Multidisciplinary Artist / Creator of Sensitive Areas
Introduction
For me, the body is a sensitive material or tool capable of feeling, transcribing and reviving sensations and emotions. The body is a support, reactive
to its environment and to the different perceptions of the things that surround it. If we take this logic to its logical conclusion, then the body is capable of being affected over time, taking the imprint of a memory and restoring it, making it present later, making the body the living support
of an individual or collective memory.
How can this relationship between body and memory be made perceptible ? What images can emerge
from this encounter ?
We will attempt to answer these questions by calling on a number of artists, visual artists and choreographers who have succeeded in making
the body a living medium of individual or collective memory and choreographers who have succeeded in putting into images the profound and mysterious relationship between memory the intangible place where our memories are stored, and our bodies.
Bill Viola and immersion: returning to our memory and primitive body.
Various installations by the artist Bill Viola depict a memory immersed in the body. The artist's installations bear witness to a childhood drowning
that remains a recurrent memory. He treats the body and memory as key elements in his work. In ‘Stations1 ’, which shows naked bodies swimming
in a black liquid, or ‘The reflecting pool2’, the phenomenon of immersion engages the viewer's primitive memory. In the artist's installations
and videos, sound plays an essential role in conveying an idea and a message. In the artist's installations and videos, sound plays an essential role
in conveying an idea and an image through the senses, through the viewer's body.
For Manon Blanchette:
‘Some of Viola's works set up a rigorous and destabilising system that enables spectators to experience moments of ‘shock’ and altered states of perception that remain in the memory until they reach the deepest quest of each individual3 ‘.
Bill Viola's works highlight the fact that sound, like music, is part of a bodily and sensory memory through the vibrations and pulsations it produces, which for Viola take us back to our first moments of life: the womb bath. The pulsation, the sound units of the pulmonary breath and the melody
of voices are the first things that the foetus perceives with movement.
This image shows how the sensation of immersion, through sound and sound vibrations, can play an essential role in stimulating the memory body.
In ‘Five Angels of Millennium4’, an immersive experience using a projection device, Bill Viola imagines an imaginary projection of our own bodies. Here the body is an ‘actor and requires intention. Stimulation of the senses puts this process of body memory into action. The relationship with water interferes with Bill Viola's own story of a drowning he missed as a child. It receives the information that stimulates its memory. This is exactly
the process that Bill Viola highlights through the use of various images.
‘The theater of memory5’ is another installation that traces this effect of memory. That traces this effect of memory. The tree (the main element) represents life and the connections linked to the brain. The installation is based on the retranscription of sensations evoking memory.
Dance as the body's image of memory.
Certain dance practices help to question the body's relationship with memory. For psychoanalyst France Schott-Billmann, who uses dance as a form of therapy.
‘[...] the music and movement of dance support a process of recollection, a collective anamnesis.
It awakens a memory-body by making the dancer revisit the forgotten strata of his or her history6 ‘.
‘Dance would be the archaic call, the impulse - that can grasp all that is, through its roots in the being
to be danced.7 ‘.
Dance would therefore be a way of ‘awakening’ this buried memory. We might think of the gesture of curling up (foetal position), which evokes
a primal memory of the body in the mother's womb. This gesture can be found in certain dance positions where the head connects with the navel
in a curve of the back. Breathing is also linked to the rhythm of the heartbeat. We can think of the action of balancing in pointe (or demi-pointe)
which refers to the reflexes of a child, the development.
All these gestures serve to express what lies deep within us, and to transmit our memories. Practised collectively, dance has also been a means
of passing on the memory of a group to transmit the memory of a group, to record gestures of revolt against the logic of oppression, particularly
in the socio-political context of slavery.
The Sega is a dance that originated with African slaves, who danced by sliding their feet along the ground without ever lifting them, as the sand prevented them from taking sophisticated steps. The Sega played a role in the need for a sense of identity and consideration for a community
that had been neglected and pushed aside - a collective way of expressing a shared feeling following the violence suffered by the group.
Even better known, Capoeira is a martial art that hid from the colonisers behind the guise of a dance. Dance was the space and the place where combat movements could be recorded and transmitted. It also makes extensive use of the feet, as the hands of slaves were often chained together.
Dance has enabled us to remember collective suffering and oppression.
In Japan, butō dance has also served a collective purpose. Butô is a dance that emerged in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the wake
of a genuine identity crisis in Japanese civilisation.
