I am, beneath the sun, a wandering ant,
Small and black, a rolling stone
reaches me,
crushes me,
dead…”
-Georges Bataille
The module Bodies in Dissent, like a beacon of light that I desired but did not fully know the potential of, lit up spaces for me to see the wide range of possibilities in performance that helped me transgress the taboos of pain, uncertainty and nudity in my work. It is now giving me tools to deepen my practice through engaging with theories and artists that guide me to understand my research and my final performance. After reading the theories of Anne Dufourmantelle’s risk-taking and Georges Bataille’s views on sovereignty, and examining the work Movimiento Terrestre(2010) by the performance artist Marilyn Arsem, I find a perspective that helps me not only understand my work further but also identify ways in which practice and theory can transform one another to help in devising ways to apply it in my practice. My interest in finding methods to come in relation with objects is supported by Karen Barad’s theory of intra-action. Through Baradian concepts, I contextualize the approach with which the performance was conceptualized and through engaging in a diffractive inquiry—a rhizomatic analysis of transformation—after the performance, I am learning the ways in which theories of Dufourmantelle and Bataille, and my practice can transform one another. In retrospective, the final performance Akupāra was based on the foundation of transgressing my physical, political and socio-cultural boundaries through engaging with the materiality of my body and another object to address a socio-political issue that was urgent for me. By using the lens of Dufourmantelle, Bataille and Arsem, I find an approach that helps me make sense of what I practically encountered in my performance and to use these findings to transform my practice, and seek ways in which it can further my research that is based on finding the means to relate with objects in performance. This essay traces and furthers my learning and inquiry into the process that delves into the manner in which I can construct realities of risk through relating with objects in performance in order for it to be applicable in my ongoing praxis.
In my performance Akupāra, I positioned my naked body on all fours and balanced a stack of terracotta roof tiles on my back and moved slowly. I, intermittently, undulated my spine by arching it up and down and incoherently voiced the syllables of the word ‘Azaadi’ (an Urdu word that translates to freedom). The actions took place in the corner of a basement for the duration of two hours. My aim was to establish an image that communicated precariousness because that was the concept of ‘home’, in the light of current socio-political situation in India, that I wished to express. I wanted to partner with an object to create the image of a precarious home and maintain it over a duration of time. In order to establish the image I decided on certain parameters for the final performance: I focused on balancing the tiles to avoid them from falling, the tiles remained on my back for the entire duration of the performance, and when the tiles fell I put the unbroken tiles on my back, again. The parameters had set the ground for the relationship that the tiles (object) and I would share which was based on working mutually to maintain the action. The tiles and I supported each other’s position by trying to keep each other’s material boundaries always in contact. The nature of the relationship with which the tiles and I entered the performance was co-dependent and the constituent materials—my naked body and the tiles—did not interact but instead were in intra-action with each other.
I am interested in intra-action as a method of practice in my relations with objects. The theorist Karan Barad describes intra-action as “pre-established bodies that participate in action with each other. Intra-action understands agency as not an inherent property of an individual or human to be exercised, but as a dynamism of forces” (Barad, 2007, 141). Through the concept of intra-action I understand the basic relationship that the tiles and my body—pre-established bodies—had as two bodies that came together to engage in an action with one another. In Baradian terms, the nature of the engagement between the tiles and my body was not two bodies with an inherent agency that came together but rather two bodies that had “entangled agencies” (2007,141). The bodies were considered as entangled agencies because they were connected to each other and were involved in a continuous process of exchange and influence—the tiles influencing my physical, mental and emotional state, and agency and I influencing the tiles materiality and agency. The two bodies worked inseparably. The key parameter of the maintenance of the balance of the tiles on my back reflected the notion of inseparability that formed the basis of the underlying contractual agreement between the tiles and I. The idea of a fictional contract between the intra-acting bodies is a new development for me, in my inquiry into intra-actions in performance. The contract was based on the agreement that the tiles must not fall and I must not cause the tiles to fall by losing balance. The contract created an assurance between the two bodies and suggested that the material boundaries—the surface of the stack of tiles and the skin on my back—of the two bodies must always stay in physical contact. The contract therefore further entangled the two bodies with the notion of fixity that the two bodies tried to adhere to.
The contract of fixity between my body and the tiles in intra-action gave rise to “agency…as a dynamism of forces” (Barad, 2007, 141). Instead of agency as an individual’s capacity to exert power, Barad sees it as a capacity that arises from the confluence of the forces of the two bodies. Agency is not manifested externally but from within the material entanglements. Thus, the two bodies had sovereignty, which is defined as the “freedom from external control” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2020), within themselves. The tiles and I both in equal capacity influenced each other’s agency—the tiles affected my speed of movement, the position of my body, caused physical pain and made me extremely focused, and I affected the position of the tiles and its shape due to breaking. As the tiles and I had a contractual and intra-active relationship, the sovereignty within the two bodies was shared. According to Barad, intra-action is also described as material entanglements creating phenomena that result in the co-constitution of reality (Barad, 2007, 141). In this context, the tiles and I intra-act with a contractual agreement of fixity to co-constitute a reality that indicates the image of precariousness that I wished to express. Before engaging with the concepts of Dufourmantelle and Bataille, my understanding of the intra-action and thus the nature of the relationship between the tiles and I, was limited to this.
