From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, practitioners in different fields such as experimental music, postmodern dance, and conceptual art developed a similar method in which an idea is conceived intuitively, a set of simple instructions or rules is derived from it directly, and the procedure is carried out by following them blindly. Here, the idea refers to a possible course of action that usually requires no skill or talent, the score does not determine the result but only governs the process, giving it a rigid structure yet with room for improvisation, and the action is performed not for others but for oneself primarily, driven by one’s own curiosity about its unpredictable consequence.
While rooted in the shared interest in freeing the working process from ego and opening it up to chance, each of such ‘conceptual/performative’ actions has an amazing yet rarely acknowledged effect: by ruling out arbitrary manipulation of occurrences and thus setting a frame for immediate interaction between self and world, it reveals and renews the performer’s innate nature as a lived human body in the here and now, always beyond their own control and knowledge. If a great work of art celebrates every person’s uniqueness, rather than special people’s genius, to play out such a procedure and be surprised by its outcome as a record of the entire event may be the most fun and instantaneous way to realize one, even emancipative for those who struggle in art-making.
How can we incorporate this method and activate its full potential in today’s higher art education, where conception is still linked to intention and performance is often misconstrued as a quasi-theatrical showcase? Tested through actual teaching practice while informed by first-hand accounts of relevant historical figures and assisted by the philosophical terminology of Kitaro Nishida, this research aims to develop a whole new interdisciplinary curriculum as a guideline for any individual to build up a lifelong body of work that constantly updates their personality as truly different from those of not only others but also their own past and future selves.
Promotors
Nico Dockx (KA) en Kyoko Iwaki (UA)
