material / rearranged / to / be

Lead Author:

Siobhan Davies

Co-Author(s):

Andrea Buckley, Siobhan Davies, Helka Kaski, Charlie Morrissey, Efrosini Protopapa, and Matthias Sperling, Jeremy Millar, Emma Smith, and design duo Glithero (Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren)

Date:

2017

Unit of Assessment

33: Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies

View in Pure Portal:

Output Category:

I - Performance

Printer-Friendly Version of this Output

Download PDF (text/images only)

material / rearranged / to / be (performance installation)

Performance Installation Video Documentation

27 minute edit. Performance installation was ongoing 6 hours daily. 20-28 January 2017. Barbican Curve, London.

Interpretation Stands (moveable stands as part of the installation)

Siobhan Davies and Helka Kaski “Figuring” Performance installation in three parts [one-page text]
Charlie Morrissey “Actions from the Encyclopaedia of Experience” Performance installation [one-page text]
Efrosini Protopapa “Disputatio I” One-to-one live performance (Performance: Pano Masti) “Disputatio II” Audio installation “Disputatio III” Video loop [one-page text]
Matthias Sperling “Loop Atlas I” Performance with live-capture video “Loop Atlas II” [one-page text]
Jeremy Millar “Daphne, 2013” HD Video “Melancholy Mobiles” Mixed media [one-page text]
Emma Smith with Efrosini Protopapa “I + I : Variations on Alteroception” Installation: Copper, steel, gauche on paper. Live Experiments: Performed by Emma Smith [one-page text]
Glithero (Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren) with Siobhan Davies and Helka Kaski “Datum” Durational performance with bespoke tools [one-page text]
Andrea Buckley “In Tension (Body)” Performance installation with live-capture video “In Tension (Wobble)” Performance installation with video “In Tension (Environment)” Video loop [one-page text]

Summary Statement (300 words)

material / rearranged / to / be (hereafter material) was commissioned by Siobhan Davies Dance as a research into how a collective could create a performance installation that could be presented in multiple venues in an ever-changing arrangement. One aim was to establish the conditions for the commissioned artists to collaboratively make a family of individual works that would be presented together as material. Each separate work was the responsibility of the individual artist and owned by them. The common subject they chose to work with was the Aby Warburg collection. The creation took place over nine months and concluded with six weeks of collective making.

The collaborators comprised six dance and two visual artists and a design duo. Each brought their own skills, questions and materials to the project. Each worked alone, sometimes in couples, but always working together within the whole. This combination of knowledges, interactions and processes simultaneously drove the direction of individual and collective making. It also revealed a key general insight regarding different relations to making time. Those who made their work in physical materials tended to begin with a concept then build the work. Those who learnt by doing and redoing physically undertook a different exercise from which the concept emerged.

Re-arrangeable screens were used to define alternative spaces throughout the duration of the installation. The moving of the screens enabled the emergence of prescribed spaces which framed one work in relationship to another differently. These relationships altered as other iterations of the works were combined in various sequences and spaces. A score was developed for each of four venues which included both the individual works and the movement of the screens. This built on and extended our experience with previous gallery and museum-based works such as Table of Contents (2013-2016).¹

Reference:

Table of Contents (2014), Siobhan Davies Dance, Premiered at ICA Theatre, London, on 8 Jan 2014

Contextual Information

Commissioned Artists

Choreographers: Andrea Buckley, Siobhan Davies, Helka Kaski, Charlie Morrissey, Efrosini Protopapa, and Matthias Sperling
Visual Artists: Jeremy Millar, Emma Smith, and design duo Glithero (Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren)

Contributing Fellows

Professor Jonathan Cole (neurophysiologist), Professor Guy Claxton (cognitive scientist), Dr. Scott deLahunta (dance theorist), Guido Orgs (cognitive psychologist) and Professor Anil Seth (neuroscientist).