‘By making the creative act inseparable from memory, butô is an art that does not appear to be the result
of subjectivity alone.
This makes it profoundly foreign to a Western vision of art as an expression of individuality [...]8’.
Butō is characterised by its representation of fear and death. It is a dance that is firmly rooted in the ground, drawing its movements from the roots
of the soil and writhing in pain. It denounces and shows the horror of war and suffering, and aims to awaken the hidden forces, the spirits
of the depths of the human soul.
‘Me /Moire9’ by Yumiko Yoshioka is a butō dance performance. In her performance, the dancers create landscapes of memories through their naked bodies. The bodies are superimposed on each other by the intertwining of arms and legs. The combination of the bodies of the 3 dancers leads
to the creation of abstract forms that can refer to a representation of memory.
The aim is to keep the stage set more or less simple, the accent is on the bodies, where the light plays on the subtlety forms. We can see
that the question of the memory body in butō dance butō is formulated through the expression of the bodies themselves. The performance
‘Les Mamelles du Japon10 ’ by Hijikata Tastumi (creator of Butō) performed by his wife Ashikawa Yôko shows the dancer turning on herself and changing her facial expression with each turn facial expression. She creates a multi-faceted character revealing different masks of expression.
In addition to the butō, Akram Khan, a contemporary dancer and choreographer, takes his inspiration from the murderous madness of mankind
in a contemporary dance solo entitled ‘Xenos11’ (2019), which also uses the body's expression to denounce a memory of a moment of chaos.
In this performance, the set is built around him, with ropes that, along with his body, are the main elements of the stage. This time, the lighting plays on the atmosphere, immersing us in an immersive colourimetry.
The body, from personal memory to collective recognition.
Beyond dance, the body is a sensitive material unique to each individual. Artist Kader Attia explores the notion of the phantom limb in his film
his film Réfléchir la Mémoire12 (2016). He talks about memory, reparation and the collective and shared issues around trauma. The body is the object of reflection and memory, the body is wounded. It uses a memory that will project the existing limb in place of the lost limb. We see people frozen and alone. A mirror is present, reflecting a part of their body where the limb is no longer there. It suggests the lack of something and leads us
to question the memory of our body. The body is therefore capable of adapting, because even when it is absent it is sensitive, and above
all it is present.
I'm also thinking of Sophie Ristelhueber's Every One13 (1994), a series of silver prints showing bodies marked by scars and sutures. These prints
are the result of a reflection on the Serbo-Croatian conflict 2 years after a trip to Yugoslavia.
Through these photographs, the bodies carry the memory of war. The wounds are just as visible, unique to each individual, and form a new body
with a new history. Our bodies change, evolve, and bear witness to our lives.
Towards a dance practice based on memory.
In the visual work I produce in connection with this issue, I seek to show the body as memory in different ways through different uses such
as installation, dance, performance, but also sound and publishing. I work in a variety of media to give the best possible expression
to my thinking.
Publications
Latour Bruno, Mellor David Allan, Schlesser Thomas, « Sophie Ristelhueber Opérations », Catalogue d’exposition, Éditions Les Presses du réel, 2009
Neutres Jérôme et Duguet Anne-Marie, « Bill Viola », Catalogue d’exposition Grand Palais, Galeries nationales, Éditions RMN-GP, 2014
Schott-Billmann France, « Le besoin de danser », Éditions Odile Jacob, 2020
Sibony Daniel, « Le corps et sa danse », Éditions du Seuil, 1995
Exhibitions / Performances
Attia Kader, « Réfléchir la Mémoire », 48’, 2016, vidéo HD, couleur, son, Galleria Continua, Galerie krinzinger, Lehmann Maupin, Galerie Nagel Draxler,
Paris 2018
Khan Akram, « Xenos », 70’, 2019, Théâtre de la Vilette, Paris
Ristelhuber Sophie, « Every One », Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2009, 14 photographies noir et blancs, tirages argentiques contrecollés
sur plaque de fibre de bois, 270 × 180cm ou 180 × 270cm, exemplaire uniques, 1994
Tatsumi Hijikata par Yôko Ashiwaka, « Les Mamelles du Japon »,
Maison des cultures du monde, 1983
Yoshioka Yumiko, « Me / Moire », 60’, 2016
Viola Bill, « Five Angels for the Millennium », Centre Pompidou,
5 vidéoprojecteurs, 10 haut-parleurs, 5 bandes vidéo, 4/3,
couleur, son stéréo, 7’45 à 13’10, 2001
Viola Bill, « Stations », Moma, New York, médias et performance, 1994
Viola Bill, « The Reflecting Pool », Guggenheim, Bilbao, vidéo
couleur et son, 7’ 1977-9
Viola Bill, « The Theater of Memory », Museum of Contemporary Art,
Los Angeles, vidéo son et installation, 1985
Articles
Blanchette Manon, « Bill Viola ou La mise en scène de la déroute », l’Annuaire théâtral, (26), 1999, https://doi.org/10.7202/041393ar
Bouillet Mariette, « Butõ le corps à l’écoute », les Éditions Intervention, 2003,
https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/inter/2003-n86-inter1115669/45899ac.pdf
Kober Marc, « Récits du corps au Japon », Itinéraires, 2011-3, https://journals.openedition.org/itineraires/1487
Viola Bill, London Barbara, Hoberman James, Kuspit James, « Bill Viola installations and videotapes », The Museum of modern Art, 1987,
https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_2162_300296070.pdf
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my art and thesis tutors Laurent Baude and Victor Guégan, and also to Olivier Soulerin for the way he looked at my work, and to the CCNO d'Orléans, directed by Maud le Pladec and Marion Dégardin, and to Marlène Bertoux and Clémence Brunet.
