback. The choreography and the music are created at the same time, therefore the feedback of the body during our movement experimentations will influence the music and be influenced by it. You may refer to our introductory video VVORKSHOP where we expand on our theoretical and philosophical ideas linked to our ideas of sound, body and visual production. Furthermore, the originality of the stage plan manifests itself with the use of two video projectors in the place of two simple key lights. The light leaving the video projectors acts in the same way as normal stage lighting but it adds another visual element. The two cameras will record the movements of the performers and these images will be projected on our screens in real time. The screens will be placed in front of the public and will define both the silhouettes real time movement and the deformed silhouettes and movement that will be mixed and manipulated at our video console. It should be noted that our video manipulation works in the same way as the audio manipulation that we had developed during our musical composition. The collective is currently working on constructing a console that could manipulate video and audio at the same time. In sum, we use technology to make the spectator active and therefore an actor. By using circuit bending, one traverses the stage toward the spectator and wakes the emotions of the unconscious in order to create an ambiance facilitating the total connection between the artist and the spectator.

Movement Experimentation Workshops

We will call them experimentations because one should choose an explicit term. Miss Enora Keller and her pseudonym Androdaura will incarnate the ordonnatrice du corps, or the processor of the body. Influenced by Artaud, she thinks that there is a necessity within performance today to comprehend pure ethics, to wash ourselves of our layers of external slag from society in order to find mans neutral state. It is about trying to connect each performer in order that they can feel the power of their collective unconscious. They will therefore act as the marionettes of their unconscious and their physical needs (movement, cries) that emerge as results of the coordinated mental action of the actors. Each workshop will allow us to have more clear ideas for our mise-en-scne. We will use the most interesting results of our experiments in our choreography. The co-direction will be a harmonious mix between the structured ideas of Raul Zbengheci and the mental and mystical principles proposed by Enora Keller. The experimentations will be based firstly on rhythm, repetition, de-multiplication, destruction, chaos, rigor, space, and the feeling of emptiness. Each notion will be researched by the workshops constructed in relation to each other in an explosive chronology that will find its logic only at the end of the experimentations. It is difficult to give more details relating principles of the workshop given the mysterious discipline of processing the body that cannot be perfectly unveiled by textual language. The language of understanding is less efficient than the language of misunderstanding or of the absurd. Is there a way to have an impact on the consumers of art that can also have an interest for the evolution of society? Probably we can find a means of unlocking conscience or find sensory visions due to traumatic experimentation. One should work on the public as if they were guinea pigs of themselves (the creators).

3.

Set Design
Please refer to annexes A and B which present the set design visually. We will explain the role of the presented space. First of all, there is an exploration of light and its creation of space and human forms. The light design has three objectives: The transformation in silhouette of the two separated groups of actors, group 1 with public 2 and group 2 with public 1. This comes in a diagonal fashion, video projector 1 will be directly across from audience 2 and vice versa. The lighting of group 1 is limited by the light from video projector 1 in order to form a low-key lighting effect where the figures are only half lit when they are seen by public 2. Our wish is to let the unconscious of the audience fill in the unlit part of the figures. In sum, the actors directly in front of an audience will be silhouettes, the actors on the other side will be half-lit, in low-key. The lights marked Backlight 1 and Backlight 2 will distinguish our figures within the space, creating a halo effect. However, these two lights will be much weaker. They will be more raised than the video projectors and they will not conflict the silhouette and low-key lighting effects. The video projectors will project the images captured by the two cameras in an infinite loop. The signals from the video cameras will first go to the audio and video mixing station where they will be mixed by the musician, or VJ, and then sent to the video projectors. Finally, the images projected will resemble a silhouette within another silhouette moving at the same time, though they are different figures on the stage. For enacting the articulation of forms, the audience and its seating will be limited by the lighting. The limitations create the proper spaces for spectating and performing in relation to each other. These are the blue and red zones in the diagram. The tentative position of the musician is within the separation between seating. The precise seating help make clear the meaning of the set design. The actors will be linked to their complements on the other side of the stage. We try to create a mirror effect between them. The spectator sees a silhouette in front of her and to better comprehend the identity and the reason for the silhouettes in front, she will look at the figures moving identically to the silhouettes on the other side of the stage. The director disrupts the expectations of the spectator in presenting the mirror effect. The middle of the stage will exist as a fictional mirror. The symmetry of the stage will expand the image of the half lit actors and distinguish two almost independent spaces.

