fruitful misunderstandings

“We cannot use old thinking to new ways of being” (Minna Salami)

This spring the world has changed overnight and we’ve witnessed how many more changes are necessary. What is the role of the arts and science in further societal transformations? How artists and scientists can collaborate in order to embrace the constant transitions in a nowadays world? And before answering, what kind of questions should we ask ourselves in the first place?

eˉlektron invites everyone to join artistic and experimental program ‘fruitful misunderstandings. art+science’. Its aim is to explore this ambiguous world of art and science fusion. The world where rigid scientific methods and approaches can be questioned and brought closer to the actual needs of society. The world where artistic practices can be enriched and diversified in order to become more open, inclusive and accepted not only as a spreader but also as a creator of knowledge.

Together with guest artists and scientists from around the globe we’ll be experimenting with the endless possibilities of Art-Science synthesis and online performance making. It’ll be done through online public talks and through workshops that will take place in both physical and virtual environments simultaneously.

WHERE
elektron.live (worldwide) and Kanuti Gildi Saal (Tallinn, Estonia)

WHEN
September – December 2020
(the program is updated each month, please find the detailed description for September below)

FOR WHOM
Performers, neuroscientists, directors, sociologists, visual and sound artists, anthropologists, engineers, philosophers, dancers, educators, both students and professionals

The program is free of charge. If desired, it is possible to buy a ticket.

NB! We can offer only a limited number of places for the participation in the workshops (the registration links are in the program below). However, we’ll ensure a possibility for the unlimited number of viewers to see the streaming of the workshops and we encourage the viewers to try working on their own (or in groups they form themselves) while following the stream and to document their results and share them with eˉlektron afterwards.

If you consider it worthy and want to contribute to eˉlektron’s development, it is possible to buy a ticket.

In case of questions, please feel free to contact the program curator at: [email protected]

Supported by Estonian Ministry of Culture

LIVE Panel: Hybrid Plattform (Berlin) +
eˉlektron (Tallinn)
Art+Science (Im)possibilities

15.09 ● Tuesday ● 18.00 (EEST)

The Hybrid Plattform is a project platform of the Berlin University of the Arts and the Technische Universität Berlin. The platform serves the cross-disciplinary exchange of art, science and technology.

Together with the coordinators of the Hybrid Plattform, Ewelina Dobrzalski and Nina Horstmann, we’ll be exploring the possible forms of collaborations between artists and scientists. We will try to cover the fields of both research and practice, discuss the already executed projects of Hybrid Plattform and of eˉlektron, while also look at ongoing life of both platforms and their structures.

WHERE: elektron.live (the link for the discussion will be published few days before the event)

The discussion is in English.

LAB in online performance making
SHOW US WHERE YOU ARE
mentored by Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll, Berlin)

19.09 ● 20.09 ● 28.09 ● 30.09

We participate in a global laboratory on performance. That means it is about perception and action. It is a global conference of viewpoints. And a lab on diverse actions.
It is not about describing the situation as such. It is about exploring it as a state of transition.
We, the participants in this laboratory, want to explore where we are and its past.
We want to explore where we are and how we can describe it to others. This is why it is productive that each of us is completely somewhere else.
By describing and transmitting the situation(s) of our choice we are in, via the internet, we want to explore the parameters of their potential transitions – the potentials of inevitable but controllable change. We want to discover our potential to participate in the creation and management of change.

We want to reconsider our presence and actions:
– where are we?
– how and why is it where we are?
– what is striking us and what would we like to change?

We will work on how to bring this closer or to make it clearer to others. Those who are far away in the geographic space but who share digital one, and moreover – time with us in this.

We will create performative maps in time and digital space together by finding forms and strategies of sharing. We will create a model of the world how it appears to be NOW every single time we assemble on this platform. What rituals, signs, images and texts will result out of this process? Will they trigger off actions that we will take where we are – or in support in where others are?

The process is diverse but shares experience – and this is the show – and the show is what you see – and to witness something changes our minds.

This lab is initiated by people who work in the fields of progressive theater, performance and formats of assembly. We feel that theater as a mutually known platform of the assembly of diverse positions and experiences is a vital root for intercultural communication and a counter reality to the stages of press and social media.

About the mentor

Daniel Wetzel is one of the founders, together with Helgard Haug and Stefan Kaegi, of the theatre-label Rimini Protokoll. Work by work they have expanded the means of the theatre to create new perspectives on reality.

