[Work in progress]
What does a radical change of physical conditions or deviation from conventions that preserve the dramaturgy of control and distribution of social roles bring to us in the moment? How can a reduced degree of social control and reductive visual information affect one set, one scene, or an emerging relational construct? What can the experience of darkness bring us?
“Mathematics of Darkness” is a theoretical and artistic experiment that examines the physical, psychological, and political conditions of collaboration, and drives still impossible relations in the cliques which are just emerging. It does it quietly, in a dark space with no boundary between the observed and the observer, between the performance and the task, between the imaginary and the action. The degree of visibility is reduced and the mechanisms of self-regulation are changing. The body becomes more alert than the head. The head, on the other hand, gives up control. Whatever separates can also unite. Whatever scares can be shared, in order to push the next moves. Like in the game, there is a task, it should be solved. It is a riddle, a social equation with a certain number of known but also more unknown. They are a space of uncertainty and intervention. Everything is allowed, there are no legalistic warnings or barriers. But there is imagination and a social imaginary. Also, there are others to work with. Collaboration removes a distance, the meanings are produced in the shadows, strengthened by relations, and motivated by prospective actions. Outcomes vary, depending on what is produced from the equation, on what is wanted and what is not wanted, on what is created on the plan of the common, and finally on the plans for moves outside the performance itself. The soft whisper and comforting darkness will end at some point, that is for sure, it is sadly timed like all art productions, but the actions remain realities, as the legacy of performing. That is the goal of the conspiracy that is just emerging – the artistic and a social one.
Duration: 33 minutes
First trial: Digital Anthropologies #9, Berlin, 25th of August 2022.
Irena Ristic 