body as media
Collaboration with Nelesi Rodriguez (working group facilitator)
During the Fall of 2016, a group of artists and educators met regularly over the course of three months to explore the many ways in which the human body mediates experience and knowledge. In their time working together, the Bodies as Media Working Group (BaM) explored ancestry and memory, ecology, emotionality and creativity, death, etc., etc., etc., through the (human) body. This working group was created in the context of the School of Apocalypse (SoA), a NYC-based initiative that examines connections between creative practice and survival and seeks to develop new modes of inquiry and apply broader levels of experience to intellectual investigation. SoA has no fixed definition of apocalypse or survival, but engages with the fundamental questions that the themes provoke. SoA invites a range of thinkers, artists and practitioners to present programming on topics that fit their realm of exploration. Subjects of study are theoretical as well as hands-on, and emphasize the integration of observational and material practices found in mystical traditions, creative modalities and scientific field work. BaM, one of the first iterations of SoA working groups, encapsulated its learnings in a resource for learning communities, a proposal for a ritual that aims to “turn on” people’s body awareness and prepare their bodies to learn, work, and trust others.
Of Vessels, Conduits and Instruments: Reflections from the Bodies as Media Working Group
Published in Inmaterial | Vol. 2 | No. 03 | 2017
