Contemporary Dance: Being Susan Sontag - Pamela Newell

Being Susan Sontag - Pamela Newell

Non loin de la figure emblématique de l’écrivaine féministe Susan Sontag, danseurs et chorégraphe se confrontent dans une exploration du moi et de l’autre visant à déconstruire la relation chorégraphe-interprète.

Feminist writer Susan Sontag serves as the bridge in this deconstruction of the dancer- choreographer relationship.

16, 17, 18 novembre à 20h30/ 19 novembre à 16h

Adults 16$ / Students 13$ with ID

http://www.tangente.qc.ca/eng/programming.html#nov

Meta-space

by Hugues Bruyere, Maxime Bergeron, & Jason Safir

Meta-space is a telematic interactive event that paints electronic shadows as raw materials into an architectural spatial form. The responsive environment explores the organic connection of human actions in an interactive collaborative environment by encouraging people to become both physical and social aspect of the participatory installation. Mapping the conceptual structures of the spectator’s identity through a boundary that separates the interior and the exterior of the meta-space, electronic casting shadows are captured and re-generated by the gestures of the user’s silhouettes onto a screen with impulsive variation. The collaborating of virtual shadows reveals how individual objects gain in symbolic meaning, while losing literal meaning, through organization, repetition and display. The division and oscillation between surfaces that conceptually separates the individual stimulates a reflection between human representations onto electronic technologies. The positioned video cameras track and respond fluidly to the user’s physical movement and output their projected image as shadows onto the surface they are intimately interacting with. The collective actions of the users contained within the cubic surroundings of the installation influence the aura of the social spaces configurations through a diffusion of light and a variation of sound. Through the physical interaction between the two social groups separated in meta-space, shadows and silhouettes overthrow the participant’s conception of representation within a public realm.

Capitalism and Social Oppression

Jason, Hugues, & Maxime

The cornerstone of Marxist theory is the concept of class struggles. The capitalist system constitutes a reality of a class society which is the ultimate root of social oppression. The division of the ruling class and of the subaltern establishes an oppression of a necessity for the means of survival. Simon Weil’s investigation on social oppression discusses the notion of a communist society to liberate the oppressed classes and generate equality. In capitalist ideology there is always an advantaged and disadvantaged separation between the ruling class and the working class. Capitalism produces economic growth, but fails to deliver a permanent rising in living standards for the working class. The economic system can create wealth but cannot distribute it evenly. Thus social oppression will inevitably exist in our current system. Our pessimistic perspective is that fascism will always prevail where the notion of wealth, control, and power is ultimately achieved. Governments will always search for means to expand their power through a capitalist system, oppressing the disadvantaged. As previously discussed, the state of emergency is certainly one deceptive tool to fabricate a discriminated distinction between classes.

Marx and Weil's Love Affair

by Claudia, Harry, Hoda and Raed (the prettiest one)

Weil introduces us to an oppressed social reality. Even through the notion of “revolutions”, society just ends up trading in one form of oppression for another. We grow up believing many scientific facts, but we do not or are unable to demystify their basis. As we are introduced in a work environment, we are trained and put in a mechanism. Weil discusses this process although rooted in good thought turned into exploitation of a destructive nature. Marx speaks of working as a collective because we are social beings, but the idea itself has many faults. Every individual strives for his or her goal. This goal is usually driven by the equation: work + happiness = liberty (freedom). However, happiness does not always mean liberty. The social being is introduced in his or her workspace, produces for the common interest of the space, thinks he or she has a certain power (a certain status) and believes he or she is free. This person works hard, produces much, and slowly becomes a cog in a large system. Even if this system was established for essential reasons as a response to a natural need or to environmental factors, this same system may find itself moving from a qualitative drive to a more quantifying nature. As it “progresses”, it hits a peak and slowly turns on itself or its “cogs”, and soon digresses and become of destructive nature. Focusing on the idea of responsive nature, we discussed the issues of emancipation and the idea or ideal of liberty and the artist in response to the latter subjects. Liberty is also established in the conscious realm and is not only a result of action or being. One does not need to oppress another to gain liberty because it is not material or an issue of power. A person needs to be involved in the community and be aware of his judgment and actions in relation to the group (a person chooses vs. falling into). However, if our responses are just a result to our environment, how can an artist truly be creative, without his/her actions being considered as naturally part of the system therefore stripped of all sense of freedom?

