Glossary
The following are some ideas and practices that relate to my work. Some terms I have coined or developed. Most I just borrow.
BIOLOGICAL / SOMATIC CITIZENSHIP
Nikolas Rose and Carlos Novas use the term ‘biological citizenship’ “descriptively, to encompass all those citizenship projects that have linked their conceptions of citizens to beliefs about the biological existence of human beings, as individuals, as families and lineages, as communities, as population and races, and as a species.” (Rose and Novas 2003 p2)
Rose goes on to set out how the conceptions of biological citizenship“recode the duties, rights, and expectations of human beings in relation to their sickness, and also to their life itself, reorganize the relations between individuals and their biomedical authorities, and reshape the ways in which human beings relate to themselves as “somatic individuals.” This is linked to the rise of what I term a “somatic ethics”—ethics not in the sense of moral principles, but rather as the values for the conduct of a life—that accords a central place to corporeal, bodily existence.” (Rose 2006)
While these perspectives take a largely medicalised view of the body there is potential scope for this idea of somatic ethics to be expanded or appropriated to include alternative, creative accounts of the body (MacPherson 2014).
MacPherson, H. 2014. ‘Somatic Citizenship‘ in Choreographing Politics
Rose, N. 2006. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press
Rose, N. and Novas, C. 2003. Biological Citizenship
CARE
“In 1990, Berenice Fisher and [Joan Tronto] offered this broad definition of care: “On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web” (see also Tronto 1993, 103; Fisher and Tronto 1990, 40). This broad concept of care is still the best one from which to begin this investigation. Even though this definition is often criticized for being too broad (Held 2006; Groenhout 2004), it contains within itself a response to this criticism. In arguing that care is an activity, a kind of practice, we left open the possibility that there might be other forms of care that are not on this “most general level.” Thus, it is possible to think about other ways to understand the meaning of care as more specific caring practices that are nested within this larger practice of care. By this account, some more narrow definitions of care are useful in more narrow contexts.”
Source: Joan C. Tronto. 2013. Caring democracy: markets, equality, and justice. p19
CARE ETHICS
Care ethics is a distinct philosophical field that arose in the 1980s through the work of Carol Gilligan (1982), Nel Noddings (1986), Eva Kittay (1991), Joan Tronto (1993), Virginia Held (1993) and others, that considers ethics as something practice-based, centred on relationships and dependencies between people (including the emotional and physical dimensions of relationships) and taking into account particular contexts.
It is typically contrasted with deontological [1] and consequentialist [2] ethics which tend to see people as being independent entities and emphasise rational universal standards (Held 2006, Sander-Stadt 2016).
[1] Deontological ethics involve following moral rules (e.g. it is wrong to steal)
[2] Consequentialist ethics are based on what the consequences of actions will be (e.g. we should follow actions that cause the least harm to other people)
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In A Different Voice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
Held, Virginia. 2006. The Ethics of Care. New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
Noddings, Nel. 1982. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. Berkeley: University of CA Press
Kittay, Eva Feder and Myers, Diana T., (ed) 1987. Women and Moral Theory. U.S.A.: Rowman and Littlefield
Tronto, Joan. 2013. Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality and Justice. New York: New York University
CHOREOCRACY
Choreocracy [choreo, dancing in unison+ cracy, rule by] is a method of governance involving the organisation of people’s movements and bodies. The term is taken from The Hospitality, a game by Tova Gerge, Ebba Petrén and Gabriel Widing in which they describe a history of choreocracy from Ancient Greece to an imagined future.
The term was used differently by journalist Ravish Kumar in 2015, complaining that “We [in India] are living in a virtual democracy and are made to believe that we are proud of that democracy. However, all the information is choreographed into events and voters have changed into an audience. There is an entertainment aspect in today’s politics.” Here the connection with choreography is disparaging, alluding to manipulation and superficiality,
Choreographer Tim Casson used the word in yet another way (the opposite of the first example), with his 2018 work Choreocracy. Here it refers to a kind of democratic choreography that is chosen by the audience from a series of pre-set choices. More like choreo-populi [choreo, dancing in unison+ populi, of the people] I guess.