Edition completed and printed at ÉSAD Orléans in April 2021
https://esadorleans.fr/
Artefact of time
Beginning of a body study.
How can choreographic practices and the state of the body activate or revitalise body memory?
I remember, live and relive.
26/09/21
The belly tightens. The ribcage shrinks, as if trying to reduce itself to the size of a single, small marble. And as it shrinks, it swells in on itself, unable to move freely. Reduced to a tiny space. It can't breathe, it can't come to life. It expands when it inhales deeply. The air circulates in excess. How can I translate this feeling of emotion? Anger? Rage? Is it linked to sadness? How can two feelings of emotion come together to create a multitude of physical micro-actions inside a body? I noticed a movement back and forth, similar to the beauty of the ocean waves. A wave, a colour, a sensation, heat... The heat of the heart moving, creating a path from the centre of the heart to the top of the skull, to the tips of the fingers and toes. I'm here, I'm in this me, my central body,
my envelope.
27/09/21
It's cold. I can feel it. It engulfs me, a wave of cold, and penetrates all my cells. No particular thoughts at the time, are they detached from the idea that emotions act on us? It's not an emotion, it's a sensation. It's part of the action.
28/09/2021
Lie on your stomach, legs slightly open. No, my right leg open to the outside.
I feel my right foot in contact with the bed, as if wrapped inside a multitude of silk scarves. Suddenly it takes on a larger form, a more imposing mass, it grows but remains motionless.
I can see where my body rests and I feel safe.
30/09/2021
I remember. Not an image, a sensation. It smelt like morning. A passage between sleep and waking, did it wake me up? Activate my brain activity. There's an expression that says ‘having a sleepy arm’, what could that mean? The tingling sensation in my right arm runs from my fingertips, over my shoulder and down to my shoulder blade. How can I describe you in detail? I remember it, I didn't experience it, but I feel like I'm reliving it. It's like a retranscription of internal gestures embodied by the idea of memory.
I lose the signal. My flesh, muscles, bones, ligaments and body microfibres are in action by the simple gesture of a previous thought. A memory? My memory, their memories. I can't stop thinking, what am I? Who am I?
10/10/2021
Toe or heel exercise.
Squeeze.
The hip moves, then the foot rubs against the ground to wake up the dead.
Then the other foot. Butterflies flutter through my body, my eye twitches.
13/10/2021
We stretched out facing the sun, resting on the warmth of the wood.
A chat about shared memories and a walk.
Juliette and Laure to my left. Juliette is talking, telling us that the landscape reminds her of other landscapes in Brittany, and just then, the wind picks up.
I feel caught up in this mass of air that propels me forward. I'm floating inside myself, it's so strong that I'm moving.
It reminds me of my days at the ocean. Facing the horizon in the water, I try to move forward, the waves constraining me but pushing me forward to sink into the depths of the water, far from the shore.
All I can see is a fading horizon, blue, yellow and the pink of my eyelids.12:01
- The scent of arnica.16:39
- The wind rises, a beautiful orchestra, the blades of wheat vibrate, they dance.
I close my eyes, what memory will come back to me? I'm still in the water, the air becomes palpable, it becomes matter in its own space.
