Presence/Part 1

Once we know what the actions will be, it will be easier to determine what is needed in part 1.  

Here we can propose focusing and social actions--

such as getting in touch with the senses/body

working together in pairs

etc..

I have a lot of ways to lead a group through, I think we should focus on what our overall structure will be and on the actions and then come back to decide on part 1--I think we can do this on Wed--if we know before hand our agreed structure overall and actions proposed.

We could also have the same preparation (warm up) each day--something really to get the body moving, etc.

I also still like the idea of us three bringing our sketched map of Zagreb to our first meeting and then have the participants--on the first day--draw theirs.

Sharing/ Part 3

As I proposed in my email, I would really like to focus the third part on coming together and each group contributes to something we make together. I am in favor of a re-map of Zagreb.  To work with materials (paper, sketching utensils, transparencies, etc) and to re-name, re-orient, etc the map of Zagreb--

I like the translation process from bodies moving in the city to translating what we found through another, shared, medium.  This can be playful and also leave a residue, document...

In this way, we can work on a layering of palmipsest of ideas, places in the city, etc--it is also a document that can be shared beyond the group--a visual document (one more connected to the work than a video).  Again, we could have three maps from each day or a variation maps.

I also feel that this is where we can bring in discussion and the readings*

We may, need a place indoors to work--and I feel the studio will not be that far to return to and work.

I prefer this over a kind of show and tell format.

Actions/Part 2: Sara

Proposed Actions:

Day 1: main square of Zagreb Trg bana Jalacica

scales/bodies/heights

working with the participants in solo and small group form (depending on number) to relate to the varying forms and systems present in the square: larger-than-life equestrian statue, surrounding houses, a skyscraper, and people walking accross the square.

I am interested in working with the body/movements as a means of measuring the space as well as feeling out what scale is. In order to do that we might count with our feet, hands, whole body along walls, surfaces, buildings (I also like the idea of touching architecture).  Also to work with being very small and very large through image and movement.  Perhaps taking on different body shapes in relation to the existing structures and placing ourselves in various positions that change the perception of the scale of things and our own bodies.  Also, to measure across the square, by lining up as a group and creating a moving spectacle across the square  (if enough people).

Day 2: short street called Krvavi most (Bloody bridge)

bridges/borders/fences

Here I am interested to work with flow, movement through a space, traveling through the space--from one side to another.  We would come up with various ways of walking through the space (alone and in partners) that alter the experience of the space--for example, walking sideways, backwards, in slow motion, etc.

Day 3: old botanical garden/serves as a division from the railroad tracks

silences/waits/(in)visibility

I am most excited about this day....

I would like to work with being invisible and also leaving a trace.  I like the idea of participants following people through the space and also collecting movement vignettes or tableaus of people waiting. I also like the idea of leaving a mark with chalk, tracing someone's pathway through a space, as well as re-performing the tableaus in different locations.

--

These are all still quite open and will be further detailed on site.  I may also choose, once I arrive, to focus on one particular system (related to walking) at each site and see how that system changes with each site and what that says about a site.

 

 

Day Three

Day three: silences/waits/(in)visibility
I collect the written forms of things to hide. We exchange them and save for later.
As we leave the studio you’ll receive a bag of transparent balloons. Find places of visual silence. What is lacking there? Mark them with blown balloons. How does the city manifest itself in the void?


1. Develop strategies to make someone wait.
2. Look for a person in silence within the public space. Collect a series of gestures and postures of diverse persons in silence. What are the qualities that a body silence impinges in the space? Is the lack of sound always a body in silence? (in terms of physical qualities)
3. Find spots where we can hide the things to hide. How do other react as they see you hiding? What are the strategies you employ? (digging, burning, carving. throwing et)

Day Two

Day two: bridges/borders/fences

As we leave the studio each one receive two threads of different colors. We walk and observe
List things that divide and Things that connect, marking each one of them with a different color.

