(Research and Development Stage) /// Interrupted due to Covid19

hyperobject

Stage 1 of the research took place in the second half of 2019 with the help of Maria Vourou, Pagona Boulbasakou & Themis-Ariadne Andreoulaki. The starting point was the idea of changes through repetition. It was a research on deconstruction, repetition and reverse and how these can contribute to the making of a specific movement vocabulary. Furthermore the research’s inspiration derives from Steve Reich’s Drumming and the notion of musical phasing (micro-canon). This research aimed to appropriate the way Reich’s music plays with the idea of expectation through repetition, yet it is in constant development and a state of becoming. The aim of this research was to induce exactly the same: the unexpected sense of tranquil anticipation and hypnosis to the viewer, through the relentless development of movement.

The work emerges through the ensemble, through the orchestration of its different elements. hyperobject resides in the spacing and timing of each different performer. Like a Mandelbrot fractal, the more one witnesses its unfolding, the more it hypnotizes the viewer with permutations of the same object.

The performers, existing in the contingency of becoming, focused yet lost in a near-meditative state, stripped to the pure essence of bodies in space and time, offer to the viewer the sense of ungraspable relentlessness that is the key to their universe.

The performers are guided by in-ear click-tracks; these click-tracks facilitate the minute adjustments in each individual performer’s timing.

In 2008, Timothy Morton coined the term hyperobject to describe “a real event or phenomenon so vast that it is beyond human comprehension”.

The key of the piece is in fact its complexity and ungraspable nature, due to and despite its apparent simplicity. hyperobject attempts to build on the legacy of 1970s minimal dance and music.

The piece researches further in the construction of movement material that does not respect flow. Rather than working on repetition of movement, the movement is deconstructed and constructed, like a DJ scratching a vinyl, giving way to a sense of constant anticipation.