The understanding with which I engaged in intra-action and the contractual agreement with the tiles during the performance has now transformed after reading Dufourmantelle’s theory on security and risk-taking. She states, “In the safety ideology of assurance the more you reassure someone the more in fact you put them to frailty, fragility. You weaken them” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). According to her, security between bodies is a notion that is transmitted through assurances that the bodies make with each other. Assurances give the illusion of security and freedom but they in fact lead to the loss of sovereignty of the bodies. The weakening is the loss of sovereignty of the body because assurances act as external forces that affect and control the body, thus the body loses its “freedom from external control” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2020), the very definition of sovereignty. The notion of assurance and security that she illustrates resonate with the contract I formed with the tiles but her theory reveals to me the problematic of assurances.
Her insight on the problematic of assurances sheds light on my failure of having agency and a shared sovereignty within intra-actions that constitute assurances and contracts of safety between two bodies, namely the tiles and my body. The problematic of assurance makes me understand the deeper implications of security, especially the impact—loss –it has on the agency and sovereignty of the tiles and my body in intra-action. Dufourmantelle explains that within the notion of assurance and security, the concept of risk-taking plays a big role. She illuminated risk as an important element to examine because risk is the primary cause of the desire or need for assurance. She states, “Need for reassurance…means that something can happen, from that which you are not prepared, something that will crush you. So insurance comes from that” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). The notion of endangerment “gives the idea that risk is hyperbolic” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011) which leads to seeing it as an anomaly to be avoided at all costs due to its unknown nature. I connect the need for avoiding the anomaly of risk to the contract of avoiding the loss of balance that was set between the tiles and I. Looking into the problematic of contracts in intra-action, brings up the question of how sovereignty can be negotiated in intra-active performance. I am thus inclined to look into risk-taking in performance and to inquire into the nature of the risk taken and its importance in the intra-action between objects and I.
By studying Dufourmantelle, I gather that risks arise by losing the position of safety and through welcoming the unknown, that which cannot be discerned in its entirety or at all. In Akupāra, the moments when I felt the tiles slipping or almost losing balance was where I felt the fear of losing safety and experienced the emergence of doubt. The fear of what might happen if the tiles fell—my body might get hurt, the tiles might break, control would be lost—and the insecurity that rises from the fear is surfaced through the potential of loss of safety. Quoting Dufourmantelle, “Absolute security—like ‘zero-risk’—is a fantasy” (as quoted in Anastasia Vécrin, 2015). By this quote she means that the process of living life in itself is ingrained with the existence of risk in it but “risk is not integrated as a normal path in life” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). The exclusion of risk from the phenomena of being alive or living life, is where the need to have assurances emerge. But she emphasizes on the need to remain open to taking risks—now and then—in order to have sovereignty, which keeping assurances eliminate. I have learned that it is only through allowing the insecurity and opening myself to the unknown—of what might happen if the tiles fall—is where the risk takes place.
Dufourmantelle states, “The ability to rethink and question the given conditions or what is proposed as a system is risk-taking” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). Adding to the thought of rethinking systems, I find Bataille’s view on work helpful. He states, “Work made man what he is” (Bataille, 1962, 41), implying that the relationship between man and work and the need for labour to be followed consistently or maintained, is in order to liberate man from descending into animality. Here, exists a proposed system of work—a contract—that assures man to retain his/her identity or subjectivity through engaging in work. Like Dufourmantelle states, that now and then taking risks should be initiated, Bataille too insists that within the proposed system of work man must, every now and then, refuse work in order to attain sovereignty. In the refusal to work, Bataille suggests a form of risk-taking as it interrogates and deviates from the proposed system. Like the wandering ant in Bataille’s poem, the risk of something unforeseen—the black stone that rolls towards the ant—is a part of life. The risk the ant takes by wandering and breaking from the contract of the organised system of division of labour is where it gained its sovereignty, even if it was a few moments before it died. As Dufourmantelle states, “Being alive is a task—it is not a given thing” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). Life and death co-exist and it is in the realm of risk where life happens.
