IDOCs » Symposium Reflections - On Teaching and the Importance of Being Not, a Seminar
a short reflection on before/during/after the Symposium
2014.08.11

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first note:

as I re-read my initial Symposium proposal I see I succeeded in organising, as proposed: space for lecture and space for conversation within a 90 minute time-span, including a late start and an early finish without leaving any loose ends lying around. Never having done anything of the sorts prior to this Symposium, I asked myself excitedly: Would I be able to repeat this? and if given the chance to do so: What part of that which informed this experience would I want to bring into the next one?
 
First I want to remember that this lecture was not really a lecture, because I imagine “a lecture” to be a delivery of a set standard to an obedient receiver (for example) who then takes his or her impression to another space and another time in which he or she then reflects on his or hers own, etc. My problem with this definition of a lecture would be the following.
 
1: Even if we are engaging in a relationship that could be seen as a “standard lecture” kind of relationship (I am taking the time to talk and you are taking the time to listen); my intention is to in-lecture break the habitual properties of such a relationship and propose another in which any existing “set” or “standard” in what I’m proposing is either qualified and perceived as a provocation with inspirational properties of some intended kind or is an example of historical events, rather than a proposal of future ones. Otherwise: we are negotiating a fluid and a multiple. Because we are.
 
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2: Reflection, in my opinion, should (at least partially or as much as possible) be kept in the room, not outside it, and should be kept (at least partially or as much as possible) in time, not outside it.
 
Overall point here:
I think there are opportunities made available by people coming together to co-create a physical landscape that are not available otherwise. These can greatly inform and focus our thinking, and I think: should greatly inform and focus our thinking. (note: I am not specifying the medium in which thinking is happening at this point. Thinking could be abstract thinking, it could be physical thinking, etc…)
 
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a note about in-lecture breaking the habitual properties of a “standard lecture” kind of relationship
 
Approximately half way through my lecture-non-lecture time I became specifically conscious of the many thinking processes present in the room, particularly as these moved the facial muscle structures of individuals whose faces were pointing my direction. The amount of facial expressions suddenly available to me to analyse at any given moment after any spoken word overwhelmed me - which informed me that I either needed to quickly become faster in reading and reacting to the available information, if I were to make this situation into a productive one or I needed to immediately stop considering this specific source of information as a source of feedback (so as to stop myself from becoming self-conscious and falling out of focus) and move to another one. / This is happening within a split second, mid-sentence, so I panic, thinking: how else can I get feedback if not the obvious way? (Obvious to me at the time.) thinking: I need feedback to stay in the breaking the habitual; otherwise there is no point in this effort.
 
I then realise that another channel is already available, in fact: is already online and is already processing information (in a feedback-loop kind of way; see reference). As I am standing there, before my audience, talking - I am also deeply present, as I am when I perform as a dancer, for example, this time quietly observing the sounds as I release them into the space-time: sounds get picked up by ears then brains, matched with past experiences, contextualised then recognised, maybe understood by those who are there, deeply present with me.
 
I am reminded of that which is already shared between us, I am reminded of that which is making it possible for us to meet and have this conversation and with that realisation: I am back into the content, but this time in an actualised non-standard kind of way - I am materialising content in every possible medium available to the physical me at that time. I am using words, I am using sounds, I move, I hide, I point my foot : making combinations, making combinations, making combinations. I am not delivering something that is already clear, I am making it clear on the spot in the time with feedback, excited at the prospect of making available a thinking with, not lecturing at those deeply present with me.
 
I can recognise there was sense in offering this kind of lecture-non-lecture in the ease with which we then move into an open dialogue, in the calm with which this dialogue is moderated, the focus available to other participants when sharing their thoughts, and in the excitement available to all upon the finish of the event.
 
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short notes on attached photograph:
1 a boat on Austrian highway - exciting thought: traveling even when not in water
2 castle meets aliens - who's to say what's going to happen next
3 notebook - just another way of anchoring the immaterialness of thinking
 
 
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reference:
Erika Fischer-Lichte talks about feedback loops in her book The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics, Routledge 2008

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