Re-boot: unlearning schemata technique, Day 2 at SDC

This summer 3 ludics (Andreea, Iulia and myself) had spent 2 weeks at the Seoul Dance Center, as part of the international open call residency. We had the first week to ourselves, then in the second week held workshops for people who were interested in our theme of "unlearning" and "re-boot".

On the second day of the workshop, we questioned how we find ourselves in the objectified images produced by our own projection of reality, through engaging with senses, especially touch; shortcutting our imagination, expanding our trajectories from point to another points, to let ourselves be interrupted and to suspend the logic of actions in a way that surprised us.

We began the first part of the workshop, as a warm up, with the speculated gravity in 6 levels from Planet i., and when everybody reached the second lightest gravity (-2G), introducing the phenomenological sensing exercise inspired from Ponty's text.

The second part was introduced with the idea of reality, that it appears to us via the contact points we acknowledge, which in this workshop was mainly investigated through the senses from our palms. It started from establishing a relationship between one's soma and a "point". Once the relationship was consumed via touching (sensing every possible information through it), participants were asked to move onto a next point in space, and by repeating this task the past relationships started becoming trajectories, and the forthcoming relationships were anticipated. The workshop finished by interrupting the trajectories by surprising oneself, and letting it transform.

After the workshop, some participants shared their reflections with everyone. One responded with a question "could there be movement completely free from anticipation (purpose/intention)?" which opened the discussion on whether, first, the acknowledgement of an anticipated point, is perceived consciously or unconsciously, then also whether its way of interruption is made by a conscious choice or unconscious reaction. This discussion was closely related to the theme of "conscious, voluntary vs. unconscious, automatic"cognition paradigm which was conveyed later again in Day 3.

Another question which was shared in the room was to what degree do we interrupt our anticipation. Since if we say no to every possible anticipation, one will end up not being able to make any movement apart from automatic reflexes that we have no control of. Similarly, pure interruption or transformation that occurs entirely independent from one's higher cognition is (almost) impossible to do, at least when one is trying it as a task in this context - because the movement decision will be processed consciously at a certain level. However, by actively denying a highly anticipated movement, one can be relatively (more unconsciously) be surprised by one's own transformed movement.

Participants and the ludics, in their own ways, were trying to let the conscious and unconscious minds shift from one another at various points of repetition, acknowledgement, interruption and transformation throughout this workshop, and the post-discussion/sharing ended (hopefully) with emphasising the importance of trying to achieve this mutual shifts and interaction as a method of unlearning one's bodily patterns.