Opression and Liberty - AT&T

Simone Veil's text seems significantly outdated in the light of the changes brought on my the modern technologies. Seems to me that the rules of the game have changed in recent years and what we're witnessing is only the begining of the significant shift.

Somebody called this The Reverse Big Brother. It's the ones in power and the ones abusing the power that are being watched by the people. What was the general prediction of 1984 is playing out differently than feared. Bloggers that cause political and media resignations, secretly filmed police beatings bring culprits to justice, images snapped with cellphones expose army abuses of innocent, search engines that threaten governments, etc, etc.

I would argue that the massive distribution of the information technologies can (may or may not) eventually bring liberty to all and prevent the rise of yet another opressive system after another. The information technology is not the only factor in the struggle for power, liberty or creation of opressive systems. But it is an unprecedented factor, much more influential than anything ever in human history. Will it mainly benefit the people or the (current or future) oppressors is yet to play out...

tomek

Veil analyzes the natural growth of a nation as a shift in the human being's relationship of his physical and mental involvement in his society to the living conditions of which he benefits. That eventually, the complex organization of ideas requires the speciailization of human output, distancing the individual from the ultimate goal of the organized power.

What is interesting to me is her rather fundamental scientific basis for the argument of a non-quantitative seeking power; that humans are not inert in nature, but can only "progress" technologically through the use of that which is inert. Because there is no absolute, defined goal for power to attain, there is no limit in which inert materials will be used.

With the only other worldly obstacle being the character of Nature, increasingly powerful technology allows us to conquer this always in a more efficient manner (at least while resources are still plentiful enough to allow the infrastructure to reap the benefits of the increasingly complex sieve of management overhead). But as man's struggle for power becomes ever more fierce, so does the need to maintain it, and the fear of losing it - and so the battle becomes less with the physical forces of nature, but more so with the human nature of the system which has been created (which has also shaped Nature in response).

tim

Weil claims, as Tim mentions above, humans progress through the domination of the inert (resources); unfortunately, resources are finite, and despite our always increasing efficiency of consumption, they are running out. Humanity is in need of a new paradigm for progression; we need to support our society in a more sustainable manner in order to survive. This changes the situation from what Weil describes, it breaks the formula. Possibly oppression will still exist in our new sustainable society, but without consumption of the inert, maybe not.

Simone Weil_Short Biography

Simone Weil was born in Paris, and she was the younger sister of mathematician André Weil. Her ancestry was Jewish, but Simone and André were raised agnostic. Weil excelled from a young age, becoming proficient at Ancient Greek at 12. She came second in her class at the École Normale Supérieure, ahead of Simone de Beauvoir in third place.

In 1931, Weil became a school teacher, a profession she practiced in between punishing stints at factories and farms, designed to increase empathy with the working class. Though she considered herself a pacifist, in 1936 she joined the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. However, her clumsiness repeatedly put her corps at risk; finally she suffered serious burns which caused her to leave Spain and travel to Assisi to recuperate. Here Weil experienced a series of mystical encounters with Christ. She was attracted to Roman Catholicism but refused baptism, fearing that the consolations of organised religion would impair her faith.

During World War II, she lived for a time in Marseille, receiving spiritual direction from a Dominican friar. In 1942, she travelled to the USA and afterwards to the UK. In London, she became a French Resistance worker. Her health had always been frail, and the punishing work regime she assumed for the Resistance soon took its toll. In 1943 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and instructed to rest and maintain a generous diet. However, the idealism which had always informed Weil's political activism and material detachment did not permit her to accept special treatment. In 1915, when she was only six years old, she swore off sugar in solidarity with the troops entrenched along the Western Front. Twenty-eight years later, Weil limited herself to the rations she imagined her compatriots were subjected to in the occupied territories of France. Her condition quickly deteriorated, and she was moved to a sanatorium in Ashford, Kent, England. She died in August 1943, surrounded by a few devoted friends.

Oppression And Liberty (Michael)

The reality portrayed by Simone Weil's "The Cuases of Liberty and Social Oppression" seems to point to a careful balance that has to be maintained between people and nature.

