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).

There are two fundamental questions for the IMK project: firstly, what forms of choreographic and dance knowledge are constituted through the development of these ‘case studies’, and secondly, how can these be exchanged and increase in value through circulation. These questions are related to the topics of choreographic resources and knowledge transfer and are shared by a number of high profile dance research projects mentioned elsewhere on the site, some of whom are represented by the International Associates Network, some involved in the Choreographic Objects workshops. We are curious to know what you think and what other projects there are concerned with similar issues (e.g. the e-dance project).

IMK is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science for research projects through its Foundation for Innovation Alliance. The Alliance funds new inter-institutional consortia focusing on improving the exchange of knowledge between non-for-profit institutes in the public sector, small and medium sized enterprises and the universities of applied sciences. One of the ‘meta’ goals of the IMK project, while not explicitly articulated in its ‘aims and objectives’ is to make a critical contribution to the development of ‘knowledge production’ discourses and policies from the unique perspectives of arts practice. We will be researching and developing this contribution over the next year and would be interested to know of other relevant projects in this area.