My ear converses with the wind, it becomes material, a shell that whispers to it, singing tunes it has already
heard.
12/10/2021
Back to the cave. Into the cave.
It's not cold.
I'm plunged into the dark, not the dark of your eyes but the real dark, the one you don't choose to plunge into, you're jostled, knocked over.
Back into the womb bath. Warmth.
A p a u s e.
I close my eyes, I open them, repeating the operation many times.
There's no difference, no nuance
- all I can make out is the sound of water droplets.
The silence is black.
13/10/2021
Crawling through the guts
Crawling up the side, left arm up, right arm halfway up, both bent,
right leg high bent,
left leg halfway up bent.
Body heat, smoke mouth in cave.
14/10/2021
I touched, I touched with my fingertips.
I 'm cold
I'm cold
I'm cold.
I breathe into my hands, place them in an arc against each other and inhale.
The air is cold, burning my lungs, and I breathe out.
The air is warm. I write on my phone, I make mistakes, it's cold, I can't feel my fingers.
I can't feel my fingers
my feet, a walking movement with frivolous supports, right, left, diagonal right front, diagonal left front.
I can't feel myself any more, the cold runs through me, controls me.
But my body is there, I'm 100% it.
A dog barks. I hear it in my left ear.
My perception of space is different because of the change in light.
The colours have changed, been transformed, the brightness has increased.
I can find my bearings more quickly.
NO
Not as fast
Perceptual disturbance
because,
changes.
Walking in the middle of the road. Walking in the middle of the road. The concrete doesn't have the same shape. I feel like a ghost, wandering alone, aimlessly.
Alone.
20/10/2021
I'm tired. My forehead slips, pulled down by gravity, just waiting to hit the ground.
My eyelids, so thin, are trying to show themselves, to spread out and cover my eyes.
I realise how much space they encompass,
I'd never realised it before.
My eyes are tugging,
I'm tired.
02/11/2021
I push the air out with my fingertips.
08/11/2021
I feel empty. My organs don't have their usual mass, or I simply can't feel them any more.
Normally, they are omnipresent, invading all the internal space right down to the mucous membranes.
I see, feel and hear the emptiness. I'm like a little ant lost in the intergalactic universe. At the centre of this great space filled with matter.
It's dark.
Material revolves around me, it's organic. I'm a fetus again.
Only the sounds of movement remain perceptible.
Vibrations. It's my heart beating.
The vibrations form shapes, throw a stone into the water and watch.
Traces, waves, shapes; everything draws itself and takes shape suddenly, then everything sinks, there's no escape. The material is complete.
Reminder from the week of November 3rd. Our organs. Our body is made up of different sacs, little plastic sacs.
Inside these sacs, they are filled with a mass, a mass that is their own.
My stomach is in a sac, my spleen, my kidneys, my liver… Everything that makes me up. They touch, brush against each other, move together like an internal dance.
They float.
I focus on my kidneys; I was told that winter is the season of the kidneys.
In Taoism, the element associated with it is water.
It's a time to recenter oneself, one's primal energy.
A time of hibernation.
The kidneys are also linked to ancestral memories.
Located between the heart and the pelvis, they are at the center of the body.
Why and for what?
I can say that today I dance to know who I am.
Yesterday, I danced with them, all around me, and tomorrow I will dance not to forget them.
My first dance.
I wasn't alone.
Plunged into darkness, my body floated following a minimal movement.
My arms, legs, and every part of me were curled up.
My body resonates in palpable roundness, vibrations coming from the outside.
I'm not dancing alone.
Guided in my movement, guided by the movement.
The movement of my mother floating in this space, the only one I know, a gelatinous substance that no ray of light can penetrate. So thick I can feel its weight.
The beats of my heart are in sync with her heart.
My first dance is the one I did in her womb.
Today, I seek to remember by exploring every part of the internal cavity of my own body, trying to feel the texture and mass of each of my organs, muscles, tendons, and bones through a dialogue, a conversation, a dance.
And tomorrow I will dance with you, you, my ghosts who wander around me, who speak to me of my doubts, my fears, my anxieties, my ancestors, but most of all, you, my memories.
I leave you my space, dance for me, let's dance together yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Why? These ghosts haunt me, I keep turning it over and over again.
I seek to remember.
Remembering.
My memories haunt me.
Haunt.
Haunt...
every day.
Rainy days and sunny days.
Ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts
ghosts.
Ghosts.
Plunged into darkness, my body floated.
I lost the thread.
Please send an email for any work collaboration.