Actors 1
(the real) materiall

Actors 2
(the Real) fictive space

The unlit half of group 2

(the meta-Real)

Please refer to annex B

We will destabilize the dialectic or binary thought. The choreography exists in two parts. Actor group 1 will have its proper presence and fundamental identity while group 2 will differ, but only subtly. However, only silhouettes will rest directly in front of the spectator, their identities will not be clear or obvious. For example, audience 1 will think that in front of it, there is a given silhouette, but its reflection that defines it will be at the same time subversive and different. In short, we will create a disruptive space.

4.

Collectif Experiencia 2011

The duality of the stage plan represents the binary that we want to destabilize, the relationship between two separate parts exists to break the concrete chain by creating a fictional space. The totality of the set design, with the music and choreography represents the fiction that will destabilize the binary relation. The half that expresses the meta-Real will be the most powerful, it will represent the unknown that remains unconscious and obscure. We give an introduction and a fundamental aesthetic to the spectator, but the meta-Real will be created by the brains of the spectator, at once consciously and unconsciously. The stage and light plan take a minimal and uniform approach, the idea consists of subtracting rather than adding. The notion is to remove every unnecessary stage element (aesthetic decoration) and be left with the essential. Two options exist, one being more difficult to enact than the other. There is a need to start the performance with a certain physical separation of the space on the stage and between the two groups of spectators. One could use blinds, a mirror, or a veil for separating the space vertically during the start of the show, for about ten or fifteen minutes. The audience will not be conscious of the other half of the space, it will think that the division has a figurative function. After the fifteen minutes, the mirror is lifted and the spectators will nevertheless see the stage in the same way as before given the symmetry of the light design. After having removed the physical separation, the performance will present subtleties between the two parts of the stage, nuances expressing the destabilization of the stages dialectic. In short, the theatrical space will reflect a mental space or a space that questions the idea of binary, it questions the idea of gender (separated from sex) and the dialectic philosophy of Jacques Lacan or Roland Barthes, yet in contrast with Deleuzes critique of the two, we will present a more precise vision. The processor of the body will add an element of performance art to the show. She will signify the embodiment of the destabilizing third. She does not have a gender while at the same time destabilizing the totality on the stage. She is separated from the binary of the set design and she destabilizes the duality, she is the third fictional gender. The processor will direct the bodies in order to develop a progression within the performance, one might call it narration. The processor exists at the same level as the unlit halves of the actors on the stage. The set and light design are speaking skeletons. Our inspiration comes from Adolphe Appia, who had redefined the role of lighting on the stage. It is no longer a theater discipline only used for lighting actors, it is now an integral part of the performances totality, in direct relation with the music and the choreography. We do not limit ourselves by the actions of the actors or musical movements. On the contrary, we will create a total work by utilizing space, light, and the body to form a unified mise-en-scne. Each part speaks at the same time, each part is an element of the mise-en-scne. Lighting is no longer a two dimensional form, it is fluid and spacious, it defines the space on the stage and it introduces rules in the same way that the script and the speech of the actors would introduce rules and limits. To finish, LightVVORK does not have a genre or a discipline. It creates its own identity and pushes the spectators toward a new comprehension that exists not only due to the mise-en-scne and the music, but also due to their unconscious that instinctively fills in the unknown. At once voluntary and involuntary, LightVVORK searches for subtlety and nuance. Like proper architecture, it is not necessary that the spectator realizes that his unconscious has been activated, he will nevertheless feel the spatial construction and the subtleties presented by the creators.

5.

