Chapters On The Barbaric Body

published i.a. as artistic contribution within the Online Journal reciprocal turn, edited by Jo Ziebritzki and Mira Hirtz

2016 I develop an ongoing research about: What is the barbaric body?

The research includes a weekly practice of solo and collective movement as well as material try-outs: mainly foam serves as a tool to melt, widen and blur body concepts – as well as theo- retical reflections:

Inherent to the figure of the barbarian is the notion that it is insurmountably different from myself. It serves for stigmatizing a person as the other, foreign, potentially dangerous and unpredictable. In Ancient Greek the barbarian named the (male) persona who wasn‘t capable to speak the proper language but would only say br br. Thus, communication sets cultural and civic membership. In the last years the term barbarian was increasingly used within press and media, referring to terrorism, refugees and sexual violence at the same time.

So what is a barbarian? How does it speak, move, behave? Are their female barbarians? What is barbaric art? And a barbaric gesture? These questions serve as a starting point to look at general questions on conversation, understanding, and the inherent sensual and somatic levels. In a series of four chapters, we: artists, friends, and collegues – explore the fine lines between exclusion and provocation; touch and erotics; manipulation and perversion; the wild and the dynamical; immersion and softness.

4 Chapters On The Barbaric Body:

#1 ONLY BARBARIANS ALLOWED
#2 pervert conversation
#3 suspicious body
#4 DU KONTAMINIERST DEN RAUM UND UM EINS

The results manifested in ongoing research practices and performances. Hereby, every rehearsal became a performance and every performance kept the status of a rehearsal. We focued on the exploration of a way of being, rather than on the presentation of concepts, still aware that the immersion in our own process needs to confront itself with the questions of representation as soon as it becomes public. Our thinking about the category of the other, languange, and our effort in melting with other human beings as well as things in order to built provodatively undefinable bodies shaped our everyday life.