CORPORAL ACTIONS IN THE PUBLIC SPACE Concept and action proposal: Brisa MP This exercise of urban intervention was realised with the idea to incorporate the body like device of social knowledge and to take control of the public space to stump the hierarchic relations between passer-by-spectator and executor-actor, being reread the uses of the space and invigorating the daily structures of the passer-by in its passages by the city center. This reconnaissance exercise was realised in the downtown of Santiago (Chile) and downtown of Buenos Aires (Argentina) on the basis of the same structure of action, within the same parameters of observation and semi-public and public spaces. The public space is a full place of possibilities to establish relations between art and life, and in that sense the Dance is privileged. One does not consider here to design a scene "in" the street but to enter within the scene that "is" the street. The idea is not to remove the dance from a room to democratize its practice and so "all" they can see it (valid action in any case) but take control of the given space to stump the hierarchic relations between watching passer-by and executor actor... being been both actors or both passers-by, to see the public space like a choreographic scene, to take control and to reread the uses of this space, to dinamize the daily structures in the routine passage of the passer-by by the city. "All we assumed the principle of cooperative attention (Joseph 1999), that talks about the fact to assume that we are visible and viewers, observant and observed" 1 In the case of these battles conducted in the 2005 in Santiago Downtown, the idea was to see the possibility of activating and of deactivating the public space, and although here these concepts act in case single said to the urban flows, or to other own strategies of these sites, the idea was to add the body like an object that modifies, alters and interrupts "the normal" passage of the passer-by. A body that sets out to another body without identity nor expression, like mere surface. These actions were carried out by moments and of ephemeral form, we tried not to repeat the same action in the same place but to follow the passage of continuous form, at certain moments created game or sense of expectancy, incomodity, ambiguity situations, but in any case when studying this social space we knew that are differences in the made intervention of year 2002 with the one of the 2005. Having in one of the exercises, that were similar in first year (in that a fraseo of dance was made), the idea of rupture of the urban flow was not possible. We made a pair of times and it happened 30 % of the effect of the first year not even, is to say that this time we danced in the same intersection (Huérfanos. Ahumada) and did not have any effect. That was good, this comparison served to include/understand among other things that the public space is dynamic and never static and that is the expression of the cultural changes of a society expressed through its bodies, of how we move, of the conducts. Like data, they had happened more than 3 years, the place is the same one that the previous year but a different hour (the urban flows change depending on the hour of lunch of the civil employees located in the offices or the stores of the Santiago downtown, the hour of the closing of the banks or offices where legal or governmental proceedings are made, of the day of the weeks, others); in addition the political and cultural conditions, also take part in the conducts. With the exercise made in the Metro(subway) Station University of Chile I remembered the game notion that proposed the Situacionistas for "living the city". Although the Situacionistas made city-planning projects, which would be very arrogant of my part to compare with respect to this proposal ("Unitary Urbanism"), my idea is to establish a relation with it from which in this case the body sets out like a "structure" (urban-architectonic or objetual) unknown of that place of daily passage, an identified place or that is taken part disturbing the routine and where the passer-by is forced to solve his step not to invalidate his passage. Different situations or from incomodity, anger, laughter and creativity are created. "Because the architecture of the situation is an utopic architecture that supposes a new society, the idea of the constant was that the society must be transformed not to continue a boring life, but to create something absolutely new: situations." 2 When I gave the registry of these actions to Manuel Delgado, still thinking that they could be part of an anthropological study of Santiago downtown, when talking with him (in one of those meetings in the bar of Plaza Universitat in the Center of Barcelona) it clarified some concepts to me that they have to do with this type of studies, that in the case of this proposal did not correspond absolutely, and that but or these exercises fluctuated between Social Psychology versus Dance or Performance.
If Delgado installs the Cinema as strategy of knowledge and anthropological study, Can be the Dance or the Performance a strategy to study the cultural, psychological and sociological changes of a society... how they move, his behavior...? The other actions that we made perhaps this opportunity approach this idea of Social Psychology since they are more violent and they activate a reaction (that can exist or not) of more direct form in the passer-by. In order to finish, single mentioning this extract of a text written by Manuel Delgado that poetically speaks of the public space like a dance, dance that I see newspaper outside the theaters and the classrooms...
"Body that acts through the space, that crosses it, it organizes it through its senses, that it puts under it plans and strategies, a body that is let catch and transport by forces that come from their historical surroundings, social, touching, sensitive, that notice all the presences and the absences, susceptible to the flows that influence" 3
This same intervention was made in the Florida Street, downtown of Buenos Aires, Argentina in December of the 2006, (video registry in construction) Brisa MP / 05 References |