Sound
Our music searches for a natural and organic evolution of sound. Because of the experimentation with analog sound sources, a single signal conducts itself and grows alone, in a chaotic manner rather than one that is uniform and unified. The composer explores ideas of randomization and interdependence in relation to recording, signal feedback, and the analog discipline of circuit bending. The key principle for this experimentation is feedback and its use. The score does not limit itself to clear and well-constructed sound. The music proposes a re-interpretation of musical glitches while exploring the errors of sound instead of the rigidity that has come with digital sound. That is to say that the feedback that is often erased becomes more interesting than all of the other musical notes. Furthermore, one takes the signal that comes as a result of feedback and manipulates, corrupts it and reconstructs it until the musicality desired for LightVVORK is found. There is a relation between the sound work and the choreography of the performers because the two grow at the same time. For example, a new expression found during the workshops can influence the development of the music and vice-versa. Effectively, the movements of the body in the workshops and the analog signal fluctuation share the same foundation. We pursue a creation apart from the limits imposed by current music. That is to say that we will let the sound grow on its own without instant manipulation and without throwing away the pieces currently thought undesirable for a song. The music revisits dissonance with respect to the body workshops ran by Enora Keller. The idea is that a level of expression and presence exist outside of the waking and rational state. For example, a bird learns to sing by singing a single note, the sound inflections that come are learned and applied to the total song. In the same way, the music for the performance will come from simple sources and will be mixed by the composer. The synthesis of sound will be performed live so that the entire show can be called live. Additionally, the composer will integrate the voices of the actors on the stage in his sound aesthetic. He will reduce the voice to analog signals and use it like all the other signals attached to his equipment. The composer creates new instruments and equipment for each performance or project. It is therefore difficult to give a precise idea of his technical needs because his creation grows along with the body creation within our workshops, his anarchic music will inspire new movements and the unlimited movements will inspire the music. Given this, he will create new instruments to better articulate the aesthetic narration of the performance. Even if the music and the choreography are still being perfected, a main concept remains with the sound proposed for LightVVORK. At its base, it is a synthesis of two sources. The proposed set design that is empty with a strong exterior and the choreography explored within the workshop experiments that are not structured and will fill the space. The two are in opposition in theory, yet on the other hand, their synthesis will work better than each part on its own. Additionally, Jankowskis analog experiments resemble the duality between the choreography and the set design by mixing two unique sources. Effectively, the music will add a musical uniformity to the elements on the stage.

6.

Performance Art
How can one maintain control over a piece of contemporary art while basing its totality on experimentations and on a principle of the random and unconscious? We have much reflected on the structure that can bound the random and experimental nature of our performance, and we believe that our set design is necessary for what we are creating. Nevertheless, our performance cannot only be about sound and light or a dance recital. It is important that we integrate performance art and the idea of performativity to the work. We will therefore have a formed structure and an improvisational structure co-existing on our stage. The improvisational form will de-structure the set design and its ideas by grafting itself to it. Effectively, the performance art element is performed and therefore instantaneous which will exist in a new way with each new date. We will have multiple versions that in their addition will represent the total work. LightVVORK 1, 2, 3, 4.will form the whole LightVVORK in twenty unique pieces. These will be puzzle pieces with an added aspect of performance art and of evolution that will break a single structure while maintaining the entire show completely live and original. The performance art piece will be a victim of the improvised random which is in fact an image of man, with his incomprehensible part. The processor of the body will become the performative character that will constitute a work of performance art for each date of LightVVORK. She will be the character that destabilizes the structural stability by introducing this notion of performed narration which is necessary for the ritualistic and almost religious aspect of the total work.

7.

Biographies of main artists

Enora Keller. Co-director, choreographer

Enora Keller is an artist who constructs her universe through performance art while touching on dance-theater and on plastic forms of music. She has studied live arts at the University of Strasbourg and then in Paris where she has finished her undergraduate work. She now works on her master level thesis at the Theater Studies department at the University of Vincennes-Saint-Dennis. She has greatly invested herself in collectives and cultural associations. She has worked with many independent and experimental projects and has tested her performances in diverse and varied places. For LightVVORK, she represents the processor of the body. I want to have an innovative impact. I produce pieces of art that cannot have any other role. My impulses force me to create without end. Marking art history is not a willingness coming from pride but rather from political and cultural necessity, above all, an unconscious necessity. I therefore leave a large importance for the unconscious in my work.

