Task 21 – Strike a Pose
Alan writes:
United we stand
The last task set asked me to ‘get closer to finding a shared poetics or ways of working together’. We argued during the week about whether it would be possible to find such a poetics, and if it really was such a good idea to work together. Made in the shadow of such cranky exchanges, the film in response to Task 20 doesn’t presume to set out a shared poetics as such, but it does try to ‘get closer’ by suggesting a rapprochement (excuse my French) through gesture—or more precisely, through posture—at the end. Where discourse divides, perhaps posture unites? Let this be a guiding principle, at any rate, in the task set for this week.
Your task
We have discussed many times where this project should lead, and one answer has always been ‘to a performance’. Such a performance might be concerned with this project itself—a presentation which gave concrete form to our investigations and disagreements, and again to our distinct poetics, as well as to the issues of power and (in)equality the project is designed to reveal and articulate. We talked the other day about how such a performance might take the form of two parts, one ‘directed’ or led by you, the other led by me (we imagined the order of the two sections being reversed on different occasions, and so on).
So, your task is to ‘workshop’ or to ‘rehearse’ a segment, dimension or theme from your ‘section’ of a project performance, and to share or record this workshopping/rehearsal in an appropriate way. You may involve me in the undertaking of the task or not, as you prefer, and you may choose to involve an audience (physical or virtual, i.e. via Skype) in the process or in the sharing if you wish.