When we arrive at the zone of action
In areas of flow, which are the things that mark a separation, a division? Are they always visible or a physical landmark?
How do actions (practices) distingue and fragment this zone?

1. Choose two things that are close to each other, but separated, disconnected.
Can you connect them using only your body/presence?
Can the objects you brought with you help with this task?

2. What are the elements that demarcate areas and division of actions?

Today again I intend to work in duos- one performs, the other observes.
When we come together we talk about the successes and difficulties on becoming bridges and fences.

Day One Part II and III

day one: scales/bodies/heights

As we leave the studio and walk towards the first region distribute a sheet with columns:
Things to fold
Things to collect
Things underneath
Things above
Things remembered

Participants should work with this lexicon and list from observing around.
Once we arrive at the region I ask the participants to hand in the list. (will lead into next day activity)

Participants are asked to walk around individually and choose sites of extreme scales: where bodies (their own and of the passers by) feel and/or look:
The biggest
The coldest
The warmest
The loneliest
The …

Potentially to be done in couples.
Than Pick 3 or 4 of the explored sites and experiment first reinforcing the adjectives, through physical or object placing.
Build up a sequence going from one to the next (up to four).
Same working with opposition. What can you do to oppose that characteristic?

For part III:
As we worked in couples, each one of the participants shares with the large group the sequence of the other.
The observers can be distributed in diverse heights and distances to watch the performing body.

Discuss:
Which are the architectural elements that provoke that framing?
How do the bodies of the observer alter the action? (closeness, angle etc)

Each one of the participants picks one sheet of the lexicon to bring home.
On their way to the hotel and throughout next day they have to choose one element from each of the columns and bring an object to our next day meeting.

On PART I

Part I:
I understand the technique as tool for bulding up a structure, a system that will establish the conditions through which one will inhabit the body, in the first place, and the city, secondarily.
My feeling is to work with a sequence of physical warm ups in a cumulative structure within the three days and to focus on some elements we will want to bring to the regions.
Sara, this may be something the two of us can put together on the 23rd eve?
For sure they should be Simple and encompass elements that may help us to observe and interfere in the experience off the city, most specifically open up a physical availability. It is like experience walking within ones own body.
Start sited, do shoulders, articulatory acknowledgment-
Aim for a focus on presence- the space the body occupies-
the simplicity of streching - going up and down pulling the feets to the ground. weight and counter weight.
Duration-I am thinking about Cunningham and how he states that the choreographic phrase is held on relations of duration, and not on musical rhythm- and how duration is essential for meaning and conceiving of a city.
Find the moments of suspension without blocking the flow of the movement (action/reaction).
I have some sequence of arms rotations with leg stretching that I really like.
After basic body warm ups we should build on this as the moment of the private- when the city expresses itself within the private- the personal, the secret, the expectations, the memories.

I suggest that when we leave we should already leave within a proposition- we don’t loose time getting to the site, but the moment of dislocation is already carefully planned as a task.
Only when we get to the zone of the day we’d than split into the couples for the official Part II exercises.

In relation to Augusto Boal’s exercise I’ve mentioned, he usually works with memory spaces, but we can play with the memories (and preconceptions) of Zagreb.

Another possibility is to exchange the maps we all arrived with- so, each one would have to go for a walk following the other's notes and maps to be guided.
exchange of instructions—but risk to get lost.

A pallette of movement/physical actions (to be added to)

head/name game (moving closer to each other)

brush and rub down (partners)

senses --passing through one to the other 

walking patterns (near/far/unison)

Proposal for structuring the activities

Structuring the activities as a testing of sort, or a laboratory wherein we all choose to work in three separate, but the same sites on each day.  At the site we will split the group into three and each work with a small group for about 20 minutes, then the groups will rotate (shift) to another "landing site" or activity for 20 min and then shift again. In this way all three of us can share working in a common site (determined by Bianca's word prompts from the original proposal and with Jasenka's suggestions, while also working independently within our interest/medium.  Also, in this way, it will be easier to do follow up, collecting and response with the whole group back in the studio, since we will have shared a common space, yet had different and varied experiences with the site. At first I thought that 20 min may not be enough time and we can debate this, but at the same time, I feel that a shorter session gets to a point without going too much into detail and is a kind of sampling of something that can then (Un)fold back into the follow up back in the studio.

