TALLER EN ESPACIO CERO Y EL CENTRO DE COYOACÁN, CIUDAD DE MÉXICO

WORKSHOP AT ESPACIO CERO, AND THE CENTER OF COYOACÁN, MEXICO CITY

18th of November 2024

transitory writing in no one’s land is an artistic research project addressing relational and embodied aspects of writing and reading. The title refers to the transitory as being transient, being in motion, and to a common reciprocal and intersubjective space. In this project writing is expanded from a solitary and even secluded practice to a collective writing enquiry by writing in public space. The four researchers, Emma Cocker, Andrea Coyotzi Borja, Cordula Daus, and Lena Séraphin, are artists working with language but the project is less about producing language and more about a situated practice exploring forms of joint attention.

On 18 November 2024, the researchers facilitated a workshop in Mexico City with a group of researchers meeting at Espacio Cero, and writing at the Plaza Coyoacán and Plaza Jardín Hidalgo at the Centre  of Coyoacán. We were kindly hosted by Sara Gómez, Professor of Research Creation at the Center for Dance Research and Documentation José Limón. The workshop was conceived as a way of sharing the ongoing research beginning with a short introduction to the overall project highlighting its basis within language-based artistic research.

transitory writing in no one’s land is a collaborative artistic research project that explores how the relational aspects of collective writing and the formation of shared spaces of attention might create conditions for the emergence of inclusive in-between spaces or no one’s lands. The project explores how embodied, performative and situated writing practices might open possibilities for not only writing but also for reading as a co-creative and participatory act.

The specific exploration for the workshop was to share and reflect a sense of the arc of our current enquiry: beginning by grounding in an awareness of the sensorial body and situated embodiment/positionality; before opening towards an exploration of self/other awareness; joint attention; sensitization to one’s cultural disposition by attending to the ‘between’ as well as commonalities/differences of perspectives and languages. The hope was to open towards the potential of an emergent “we”, towards the collective – through shared acts of intimacy within writing and reading in public; through various scores involving translation and translinguality.

One of the spatial scores for the writing with this group of researchers was titled Swapping Places-Changing Perspectives with a focus on embodied situatedness and interchange. Starting from a place for writing at the edge of the space; we wrote for 5 minutes in relation to the writing prompt Attending to the range of near and far – observing the furthest distance and closest proximity. After the 5 minutes of writing, we swap positions with another writer, enabling a change of perspective.
Changes of perspectives were further tested by doing paired writing and reading on the benches of the square. The score was structured in parts, the first being writing in a pair for 10 minutes in relation to the prompt: Attend/observe with all of your bodily senses. Attend to what happens. What is noticed? What is observed? What might be left out? After the 10 minutes of writing, one writer read their text whilst the other listened. At the same time, the listener made some kind of graphic notation (of their own choice) in response to what they were listening to, specifically for registering the rhythm and prosody (patterns of stress and intonation) of the other’s reading/writing.
The following part of this score was to swap over; the other person read their text whilst the other listened and notated the rhythm etc. The next part began by observing the notation that one made of the other’s writing/reading rhythm followed by writing (still side by side, using the original score: Attend/observe with all of your bodily senses. Attend to what happens. What is noticed? What is observed? What might be left out? whilst also allowing oneself to be in-formed, influenced, shaped by the rhythm and prosody of the other’s writing.

Participants:
Luisa Ana Lidia González García
Rocío Hidalgo, Zulai Macias
Rebeca Mundo
Ivonne Lizeth Sánchez
Ruth Moran
Sara Gómez
Paola De Anda
Emma Cocker
Andrea Coyotzi Borja
Cordula Daus
Lena Séraphin

Espacio Cero
https://espaciocero.mx/

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