EXPERIMENTING, EXPERIENCING AND UNEXPECTEDNESS:
IN-BETWEEN EXPECTATION AND CURIOSITY
Kulttuurintutkimuksen päivät 2023
Experimenting, Experiencing and Unexpectedness:
In-between expectation and curiosity
How to explore what we can’t know?
Presentations
I am Anna Jensen, curator, artist and researcher, and in my dissertation “Encyclopedia of in-betweennes” that was published this year I present art as a phenomenon always in a state of becoming and in-between, and curating and exhibition making as a methods for approaching this in-betweenness. In the dissertation curator is comprehended as a mediator. Curating is about creating contexts and research questions and then exploring these together with the working group while finding suitable forms for presenting them, and later mediating these processes for the public, and being present for their experiences, observations and thoughts. One of my key concepts is uncanny, or unheimlich, something that was familiar and homelike but turned odd and strange and unknown.
My name is Andrea Coyotzi Borja, I’m an artist and researcher. In my dissertation, titled, In the middle of things: on researching the infraordinary which will be published at the beginning of next year, I propose the question What is the infraordinary?
This question is not intended as an interrogative subject, but rather an opportunity to search, and re-search, the phenomenon of the infraordinary, which was first written by writer George Perec in 1975 in his text Approaches to what? published in the open tribune Cause commune.
Researching the infraordinary phenomenon brings forward the opportunity to observe and dwell on different facets of everyday life and to re-consider our relationship with our daily lives. In Approaches to what? Perec invites us to question our teaspoons, why? Why is questioning what is found in our cupboards useful? What are our cupboards saying to us? What do we encounter, and what do the things we find say about our everyday lives, our contexts, the place we live, the supermarkets, and the social dynamics of it?
To inquire about the infraordinary is not an action delimited by the pursuit of an answer but an opportunity to engage with what surrounds us. A chance to take a moment, to look around and discover all that is already there speaking to us.
How then to experiment the unexpectedness, infraordinary and uncanny? We will now present you three case study examples:
Examples:
First example: Rabbit hole: During the pandemic we felt claustrophobic, but the lockdown was also a curious phenomenon we wanted to explore further. At first, the exploration did not have a form. We started sharing our ideas and notions about the state of our being and feeling. We studied our homes that started to become nests as the so-called “civilized society” was becoming more and more distant. We returned to this idea when we noticed an open call to Konstepidemin gallery in Gothenburg and the quite unique gallery space, an old underground cellar that has also been used to store corpses during another epidemic. We revisited our notes from the time of the lockdown and re-considered the ideas of a nest and being isolated to an uncanny reality. This led us to think about Alice and also how a “rabbit hole” is used to refer to a “bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situation or environment, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.” We explored our everyday environment and sought for eeriness and strangeness that we could highlight with rabbit masks we made ourselves. The process of making was also a process of developing the thinking process, that later formulated into a text. The site-specific installation included a pile of sticks, video, text as sound and lights, and it was exhibited in Gothenburg in 2023.
The second example, Visitors: The first year of the pandemic and the lockdowns, in a way, we all started to explore and research – emphasizing the RE in the search – our familiar surroundings in a new way. One day while cycling to eastern Helsinki and to Kallahti peak we found an unexpected combination of nature landscape, protected environment, old villas, and old hotels that were left to decay to a prestige coast next to a unique 90’s suburb of Meri-Rastila. We started to build an exhibition project from these interesting but juxtaposing elements, invited artists to develop the theme further with us, and other professionals to share their expertise with us and the public. We created a framework that would leave enough freedom for the artists to experiment but that had clear guidelines: that we were mostly working in nature and we couldn’t guarantee electricity or 24/7 protection. After many meetings and site-visits the results were unexpected: the art school MAA students with lesser experience of exhibition making comprehended, embraced the task, and matched it with site-specific works created for the event. Some of the more experienced professionals, however, seemed to struggle and even proposed a work that wouldn’t even be installed to the area where the site-specific biennial was taking place, nor did it have any other connection to the site. One more layer of unexpectedness was the success with workshops and talks and how they attracted both locals and professionals from arts and urban planning, and how vivid conversations took place between these different groups.
The third example, Peculiar frogs, is a work in process. It will be a video and bodily performance/ experiment: Tim Ingold writes that “But what of those who would identify themselves, explicitly, as explorers? “ and “Research, then, is not a technical operation, a particular thing you do in life, for so many hours each day. It is rather a way of living curiously – that is, with care and attention. “ In “Peculiar frogs” video we will be studying the possibility of living curiously and losing control. This will be done in the form of a physical exercise, where we will be jumping onto a soft surface with no real risk of injury, trying to switch off the conscious control of landing. The work is inspired by a frog species, Brachycephalus, saddleback toad, who lose control of their body mid-leap, leading to crash-landings. The frog is about the size of a thumbnail, and fails to control its jumps because of the unfunctional vestibular system. According to scientists, the frog’s biggest strength is its ability to “stick around”.
In the first example, the unexpectedness was the strange lockdown time and global pandemic, that we wanted to experiment further with words, images and site-specific experiments. The experience was later shared with others in a form of an exhibition. The second, the unexpectedness was a result of a spatial experience: how we experience a neighborhood that manifests political power relations and how capitalism thrives and fails in forms of architecture and decision making. The third example tests our bodily limits on the verge or unexpected, while we are also curiously waiting for other results it will create, as being open to unexpectedness while experimenting we, like the crash landing frogs, can land into surprising and curious outcomes. The project is part of the upcoming series of works under the title “bad methodologies”, that explores the gap between the traditional and institutional methods, and between the methodologies and artistics research. Artistic research is a methodology itself, or at least needs to always create new methods and methodologies meeting the new research questions. Art and artistic research always being about encountering the unknown and the unexpected.
Unexpectedness can be an encounter with different tools that can guide a practice. There is a group of navigators in the Marshall Islands located in the central Pacific Ocean that guide themselves from island to island not only by the stick charts they have crafted for the purpose of navigating their journeys, but mainly through the knowledge they have acquired over the years by observing the sea and its motion, the movement of their vessels, the wind, and the relationship of these elements with each other; that is, how the waves impact on the boats.
Sara Ahmed uses the concept of “queer phenomenology” when examining how bodies are situated in space and time. While “being oriented” feels like being at home, queer phenomenology is more unhomely and can guide to new directions. Therefore, it is more related to the infraordinary or uncanny. Our work and our practice provides opportunities for this kind of strange orientation, creating new paths and encouraging new routes.
At times, researching is a practice similar to the experience of navigating –specifically, navigating through methods similar to those of the Marshallese sailors. There is observation, analysis of the phenomena, following of cues, documentation and a means of inquiring that results in different forms and mediums.
Wayfinding often resembles the feeling of being lost. We walk, turn, think and doubt. But the main thing, which is often overlooked, is that there is movement. Even waiting is a movement.
Bibliography:
Ingold, Tim (2018), “Anthropology Between Art and Science: An Essay on the Meaning of Research.” Field A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism. Issue 11
https://field-journal.com/issue-11/anthropology-between-art-and-science-an-essay-on-the-meaning-of-research
Jerald, Pinson (2022), “Miniature frogs set record as first vertebrates to lose the ability to balance”, Florida Museum.
https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/miniature-frogs-set-record-as-first-vertebrates-to-lose-the-ability-to-balance/
How To Life 