Sara's second thoughts on actions

Walking around my neighborhood in LA--thinking about walking in a still unknown city of Zagreb....I wonder...

What can one know about a place through observing and interacting with rhythms of walking?

I am more and more curious about this system of flow and movement in a city. An ecology of bodies/movements.  

The three days/themes:

scales/bodies/heights

bridges/borders/fences

silences/waits/(in)visibility

can serve as prompts for finding sites to research in.

For example:

I would choose three different sites based on the words provided.  So, for the first day, I may choose to work in an area where the relationship between sidewalk width and bldg height was extreme.  The second day I might work in an area of contested borders or a more residential area where the boundary between private and public are strong. And on the third day, move to a place where there are silences (or lack there of) and consider ways to engage in that slower pace, stillness.

In each site the focus of the research would be on the body/space/time relation--with a focus on ways the bodies move through space, connecting to that, improvising with that movement and discovering something different about each space through this research.

I like that Bianca has propose a follow up activity--coming back and offering something back to the group from the research. I think we could all have actions that we work on and then a structure for how to share that back to the group.

We will have a lot of information gathered and then, I can imagine, go through a process of editing and selecting and composing.

More thoughts on the way....

brain storm II

I am thinking at this point that the first part has to be carefully weaved into the city- maybe trying the physical things outdoors, after seeking for the spots that relate to the topic. I like to think about this displacement 'cause it builds on sensorial memory- of the city and of the body.
I am thinking about Boal's excercise on sensorial memory, which works with differentiation between physical description (through bodly movement) of a place and affective memories (how the body felt)
Apart from those listed here, I'd like to bring objects- maps and historic images printed in acetate threads of different texture

first day:
scale/bodies/hights
looking for sites that represent/present the extremes in scales of enveloping the body- again I am interested in the comparision between physical and sensorial perception and forming of a place.
each individual will choose 3 of the followings to look for:
the highest place
where you feel the smallest
the coldest
etc ( a list of a bunch of extremes is suggested)
once the spot is found observe ways how to brake, contrast that feeling- through sound/ body positioning.

at the end we walk together each one showing the group its chosen spots
this also creates a movement between individual/group.

what is the variety of bodies in this city?

bridges/borders/fences
this is about division, fragmentation, demarcating
I'd like to play with memory, past, projection-- bridges in terms of time
this is the day of landing site for me.

stand on a bridge
try to connect two points that are split apart
connecting through gestures
connecting through presence
separating through presence
reproducing the limits of zagreb in the scale of where we can reach (drawing with steps- or with a thread)

silences/waits/invisibilities
looking for blank spaces
non functional sites (small spots)
consider them as breathing of the city
the inflexion point
try to hide
the silence can be chaotic- or can be plain
work with transparent ballons
blowing, collecting air
- what fills up?

actions per theme

Sara's first draft of possible actions per theme:

day one: scales/bodies/heights
measuring body to height of buildings
activities that consider the relationship of width of sidewalk to height of buildings
walking in lines, other configurations, that aim to measure out the space/foot measurements/number of steps/etc

day two: bridges/borders/fences
counting bridges or fences
body as bridge, as fence

day three: silences/waits/(in)visibilities
body still in the city where it is very busy
notice vignette of people waiting for the bus and re-create in another locale

So...what actions???

I also keep coming back to the title: (UN)Folding Zagreb
What is it to unfold a place?
unfolding a map
unfolding into movement, flow, rhythms

I am not convinced that my reading contribution should be deCerteau. Although he discusses the movements of the body in the city, there is still an emphasis in the visual--in the looking at the bodies moving--over the felt body moving. Instead, I am considering bringing in Vivian Sobchack's writing on the body locating itself.
She refers to embodiment and phenomenology (which I sense is not exactly the direction we are wanting to go).
You can read from her book Carnal Thoughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture.