CHOREOGRAPHY, EXPANDED
In the most general sense, “choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies in which motion, form, or both are specified” (Wikipedia). Most people would probably think specifically of choreographing a dance routine for the stage, or a music video. Maybe for Youtube or Tiktok. Maybe choreographing a fight scene in a film.
Choreographer Marten Spangberg writes similarly but with a different emphasis; rather than thinking of it as a code that brings movement from stillness he says that “Choreography, like architecture, is a matter of domesticating or taming movement. Choreography organizes movement. In other words, choreography is a matter of structuring. It goes without saying that structuring does not necessarily imply tidy, ordinary or formal. Structuring though implies the existence of some kind of system, code or consistency.
Expanded Choreography is a term often used but rarely defined in clear terms and perhaps it is essential that it remains slippery as an idea. But the gist of it is that the structuring that Spangberg refers to, can be in relation to lots of different things and not just dancers on a stage. This could be social situations, conversations (so not just movement of bodies), thoughts.
At some point you might want to ask, ‘what makes this choreography as opposed to say, organisational design, or meditation, or town planning?’. And that is a very good question. I suppose it’s about the heritage and context in which the person is operating and thinking, which give a different emphasis, quality and value to the activity.
Spangberg, Marten (Ed.) 2017. PostDance
CHOREOGRAPHIC ECOSYSTEMS
A ‘choreographic ecosystem’ is a term I coined that alludes both to the idea of ecosystems in geography and to similar artistic terms used in choreography.
In geography, an ecosystem is community of living organisms interacting with each other and their non-living environment (such as weather and landscape). The elements are interdependent and individual ecosystems are connected with each other (Bailey 2009).
The term ‘choreographic ecosystem’ extends the elements and systems under consideration beyond the chemical and biological. It also metaphorical as it covers systems smaller than traditionally understood ecosystems. It also puts particular focus on the creative agency of the human members.
The term builds on existing choreographic concepts including ‘choreographic environment’ (Lycouris 2009) and ‘choreographic installation’ (Rubridge 2009) which emphasise architecture, scenography and new technologies in which human movement takes place; ‘relational art’ (Bourriaud 1998) which emphases human relations and their social context; ’choreographic objects’ which “deploy simple materials to engender isolated classes of bodily motion” (Forsythe 2016); ‘relational assemblages’ (Sabisch 2011) created between performances and audiences; as well as Michael Klien's use of the idea of ecologies to frame choreography within systems theory (Gormly et al 2008, Klien 2008).
A choreographic ecosystem covers things that might also be described as installations, shared practices, workshops, salons, happenings, experiences, games and performances. As well as activities that sit across and between these types. It is a tool for creating certain kinds of artworks that emphasises agency and a positioning of choreographic methods in non-dance performance contexts.
Bailey, Robert G. 2009. Ecosystem Geography (Second ed.). New York: Springer
Bishop, Claire. (ed) 2006. Participation. London: Whitechapel Press
Bourriaud, Nicholas. 1998. Relational Aesthetics. Les Presses Dureel
Forsythe, William. 2016. ‘DOING AND UNDERGOING’ [webpage] available at http://www.williamforsythe.de/essay.html
Gormly, Jeffrey, Klien, Michael, Valk, Steve. 2008. Book of Recommendations: Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change. Ireland: Daghdha Dance Company
Klien, Michael. 2008. CHOREOGRAPHY AS AN AESTHETICS OF CHANGE. Thesis submitted to the Edinburgh College of Art
Lycouris, Sophia. 2009. ‘Choreographic environments: new technologies and movement-related artistic work’ in Butterworth, Jo and Wildschut, Lisbeth (eds) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge
Rubridge, S. 2009. ‘Performing Installations: towards an understanding of choreography and performativity in interactive installations’ in Butterworth, Jo and Wildschut, Liesbeth (eds) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge
Sabisch, Petra. 2011. Choreographing Relations: Practical Philosophy and Contemporary Choreography in the Works of Antonia Baehr, Gilles Deleuze, Juan Dominguez, Félix Guattari, Xavier Le Roy and Eszter Salamon. epodium
CHOREOPHILOSOPHY
Choreophilosophy is a term I came up with to describe activities and practices that focus on the structures and contexts of philosophy. How philosophy is done as much as what is done. For example philosophy often takes place through lectures in universities (following conventions of listening and speaking), discussions around classroom tables, writing on offices, reading at home for example. These bodily, spatial, scenographic contexts are generally not remarked upon because they follow seemingly well established traditions.