This relationship becomes more interesting once we have people who depend upon other people to exploit nature for them. So then we can bring in the idea of an oppressive force (government/industry/etc) who wishes to increase productive to remain competitive with the other forces. Then, we see the enslavement of people as they succumb to this machine of continual need of increased production.

After seeing this relationship, Weil tries to see what a better situation would be, which seemed to be stowed away with people having to consciously do what is need to be done, and not have a central brain directing people in mindless tasks as found in a production line where people may only know one portion, but never the whole. This is since if the mind thinks for itself, then it is free. And that's the logic from what I understood.

Weil had a lot of detail (bringing 80 pages into a few short paragraphs is no easy task). And before we reach the final paragraph, there is the final detail -- that of competing powers. When one power feels threatened, they compete (productivity, war, etc.) using the oppressed as pawns in their grand game to remain the "best"; using any means possible to rally the people under their control, fear, terror, uncertainty, doubt.

Weil's argument seems to make sense, as well as provide an interesting theory. I tend to agree with him; especially in terms of how the capitalist ideal still (could) grind people down. The entire thing seems more to be a balance. Like SimCity (something I play too often) -- it's a game whose entire goal is to achieve a balance among multitudes of variables (zones, polution, traffic, resources, jobs, education, etc). You can end up destabilizing the simulation by just progressing through the game and trying to amass a huge population, or keep things simple and small. However, to accomplish great things, you must expand. In the end, complementing what Weil is saying.

Precarious Life - Violence, Mourning, Politics. [Claudia-Harry-Hoda]

In this article, Judith Butler writes about mourning as a collective action, when a community is struck by a tragedy which affects its members beyond their individual circles. Then "I" instantly becomes "we", because what (as opposed to who) these individuals have lost are parts of themselves that bound them together, regardless of them knowing one another. When people experience loss caused by the death of a loved one, the ties that linked them together disappear forever and are irrecuperable.
Butler specifies that these broken links represent parts of one's being that are now left unresponded, that have died, which is why mourning (without seeking to replace) is an essential phase for the reconcilitation of one with oneself. When we extend our mourning beyond our boundaries as a community is when we become conscious of our vulnerability to violence caused by others. Denying the possibility of a threat by refusing to grieve (and vice versa) only accelerates the possibility of a violent retaliation. And it is when dealing with this melancholy in the extent that it should be dealt with (neither more or less) that one can start realizing the vulnerabilities of others within their own context. Dehumanizing the "other" is a very easy reaction from a community which is a victim of external violence, and the casualties on the other side are reduced to numbers with no value.
It is in most powerful governents' interest to keep the population hostage using paranoia, terror and (in)security in order to justify their own violent responses. If the population was left to mourn without being interrupted by patriotic cheerleading, most probably would it gain a more universal perspective of the situation, and it would realize that the boundaries that unite the nation are only illusional.
Politics can sterilize the most human of experiences under the name of security and protection, when the reality is that in order to face and overcome pain, we should trust our human instincts instead of aborting them.



our word compilation:


Dispossession
Life
Community
Social
Mourning (Substitutability, Melancholy, Greiving)
Relationality
Desire
Autonomy
Interdependence
Fear,Anxiety, Rage
Violence
Touch
Loss
Violence
Body
Vulnerability
exposure
feminism
body
self
other primary condition
I/You
Dehuminaization
paranoia
bounded
Coporeal
boundary

Violence, mourning and politics

Violence, mourning and politics / Judith Butler

As depressing as the essay is, it seems to be trying to represent reality, especially as of right now. The author goes off explaining the relativity between "I" and "You", suggesting that we don't exist without the "other". If one goes missing, we find that the other does too.

She tries to define certain topics, especially grief, saying it's something that defines us as individuals, "depoliticizing" us as well. It is in a sense true, but in other ways it brings us together as a whole, and that is what she means when she is relating everything.

An interesting quote/topic she goes into, "Consitituted as a social phenomenon in the public sphere, my body is and ia not mine." Our physical bodies are indeed public, and we often have issues regarding this, although it is not necessarily to her extent.

Security and politics is another subject she goes into, explaining the security change in the US since 9/11, how first world populations has felt a "loss" in security, they no longer feel invinsible and protected. It is the case with most people, and quite an obvious fact.

She ends with "You are what I gain through this disorientation and loss", which seems to be one of the most important lines in the text, after all, we are all in this.