Concept

The sound piece ‘social atmosphere testing ground 1–3’ is a personal map of an individual’s state of being influenced and the pictures it preferably swallowed balancing between HK, Shanghai and ‘here’. 
The dance ‘social space’ asks how much space a person needs. Does the object affect the motion of the person or does the motion of the person affect the object?

The two pieces are the products of a dialogue and the attempt to navigate the line between freedom and separation in artistic practice. Born out of a shared interest in clay as metaphor and material, a computer-generated voice and a dancer’s body came together for two hours of joint improvisation.

We see a female and a masculine person. A person from Asia and a person from Europe. A person with clay and a person with cables. A person’s body moving and a person using words. We see some coherent reproduction of some social constructs. Two human beings and cages.

“The quasi-objectivity of atmospheres is demonstrated by the fact that we can communicate linguistically about them. However, this understanding has its prerequisites: An audience that is to experience a set in approximately the same way must have a certain homogeneity, i.e. be culturally socialized into certain modes of perception.”

“In social landscapes, the simulated environment constructed by the media shapes the social reality in the eyes of its inhabitants. How does the power of the media and the mimicry it creates affect people’s values– but I ask: How do you want that undisciplined mind to look like? I want to thank all the people that left footprints when the clay was still wet”

Process

Contributing Artists

Jia Yu Wu Performance, Xinghai Conservatory of Music
Kian Schwabe Theatre, Zurich University of the Arts