Choreophilosophy wonders whether those contexts might be modified to change philosophical thinking, and expand our ideas of where and how philosophy can or does take place.
MacPherson, Hamish. 2014 The world is at your feet
CONCEPTUAL METAPHOR
Conceptual metaphor is an idea in cognitive linguistics first extensively explored by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their 19880 bookMetaphors We Live By. Within this idea is the understanding that abstract concepts (e.g. morality) are typically understood in terms of concrete ones (e.g. cleanliness).
Lackoff states that “A large proportion of our most commonplace thoughts make use of an extensive, but unconscious, system of metaphorical concepts, that is, concepts from a typically concrete realm of thought that are used to comprehend another, completely different domain. Such concepts are often reflected in everyday language, but their most dramatic effect comes in ordinary reasoning.
Because so much of our social and political reasoning makes use of this system of metaphorical concepts, any adequate appreciation of even the most mundane social and political thought requires an understanding of this system. But unless one knows that the system exists, one may miss it altogether and be mystified by its effects.” (Lakoff 1995 p1)
Lackoff, G. 1995. ‘Metaphor, Morality, and Politics Or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust‘ in Social Research, vol 62, no. 2 (summer 1995)
EMBODIED COGNITION
“Embodied cognition, the idea that the mind is not only connected to the body but that the body influences the mind, is one of the more counter-intuitive ideas in cognitive science. In sharp contrast is dualism, a theory of mind famously put forth by Rene Descartes in the 17th century when he claimed that ‘there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible… the mind or soul of man is entirely different from the body.’
In the proceeding centuries, the notion of the disembodied mind flourished. From it, western thought developed two basic ideas: reason is disembodied because the mind is disembodied and reason is transcendent and universal. However, as George Lakoff and Rafeal Núñez explain:
Cognitive science calls this entire philosophical worldview into serious question on empirical grounds… [the mind] arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experiences. This is not just the innocuous and obvious claim that we need a body to reason; rather, it is the striking claim that the very structure of reason itself comes from the details of our embodiment… Thus, to understand reason we must understand the details of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanism of neural binding.
What exactly does this mean? It means that our cognition isn’t confined to our cortices. That is, our cognition is influenced, perhaps determined by, our experiences in the physical world.” (McNerney 2011)
McNerney, S. 2011. ‘A Brief Guide to Embodied Cognition: Why You Are Not Your Brain’
HOMEOPATHY ART
Homeopathy is a pseudo science that claims to offer remedies to diseases. These ‘remedies’ are made by repeatedly diluting a substance in water or alcohol, generally to the point that there is none of the original substance remaining (accompanied by the disproven theory that the water retains a memory of the original substance). Where homeopathy does work, it is subjective and down to the placebo effect - people expect or believe there will be an effect so they feel there is one.
In Homeopathy art, the artist, takes an idea and translates it multiple times until there is none of the original substance remaining. For example a sculptor might take weather data and turn it into a three dimensional form, or a choreographer might turn a word into a movement motif. But none of the resulting works retain anything that is essential to the original material - its relevance or significance is only felt when it is explained in the programme notes. It is a placebo effect.
