Inside Movement Knowledge

The third issue of the ARTI Journal RTRSRCH will be devoted to the topic of [NOTATION]. ARTI (Artistic Research, Theory and Innovation) is a research group at the Amsterdam School of the Arts actively engaged in practice-based research processes and chaired by Marijke Hoogenboom, professor of Art Practice & Development and Henk Borgdorff, professor of Art Theory & Research. The issue will feature several contributions from Inside Movement Knowledge as well as material from other ARTI group members. The full contents list will be posted here later. This post is to speculate on the title [NOTATION] which is in brackets on purpose to indicate a freedom from context. Most domains have some form of notation that is useful for recoverable gestures, recording for future transactions, problem-solving and communicative shared action. Notations have properties that afford this range of use-functions. But if notations are a type of information artefact, other artefacts have similar properties: models, documents, classification systems, indexes, diagrams and graphs. So, this issue of the ARTI journal is not singularly concerned with notation as it might be used in the context of, e.g. dance, music, mathematics, morse code or programming languages. [NOTATION] resists the idea that there needs to be a comprehensive ‘system’ for notation to function as such; notations may even support interoperabiliity between systems.

(Some inspiration for these ideas comes from the cognitive sciences and in particular the work of Thomas Green and Alan Blackwell on the cognitive dimensions of notation systems; but also from Nelson Goodman’s seminal Languages of Art).

The topic of reconstruction triggers many questions related to the key theme of IMK (the documentation, transmission and preservation of contemporary choreographic practice). One of our concerns is who is the ‘reconstruction’ for? Reconstruction is an opportunity to explore connections between art making, research and theoretical practices. Starting points may be shared (materials and methods, analytic or non-analytic perspectives, questions and conceptual frameworks, etc.), but how is eventual ‘output’ of any particular process valued by different communities of practice? (e.g. professional arts, higher education and cultural preservation)

It emerged from the ‘meeting on reconstruction’ organised on 31 October 2009 during Lab #3 that ‘reconstruction (or restaging, recreation, revival, etc.) might be best realised in the context of relations, emerging in the gap between ‘performances that remain and documents that disappear’ (Paul Clarke). Who documents for the purpose of reconstruction and how? Thinking about Marion Bastien’s proposal that she functions as a notator as a ‘filter’, trying to capture only the basic ‘parameters’ of a work. A question inspired by Marion’s presentation: What if education in one of the existing dance notation systems such as Laban included a broader training in documentation methodologies? Should the original maker be considered the primary source of information about the intention of a work or does intention manifest more ‘truthfully’ in the audience’s response to it? Or in the intentions of the individual who has undertaken the reconstruction process as Martin Nachbar suggested.

Documentation of Lab #3 will be available soon to include links to related reconstruction projects like COVER and the upcoming co-production of de Appel with STUK Kunstencentrum (Leuven) titled “The manifold (after) lives of performance” 13 Nov — 15 Nov 2009.