Rimini Protokoll often develop their stage-works, interventions, performative installations and audio plays together with experts who have gained their knowledge and skills beyond the theatre. Furthermore, they like to transpose rooms or social structures into theatrical formats. Many of their works feature interactivity and a playful use of technology.

WHERE: elektron.live (with the use of the Zoom platform)

The working language of the laboratory is English.

Details on participation TBA.

LIVE Panel: Stacey Sacks (Stockholm) +
Armando Rotondi (Barcelona)
To Be Alone Together

22.09 ● Tuesday ● 18.00 (EEST)

We live in the world in a political state that has also suddenly moved into digital. What happens to a performance in this new world? What are the new ways of imagining and making performances? Together with Stacey Sacks and Armando Rotondi we’ll be exploring the paradigm of online performances, its potential in creating unique experiences for the audience and one of its main problematics — how to share a space and time through the means of digital technologies.

WHERE: elektron.live (the link for the discussion will be published few days before the event)

The discussion is in English.

Stacey Sacks
performer-writer-director-teacher-researcher-clown

Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Stacey Sacks studied Performance and Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town and later completed the MA program ‘A Year of Physical Comedy’ at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Art in 2012. Sacks is the co-author of The Clown Manifesto (Oberon Books, 2015) and recently completed a PhD in Performative and Media-Based Practices at Stockholm University of the Arts. The fragmented texts emerging from this exploration are collectively entitled SQUIRM (the book), 2020, and are freely available online, together with films and online expositions.

Interested in trans-generational and intra-cultural haunting, Sacks experiments with auto-ethnography and productive discomfort in multi-modal ways, attempting to discover sharper ways of giving attention, while making safe space for generative failure. The research evolves via a series of trans-disciplinary corporeal and material experiments which at root ask the question: how do I mobilize my positionality as a privileged body in the anti-colonial conversation?

Armando Rotondi
academic-writer-theatre practitioner-journalist

Armando is an Associate Professor in Performance Theory and Story-Telling and Leader of the MA Acting at the IAB — Institute of the Arts Barcelona. After a BA in Naples and an MA in Rome, he achieved his PhD at the University of Strathclyde and two University Professorship Habilitations in Theatre, Film, Music and Audiovisual and in Comparative Literature. Before IAB, he worked at universities in UK (Strathclyde), Italy (Naples “Federico II”, Naples “L’Orientale”, Verona), Poland (Torun), Romania (ICR and Bucharest), Slovakia (Comenius). He is a founding member of INIT — International Network of Italian Theatre, a member of the European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance, and the editor for “Theatre and Adaptation” at “The Theatre Times” (New York). Recently he was a Project Manager at Creative Europe Make a Move project.

As a practitioner, Armando is a dramaturg, a published narrative writer and a staged/published playwright. He worked with prominent artists such as Andy Arnold, Esteve Soler, Jasmin Vardimon, Guy Bar-Amotz, Andrew McKinnon, Grigore Gonța. He is a member of Lacuna Lab, a Berlin-based collective of artists interested at the intersection between arts, science and technology. Currently, he is interested in digital/online performance, micro-theatre, and transmedia and alternative storytelling.

LIVE Panel: Hiroaki Umeda (Tokyo)
Dancing with the Science

10.10 ● Saturday ● 13.00 (EEST)

A choreographer and a multidisciplinary artist from Tokyo, Hiroaki Umeda, joins us in the discussion on the role and influences of science in his work. Based on his artistic practice, we’ll talk about the possibilities of choreographing not only bodies but also time, space, light and sound. Among many, we’ll get a chance to get a closer look at such projects as “Holistic Strata” based on the artist’s post-anthropocentric perspective that involved sensing technology to allow for synchronization between Umeda’s muscles and visual material during the performance.

Hiroaki Umeda is now recognized as one of the leading figures of the Japanese avant-garde art scene. Since the launch of his company S20, his subtle yet violent dance pieces have toured around the world to audience and critical acclaim. His work is acknowledged for the highly holistic artistic methodology with strong digital background, which considers not only physical elements as dance, but also optical, sonal, sensorial and, above all, spatiotemporal components as part of the choreography.

WHERE: elektron.live (the link for the discussion will be published few days before the event)

The discussion is in English.