Partners

Presented in collaboration with Tramway
In association with the Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London
Venue partners: Barbican, Tramway, The Whitworth, Bluecoat

Development Dates

Development period July 2015 – Jan 2017 (including residency week in July 2016 at Barbican as part of Station to Station)

Tour Dates (audience figures)

20-28 January 2017. Barbican Curve, London (5323 attended)
22-30 April 2017. Tramway, Glasgow (1034 attended)
6-14 May 2017. The Whitworth, University of Manchester (4652 attended)
1-9 July 2017. Bluecoat, Liverpool (5472 attended)

Documents

Publication: material / rearranged / to / be
- Contributions: Siobhan Davies, Jeremy Millar, Lauren A Wright, Jonathan Burrows, and a conversation between Siobhan Davies, Matthias Sperling and members of the Bilderfahrzeuge Group, Warburg Institute.
Text: AFTERWORD PROJECT: PARTIAL REMAINS
- This text began as a conversation reflecting back on the project, one year after the last time presentation at Bluecoat, Liverpool 1–9 July 2017.
Process Document: key ideas (notes, images, sketches) feeding into the work as of Aug 2016.
Contract: supporting collective creation (redacted example).
Additional Interpretation Stands: (moveable stands as part of the installation) Keyword Texts: action; atlas; attention; becoming; gesture; image; magic and science; mind; taxonomy; time.
The Score developed for the Barbican Curve which included both the individual works and the movement of the screens. Day One: Hours 1-4 and 1 & 2. Day Two: Hours 3 & 4 and 1-4.

Related Talks and Workshops

Thursday 22 September 2016. Moving Conversations. A talk at the Wellcome Collection talk with Siobhan Davies, Helka Kaski and Jonathan Cole.
Wednesday 19 October 2016. A dialogue between choreography and visual arts with Siobhan Davies and Jeremy Millar. A talk for Dance Scholarship Oxford (DANSOX), with a performance by Helka Kaski.
Tuesday 24 Jan 2017. Choreocinema: Counterpoints + Screen Talk. A film screening and panel discussion at the Barbican with Siobhan Davies and Miranda Pennell, consisting of the screening of films by Siobhan Davies and Miranda Pennell, alongside material / rearranged / to / be.
Thursday 26 Jan 2017. Body / Image / Brain: Discussing material / rearranged / to / be. A panel discussion at the Barbican with Siobhan Davies, Emma Smith, Jeremy Millar, Christopher Johnson (Warburg Institute), Manos Tsakiris (Warburg Institute and Royal Holloway), chaired by Scott DelaHunta (CDaRE).
Thursday 23 March 2017. A workshop with MA Sculpture students at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. Siobhan Davies and Helka Kaski led a day-long workshop and discussion around ideas and research informing Figuring, their contribution to material / rearranged / to / be.
Sunday 9 April 2017. Material / rearranged / to / be workshops. A series of practical workshops for members of the public to experience and engage with ideas motivating the artists’ contributions to the work, with Siobhan Davies, Helka Kaski, Matthias Sperling, Charlie Morrissey, Andrea Buckley, Efrosini Protopapa and Emma Smith, held at Siobhan Davies Studios.

Barbican layout:

This images shows laying out the installation in the Barbican Curve during creation.

Additional Links:

Article 1 (After NYNE – The Science of Art) is a record of a conversation with Samantha Simmonds which explores some of the intention behind the work as well as providing a particular insight into the contribution of science, and the context for bringing the work into gallery spaces.
Article 2 (The Guardian) is a commentary by Lyndsay Winship which situates the work within a wider context of thinking, making and research. It addresses the individual works within the whole and offers some details about the nature of the collaboration between the contributors.
Article 3 (Figures Series) is a review of the work which provides an experiential description of the work as it was encountered by the writer, Rosanna Irvine.
Article 4 (The Independent) is a review of the work by Erin Whitcroft which captures some of the atmosphere of experiencing the work in person.

Page Credits & Acknowledgements:

With thanks to generous support from Cockayne — Grants for the Arts and The London Community Foundation.

Supported using public funding by the Arts Council England.