From Bataille’s ant, I realize that apart from the inevitable nature of the occurrence of risk it is also important to inquire into the type of risk that I take. I am not interested in taking risks for the purpose of endangering life or for the sake of it but instead to remain alive, unlike the ant, and be able to negotiate sovereignty between bodies. Dufourmantelle illuminates the ability to interrogate or the ability to assume risk as the negative capacity, which goes “through an interrogation of what is this path of breaking free, of freedom we hold often” (European graduate school video lectures, 2011). From Dufourmantelle and Bataille’s insight on risk, I understand that the notion of safety and assurance in my contracts, need to be threatened in order to negotiate or gain my sovereignty back. To threaten, I must afford to take the risk to question the given conditions of the contract of fixity and the system of assurance that the tiles and I formed. I must afford to take the risk of failing the contract and assurance—by affording to lose the balance of the tiles— that the tiles and I agreed upon. Through interrogating, doubting and failing the path of assurance—by using my negative capacity—I can take risks and gain sovereignty. By understanding that a risk needs to be afforded in order for the tiles and I to be liberated, I am interested in understanding the manner in which I must take the risk. In her theory, Dufourmantelle does not indicate the type of risks that should be occasionally taken. It is important for me to learn the nature of the risk to take to ensure that taking risks enable sovereignty and not cause the permanent loss of it by endangering my body beyond repair. Not any or every kind of risk would serve the purpose of negotiating sovereignty between the tiles and I.
Looking at the performance artist Arsem’s work Movimiento Terrestre (2010), helps me understand the nature of the contract present in her work, in order to use the knowledge gained to draw contrasts to the nature of the contract in Akupāra. Through the comparison of the works, I seek to acquire a deeper understanding of the nature of each of these contracts I want to create, in order to recognize the kind of risks that I want to take in my practice. Arsem’s work engages with intra-action with objects, but I chose the work Movimiento Terrestre,in particular, because it consists of elements of balance, strength and control, which was present in Akupāra too. In 2010, Arsem performed her durational piece Movimiento Terrestre in Chile. In the piece, the artist stood in a roped-off area of an old building. She stood next to a table full of household items like pots, pans, dishes, cups, saucers, glasses, pillows, books, and toys. There was a sign that said “Please add an item to my hand”. People stacked objects on her hand as she concentrated on balancing them. Her arms grew more tired as the stack got taller and heavier. After a point, it was impossible for her to keep the balance and the objects crashed to the ground. And she began again (Arsem, 2010). In her work, the contract between the tiles and her body was that of the assurance of falling—the contract of failure. It would be impossible to balance them and the fact that it would fall is the security or assurance that was present in the intra-action in her work. Thus, there was no risk that was partaken in the intra-action as the assurance was not threatened. By comparing her work to Akupāra, I learn that if I had a very tall stack of tiles on my back then there would have been a contract of failing and if I had one or two tiles then it would have been a contract of success because the tiles would not fall. In both the cases there is no risk involved because the contract is not questioned. Arsem’s work uncovers for me, the spectrum within the nature of contracts.
I am not interested in the contract of failure nor in the contract of success. I am interested in the kind of contract that requires maintenance but also affords the occasional risk, the risk that has the friction of not knowing whether the contract is going to fail or succeed. The contrast of the contracts in Movimiento Terrestre and Akupāra helps me understand how my work is different from hers. Thus, by weaving together the trajectory of learning about my practice from Dufourmantelle to Bataille to Arsem leads me to understand that my interest of intra-actions in my practice is led by the paradox of the need to affirm each other’s sovereignty by allowing to fail the affirmation of sovereignty. The way to fail, is by threatening the contract through taking risks—to attain liberation—in my relation with objects. At the same time my work transforms Dufourmantelle’s theory by taking into consideration the nature of risk that is taken. To conclude, I look forward to applying the learning gained from inquiring into the notion of risk and security in my practice which will, hereafter, enable me to constitute realities of risk in my practice of intra-action.
References:
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press Books
Bataille, G. (1949) The Accursed Share France: Les Editions de Minuit.
European graduate school video lectures (2011) Anne Dufourmantelle. On Risking Life.2011 [video] Available from https://youtu.be/iSAVAUv4T-c[Accessed 3rd March 2020].
Cambridge Dictionary (2020) Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge Dictionary. Available from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/crisis [Accessed 4th March 2020]
European graduate school video lectures (2011) Anne Dufourmantelle. The Ideology of Security.2011 [video] Available from https://youtu.be/8SMwkpRWZ0Y[Accessed 3rd March 2020].
Merriam-Webster Dictionary(2020) Sovereignty. Merriam-Webster. Available from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sovereignty[Accessed 7th March 2020]
Vécrin, A. (2015) Anne Dufourmantelle “Security creates more fear than the reverse”. Libération, Available from https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2015/09/14/anne-dufourmantelle-la-securite-engendre-plus-la-peur-que-l-inverse_1382441[Accessed 4th March 2020]
Wikipedia contributors (2020) Crisis. Wikipedia the Free Encyclopaedia. Available from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crisis&oldid=942143878 [Accessed 5thMarch 2020]
Performance:
Arsem, M. (2010) Movimiento Terrestre [Live Performance] Concepcion, Chile: courtyard of Alliance Francaise, September. Available from http://marilynarsem.net/projects/movimiento-terrestre/.
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