When I saw the performance piece attached to this post I felt it was an affective contemporary interpretation of dystopian novels like Orwell’s “1984” and Huxley’s “Brave New World”. The performance piece by Yoann Bourgeois “Celui qui tombe” distills the essence of our new humanity entangled in a world destined to be defined by technology.
In my most recent read of “1984” for the purpose of this course, I noticed that I was constantly intrigued by the description of the sensory experiences of the characters. It seems that by describing the detailed physical experiences of their protagonists, Orwell and Huxley presented the reader with a possible solution for how to preserve our human nature and personal truthfulness while learning to cope with ever-present screens and Big Brother constantly writing and re-writing our past, present and future.
The return to the physical experience of our bodies would make us aware of our humanity and original social and co-operative nature. Our bodies express our individuality, but at the same time remind us of the socially defined nature of our beings.
Similarly, the dancers “Celui qui tombe” make the viewer continuously aware of the physicality of the performance. The rotating platform is an all-dominating technological presence that dictates every move of the performers. The piece is a symbolic representation of the world we live “in” and “on”, which is constantly revolving and challenging the proverbial “rat race”. However symbolic, this piece of technology does not recede in the background of the action, the viewer is forever made aware of its dominating presence. It is relentless by disturbing and disentangling any efforts of co-operative existence, but at the same time it creates the possibility of perfect harmony between individuals in the rare moments when they realize they can be in charge. The piece also evokes the main argument in Heidegger The Question Concerning Technology by underlining the role of art in uncovering the intricacy of the constant “revealing” and “concealing” of the essence of technology.
Add yours Comments – 2
Beautiful performance. Thanks for sharing your interesting interpretation!
I just watched a few other parts of this performance on Youtube. The one you have posted has no music. What you hear is simply the sound of gears as the platform spins. It helps us understand the meaning behind the performers’ inquisitive eyes while they are exploring and looking for a clue for why their world is spinning. The sound of cogs makes us feel the same awareness the performers have of our unknown world; that we see and hear that something is happening, yet we can never fully understand its nature in this overwhelming darkness. You put it into words more articulately: sensory experiments.
I also love how the platform picks up speed as if it’s trying to imply how our world does the same thing as time passes. The role of technology in this increase of speed is undeniable. What is more interesting is how the performers adapt their behavior – mostly unwillingly – as a result. As long as the platform – the world – spins slowly, we have enough time to spread and explore. The more we explore, the more we find and the more we alter our world, causing it to spin faster. However, we get to a point where we find ourselves in a mayhem of knowledge and divergent perspectives of our world; and we find ourselves desperately clinging to each other to survive by forming a community. But is this community everlasting? The moment we start exploring and questioning again – which is quite normal for a human being – this little community of ours would simply cease to exist. Instead, we start chasing a single paradigm defined for our society just as the performers stare to a distant point at the end of the performance and move towards it.
I have a minor real-life example of this setting. Those who had 806 last semester probably remember “New Media from Borges to HTML” by Lev Manovich. It explains the reasons why electronic/digital media arts mostly flourished in Europe and Japan, even though the technology was almost exclusively invented in the U.S.:
“… the speed with which new technologies are assimilated in
the U.S. makes them “invisible” almost overnight: they become an assumed part
of the everyday existence, something which does not seem to require much
reflection about. The more slow speed of assimilation and the higher cost gives
other countries more time to reflect upon new technologies, as it was the case
with new media and the Internet in the 1990s.” (Manovich, 2003, p. 2)
We explore this world to understand it and technology is the child of this process. A child that is supposed to help us advance more in technology to understand better and faster, yet we end up so obsessed with the technology itself that its main origin – exploration to understand – is removed from the bigger picture.
Reference:
Manovich, L. (2003). New media from Borges to HTML. The New Media Reader, 1, 13–25.
Fascinating Tanya–totally transfixing. I agree with Masoud that the sound of the machine/platform is an important component of the work. This is a beautiful expression of the power of human collectivity –at the same time the dancers are at the mercy of the machine.