In the context of theater-making, Carreri (2011) refers to the laboratory as a process, as a craft to transfer technique and practice (20). The training determines a specific behavior for the scenic life, the bios. The laboratory is important for the work in a dynamic of habit and repetition (Spatz, 2015) because it produces new knowledge and is the grounding for transmission. “A definition of laboratoriality based on two archivally inscribed cuts can be used to reexamine existing methodologies in artistic research and other emerging interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary fields” (34). I developed two concepts in the laboratory to explore the concept of the video essay.
Technique/training: it explores the needs of the practitioner and the development of specific performative behavior: the bios and the presence. From my practice, the technique that I have been working with is Biomechanics (V. Meyerhold). However, I have found that during my approach to somatic practices, I need to explore more deeply somatic techniques. Some of them are based on the Authentic Movement, Laban Movement Analysis, and Body-Mind Centering commonly known as BMC. Additionally, the exploration of the notion of home movement, proposed by Sandra Goldin. The body in relation to the camera means the device is linked to motion. What movements are done to manage the visual discourse or the narrative?
Video-epistemology: the video essay seeks to disseminate the lab’s work. It can also serve as a tool to measure the results of embodied research. However, not every piece of work that is explored in the laboratory should be recorded. The body’s awareness should do its own process. The questions that surrounded this exploration were related to the video-graphic relation and the difficulties of having multiple roles such as performer, director (external viewer), editor. Spatz (2020) claims the traditional discursive and audiovisual documentation of embodied practices determines how discourse-making is produced. It is crucial that every piece of audiovisual material frames itself after a process of intervention, questions, suggestions, and provocations. This is relevant to unsettle the academic documentation and the archive sources.
Winter 2022
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