Why is there so much homeopathy art? Because people feel art needs to be about something, about something that is sellable and exciting and interesting on paper? Does written/ verbal language force this? Is it the continued emphasis on artists’ intentions (perhaps fuelled by the elevation of the artist and by the primacy of the idea over the action)?
I should clarify, in case it were needed, that homeopathy art is not as useless or dangerous as homeopathy, the stakes are much lower and the idea of a specific (medical) purpose don’t translate in the analogy. It may well be that homeopathy art is quite powerful, beautiful and affecting. But I also wonder if it distracts from its real quality (or indeed it’s lack of quality) and somehow interrupts critical engagement because the meaning of the work, is told to us.
NANOPOLITICS
Nanopolitics was the name of a practice of the London-based nanopolitics group. “A practice of sensibilities, an experiment in living politics from, with and through the body – and vice versa. Since 2010, we have spent a few days a month together in different spaces, bringing our bodies and sensitivities to what we experience as urgent political matters, as a mode of collective reflection and action.” (the nanopolitics group, 2013, p19)
The prefix ‘nano’ is used in contrast to macro or micro politics, to refer to“infinitely small operations that bring us together as bodies in movement, struggle, love, work and so forth.” (ibid p24)
the nanopolitcs group. 2013. nanopolitics handbook
NON-REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY
“Non-representational theory has emerged since the mid-1990s in a series of papers and book chapters written by [Nigel] Thrift and has also evolved in the work of a range of his postgraduate students during that time….
[N]on-representational theory is not in fact an actual theory, but something more like a style of thinking which values practice. It is therefore also best thought in the plural as non-representational theories. In this plurality, theories of post-structuralists, phenomenologists, pragmatists, feminists, and a collection of social theorists, mix in varying concentrations.” (Simpson 2011)
“the non-representational project is concerned with describing ‘practices, mundane everyday practices that shape the conduct of human beings towards others and themselves in particular sites’. Rather than obsess over representation and meaning, Thrift contends that non-representational work is concerned with the performative ‘presentations’, ‘showings’ and ‘manifestations’ of everyday life.” (Patchett 2010)
Patchett, M. 2010. ‘A Rough Guide to Non-Representational Theory‘
Simpson, P. 2011. ‘What is non-representational theory?’
PEER PRESSURE (After Paul Hughes)
Peer pressure is the unspoken quality that pervades participatory works - the pressure to take part, to get involved (but not too much). It pervades all the activity around artworks too - what events to go to, what opinions to hold or articulate, what type of work to make. It pervades all of social activity perhaps. But we avoid talking about it because it is something that is innately hard to talk about; it exists in the miasma of groups not the solidity of the individual. And our personal experience of it lurks in the unpleasant, shameful recesses of our minds.
“Peer pressure is effective because it uses one of our most basic fears--public humiliation--as a built-in mechanism for controlling behavior. It works in public contexts because there is a consensus that the benefits of public safety, decency, and cooperation are of greater concern than the repression of individual action or speech. The same is true for relational aesthetics.
Whether explicitly or not, a majority of its participants have agreed that a shared (and almost certain) mediocrity was preferable to the risk of aberrant behavior. Peer pressure might produce a safer town square or a prosperous magnet school, but it makes for rather timid art. By contrast, art should be a place where we can "kill Grandma" and, rather than call an ambulance or the moral authorities, stand around and talk about what it means.” (Scanlon 2005)
This is all very well but how do we shake off this peer pressure? Are we expected to develop the strength of character not to be dragged by convention? Scanlon seems to think so: “these days, both politically and aesthetically, I prefer to adhere to Martin Kippenberger`s creed: "Keiner hilft keinem." Every man for himself”. Part of me (the conformist) worries that this is a road to some kind of small tyranny by the few that do this (the extroverted, the privileged etc.).