Nolan Jankowski. Music composer, live audio and video direction

Nolan Sheehan Jankowski is independent sound designer completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin. Focusing his efforts towards contemporary performance, Nolans work explores the concept of randomization and interdependence through recording, signal feedback and analog bending processes. Drawing inspiration from audio and visual variance he finds in the world, his work hopes to uncover the relationship between differing sound sources and the nature of these sounds behavior when combined with one another. This goal is expressed through Nolans work in drastically differing sounds, tones and mixing all highlighting difference rather than continuity, chaos rather than unity. In Collectif Experiencia he explores analog signal feedback subjected to massive time and circuit resistance manipulation with the aim of audio corruption and listener disorientation and redefinition.

Raul Zbengheci. Co-director, set and light design

Raul Zbengheci is inspired by monolithic social housing left over after the communist regime in Bucharest. These are buildings that speak louder than anyone who inhabits them, they are buildings that create visions and ghosts for anyone surrounded by them. For Collectif Experiencia, he uses these memories of monumental constructions to create stage spaces that serve as speaking skeletons, superficial and waiting to be filled by bodies and movements that will redefine the spaces themselves. When considering the stage, he uses light to redefine and reconstruct the space with the idea that a precise structure on the outside can allow for greater abstraction within the limits it has imposed. Zbengheci is also a photographer and writer. In photography, he uses the same ideas he expresses for the stage, composing spaces rather than capturing them. His first book, Tryin to Find Another Place, is in final revision. The project nicesentences aims to find a style of writing detached from context and minimal, visceral as well as aesthetic. He lives and studies in Paris where he has co-founded Collectif Experiencia.

8.

Collectif Experiencia 2011

Calendar
11/15/2011- 3/6/2012
-Sound : Experimenatation by the composer in regard to the visual and corporal advances, perpetual creation of the noise music, analog experiments -Choreography: Experimentation of the body, rituals run by the processor of the body with the performers, conception, execution, and writing of the choreography -Video: Video experimentation with video console -Scnographie: Creation and research of costumes and structural materials -General: Creation of mise-en-scne and narrative

3/6/2012 - 3/22/2012
-Rehearsals of the performance, assembly of previously separate parts -Two rehearsals of the final version

3/22/2012 - 4/7/2012
-Performances in Paris (6 to 8) -Considered dates : Festival ici et demain, Universit Paris 8 Amphi IV, Club Silencio, Le Point phemre, La Gat Lyrique, le Thtre du Nord Ouest...

5/30/2012 - 8/7/2012
-Tour throughout Europe -Tour throughout the United States

annex A.

Video projector 2 Backlight 1

Video projector 1

Backlight 2
3m 3m

Performance zone 1 Microphone 1 8m

C2
Performance zone 2

Microphone 2

C1 C2 C1
4m 4m

8m

C2
Sc re s en tru

ur ct

e2

Video camera 1

C1
Sc ree ns tru

Video Camera 2

ctu

re

Free movement zone Processor of the body 10m

Audience 1

Audio and video mixing area Orchestra Performance zone, Processor of the body

Audience 2

annex B.

Actors 1 (the real) The white circle is the second stage of the plan. It articulates the Real, please pay not the differences between r and R. The circle articulates the Real because the view of the spectator has already traversed the materiality of the stage and of the performers bodies toward a more fictional comprehension, to understand the Relation or the Duality. On the other hand, the Real is still presented by the director, it is well represented but also well controled.

Meta-Real (the intersections)

Given the nature of the white circle as a space for relation and duality, one should explain the transcendence of the fictional space itself. The red circles express the intersections between the different materialities of the actors. The intersections happen within the fictive space: the while circle, but they are not controled by the director. They come with the interpretation of the unlit half of the actors, they represent the an unconscious but powerful interpretation. They express the Meta-Real because they are an involontary commentary on the Real space.

Real (fictive space)

Actors 2 (the real)

2011 Raul A. Zbengheci