I will think on it further..

now...actions...

I am not sure I can predict what movements I would propose for the participants--other than to be there and decide then.
Otherwise, I find myself falling back to what I have tried out here in LA-but, perhaps, Zagreb asks for different actions.

And if not the flaneur--then, perhaps it is not about being wandering, but locating oneself, "knowing" where one wants to go
intention
stillness
placement
markings

Moving in Zagreb

In thinking about what kind of actions I might propose in Zagreb, I first go back to the original proposal and highlight words that might be prompts for moving.

rhythm
movement of the body
flow
engagement with others in the space
gestural contamination

I also am curious about the proposed three day theme:

1. scales/bodies/heights
2. bridges/borders/fences
3. silences/waits/(in)visibility

and, in the end we have proposed to accumulate a series of actions and/or mapping of affects

bodies and cities

"mater does not exist in and of itself, outside or beyond discourse, but it is rather repeatedly produced through performativity, which brings into being or enacts that which names"
mariam fraiser. 1999

Movement against mortality

Croatian scientist on a hunt for immortality

Croatian Times
Croatian scientist Iva Tolic-Norrelykke has identified the first potential immortal organism.

Tolic-Norrelykke, a team leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cellular Biology and Genetics in Dresden, has been researching individual cells of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model system because it has a simple symmetrical cell shape, a small number of microtubules, and highly-developed genetics.

The team’s work provides the first direct in-vivo observation of self-organised dynamic dynein distributions, which, due to their intrinsic motor properties, generate regular large-scale movements in the cell.

They follow individual yeast cells during their growth and reproduction and at the end make its genealogical tree. The research shows that organisms that do not grow old most probably use different life strategies and effective regeneration.

Tolic-Norrelykke presented her research at Zagreb’s Rudjer Boskovic Institute yesterday (Tues), the daily Slobodna Dalmacija has reported.

Tolic-Norrelykke said: "Our results show that our yeast does not grow old. It does not seem realistic that a human been can be immortal, but I believe we will be able to postpone ageing within 20 years."

Her work, "Self-Organization of Dynein Motors Generates Meiotic Nuclear Oscillations," has been published in PLos Biology.

The co-author of the work, Zagreb professor Nenad Pavin, stressed they would continue research on the project with the aim of making the yeast immortal. He added they would also do research on human cells

Location

45° 10' N, 15° 30' E

Site restored

News
In full glory after 25 years of restoration!

St. Mark's Church, one of the symbols of Zagreb and a recognizable city sight, was built in the 13th century. What remains from that stage of its construction is the window in the south facade and the ground-plan of the belfry. The gothic vaults and portals including the most valuable – the sumptuous south portal, were constructed in the second half of the 14th century. Outside, on the northwest wall of the church lies the oldest coat of arms of Zagreb with the year 1499 engraved in it. The building has gone through a number of alteration and reconstruction phases, the most thorough one in the second half of the 19th century according to drawings by the Viennese architects Friedrich Schmidt and Herman Bolle. During the restoration in the first half of the 20th century, the walls were painted by the well-known painter Jozo Kljaković, while the altar was decorated by the works of renowned sculptor Ivan Meštrović.

The restoration project that has just been completed lasted 25 years. The works were slowed down due to complications with the restoration operations, and because of the war. During the project, the tower and the roof were renovated, and the 15 statues that had been removed for security reason were returned to their proper positions.

The three-nave St. Mark's Church is 36 meters long and 15.5 meters wide. The south side of the roof is decorated with two coats of arms, the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, and the coat of arms of the city of Zagreb. The bells in the steeple dates back to 1706.

On the occasion of the completion of restoration works, a mass was celebrated in the newly renovated St. Mark's Church by Zagreb Archbishop Cardinal Josip Bozanić.