Can we ever build in structures that enable those qualities that Sacanlon argues are make art worthwhile: “Narcissism. Solipsism. Delusion. Perversion. Dedication. Fantasy. Absurdity.” or is that a contradiction? Like organised fun? Perhaps not. What if “Every man for himself” includes not just the tyrant but also the clown, the trouble maker, the quiet one, the overly earnest.
Scanlon, Joe. 2005. ‘Traffic Control’ at mutualart.com
PERFORMANCE PHILOSOPHY
“What counts as Performance Philosophy must be ceaselessly subject to redefinition in and as the work of performance philosophers. Performance Philosophy could be:
the application of philosophy to the analysis of performance;
the philosophy of performance and/or the performance of philosophy;
the study of how philosophers and philosophical ideas have been staged in performance or how ideas and images of performance have figured in philosophy;
the theoretical or practical exploration of philosophy as performance and/or as performative;
and likewise, experiments emerging from the idea that performance is a kind of philosophy or thinking or theorizing in itself.
But it could also be much more besides.”
Performance Philosophy. ‘About’. performancephilosophy.ning.com/page/about
SOCIAL CHOREOGRAPHY
Jaana Parvivaan draws attention to two different but related conceptions of the term ‘social choreography’ in her essay Choreographing Resistances (2010).
The first is the one presented by Andrew Hewitt in his 2005 book of the same name (where I think the term was coined), which looks at “how choreography has served not only as metaphor for modernity but also as a structuring blueprint for thinking about and shaping modern social organization.” Mark Franko picks up this thread in 2006, arguing that“dance is ideological (…) Ideologies are the persuasive kinesthetic and visual means by which individual identities are called or hailed to larger group formations.”
The second – possibly more common – conception of social choreography – for example used by Steve Valk and Michael Klien (2008) but also see Catherine Wood’s essay The art of writing with people – refers to “an aesthetic practice that can actively intervene in the ways that people relate and interact” (Wood 2010), a kind of choreography of ‘real world’ events and relations (if such a distinction between real and performance worlds can be used).
Slightly confusingly Valk, Klien and Wood refer to Hewitt in their descriptions although this may be as much to do with the overlapping of the concepts as any misunderstanding.
Franko, Mark. 2006. ‘Dance and Politics, States of Exception’ inDance Research Journal Vol. 38, No. 1/2 (Summer – Winter, 2006), pp. 3-18
Hewitt, Andrew. 2005. Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement
Klien, Michael; Valk, Steve and Gormly, Jeffrey. 2008. Book of Recommendations: Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change
Parviainen, Jaana. 2010. ‘Choreographing Resistances: Spatial-Kinaesthetic Intelligence and Bodily Knowledge as Political Tools in Activist Work’ in Mobilities Journal Vol. 5 No. 3, 1 September 2010
Wood, Catherine. 2010. ‘The art of writing with people‘ tate.org.uk
SOMAESTHETICS
Somaesthetics is an interdisciplinary project by philosopher Richard Shusterman “reviving the ancient idea of philosophy as an embodied way of life rather than a mere discursive field of abstract theory.” (Shusterman 2013). He describes three branches of somaesthetics:
“analytic somaesthetics, which includes philosophy relating to the mind-body connection and the genealogical, sociological, and cultural analyses of somatic issues found in feminist and critical theory;
pragmatic somaesthetics, which encompasses methodologies for improving our experience and use of our bodies (e.g. diets, grooming, decoration, dance, yoga, massage, aerobics, bodybuilding, calisthenics, martial and erotic arts, and disciplines like the Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method); and
practical somaesthetics: the concrete activity of somatic training.” (Sarbanes 2013)
Sarbanes, J. 2013. ‘Body Conscious: On Somaesthetics’ in Los Angeles Review of Books
Shusterman, R. 2013. Thinking Through the Body : Essays in Somaesthetics. Cambridge University Press
Shusterman, R. 2015. "Somaesthetics: A Disciplinary Proposal" (PDF). Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 57 (3): 307. Retrieved 4 August 2015.