Performance at Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness Conference

33rd Annual Conference:
Times of Transition: Shifting Individual and Collective Consciousness
Dates: April 4 – 6, 2013, New Orleans, LA

Choreography of objects expresses cross-sensorial experiences as a normative part of everyday life. The sequential performances allow for objects and bodies to conjoin in a celebration of layered abstractions that the synaesthete negotiates daily. The somewhat rare colored grapheme condition represents a ‘perceived oddity’ in the project and becomes the nexus for collective enrichment. Here we may enjoy and value meaningful actions outside our own fluency, sharing in translational acts with another’s language, ritual and perception.

This project addresses several tenants of social justice through facilitating a shifting from internal individual to group experience while also celebrating openness to different interpretations of the same data. Our project also promotes participation and cooperation within a multi-lingual community and a democratization of language. By transcending perceptual boundaries, we model the transcendence of social boundaries.

Participant performing the letter G: Blue Drowning is G

Participants performing the letter H: Green Exhalation is H.

Our first performances in Germany: Berlin and Weimar, March 2012

 

Lori Esposito and Duane McDiarmid demonstrating letters H and S during ‘Cross Senses exhibition at Panke: Stream of Ideas.

Film Script Dance Manual Walking Tour. Bauhaus University

Left: With friends in Weimar (Duane and curator Larissa Wunderlich on left). Right: A view of campus the day of arrival.

An Alphabet of Gestures

Choreography of Objects was a cross sesnsorial circus of delight in Berlin, Germany last March, 2012. We are excited about our new audiences who will participate in word forming gestures using over 28 everyday objects. These actionable objects are not spectacular by any means, but rather an absurd foray into the mind of a color grapheme synaesthete (yours truly).  As each performed letter amasses to words and even sentences, we can experience a socially dynamic constructing of language.