BODYNET-KHORÓS

FORUM & LAB 1

KICK OFF EVENT & SUMMER UNIVERSITY

In Casa de la Libertad / Reverso Centre – Zorita de la Frontera, Salamanca, Spain

22-28 August 2022

FIRST EVENT OF THE BODYNET KHORÓS PROJECT

https://www.facebook.com/metabody.project/posts/3297817383799441

https://twitter.com/MetaBodyProject/status/1561306517080604678

 

BODYNET-KHORÓS is a transdisciplinary EU funded project coordinated by Reverso/Jaime del Val, on digital and physical artistic experimentation for reinventing the body, movement and relations towards sustainable and plural ways of living and for restoring the Planet’s Health in the Anthropocene, (in an epoch of Extinction, climate change, pandemics, animal Holocaust and wars).  The project proposes to address the current global, ecological and social challenges in a unique, original and transversal approach that stresses the underestimated role of the moving body and the need to reinvent it, across the arts, technology, philosophy and the social dimension, for a complete transformation of life that may stop the devastating impact of current human life and overpopulation on the planet.

PRESS SUMMARY

BODYNET FORUM ZORITA 2022

HOW TO SAVE THE PLANET THROUGH THE BODY IN MOTION

Start of the European Project and inauguration of the House of Liberty

The Bodynet Forum Zorita 2022 has gathered from August 22 to 28 in Zorita de la Frontera, Northeast of Salamanca, 11 participants from three countries and 6 nationalities (Spain, France, Germany, England, Belarus and Brazil), including a dance company and two other pioneering entities in the international scene of media art and dance: Reverso (Spain, coordinator), K.Danse (France) and Trans-Media-Akademie (Germany), with 7 days of encounters and experimentation, in the first event of the three-year European project BODYNET-KHORÓS, which has taken place at Casa de la Libertad in Zorita de la Frontera, which has been inaugurated at this event after 15 years of reforms and which is the house-studio-museum of artist, philosopher and activist Jaime del Val, coordinator of the project.

Four public presentations have been made in Zorita de la Frontera, two of them in Casa de la Libertad and two in public spaces (streets and frontón), s bringing together a total of more than 200 local participants in diverse and innovative workshop formats. , performance, interactive installation and parade, with new iterations of the Barraca del S. XXI, which have placed Zorita for a few days on the most cutting-edge international map of art and technology as well as in critical reflections towards a more plural and sustainable society and planet.

The project takes to a new phase interactive systems in which the movement of the whole body creates dynamic spaces of light, virtual reality, sound, physical and robotic structures, as well as movement techniques aimed at recovering lost sensory capacities, based on proprioception. The abstract environments invite you to discover the variation in your own movement and in relation to others, towards an embodied internet (Bodynet) that promotes choral practices: of collective improvisation of movement, in honor of the “chorus” of classical Greece (Khorós): the nomadic group of bodies that dance and sing in the open air, recovering the physical collective participation in public space, (in the line of some activities that are still carried out in local festivities, from itinerancies through the “peñas” to processions). These are techniques and environments intended for open, rural spaces, both for the general public, the elderly and young, as well as minority or vulnerable groups, from people with disabilities to refugees or lgtbiq+, with educational, integrative and even therapeutic components.

The project proposes a deep reflection on a digital society that turns us into immobile, atrophied and hyper-controlled bodies and on a sedentary way of life that makes us dependent on production, transport, consumption and waste systems that collapse the planet, destroy ecosystems and enslave all forms of life with oppressive systems of domination and overpopulation, of multiplication and occupation of the earth that create a climatic and planetary crisis that leads us to the abyss. Urgent reflections have been proposed at the meeting on how to face the greatest crises known to humanity, and it has been proposed to respond to them from a recovery of the lost capacities of movement and perception of the body, for a change of way of life, being the artistic projects a vehicle for that reinvention, promoting diversity in all possible facets, working towards non-invasive ways of life and towards a recovery of foraging techniques. The event has been strictly vegan both in the diet of all the participants during the week and in the snacks offered to the visiting public. The process of living together in the House of Liberty, has been itself a core aspect of the process, with a 150+hours experience of ongoing improvisation, towards new modes of sustainable and joyful conviviality. A novel format of critical thinking promoted by Del Val, called Ontological Therapy, has also been presented for the first time, which dismantles beliefs of human supremacism that underlie the current process of extinction.

With this, the Casa de la Libertad was inaugurated in this event, after 15 years of reforms, a unique space that can be visited to learn about the proposals of Jaime del Val and their projects, a vegan, diverse and plural space, for ontological therapies and transformative experiences, towards new forms of life for a liveable future on Earth.

The project continues in September and October with events in Greece, France and Germany. More information here. Contact: bodynet-khoros [@] metabody.eu.

TECHNO-ECOLOGIES

¿Can we create a liveable future?

Facing the Extinction challenge

Under the title “TECHNO-ECOLOGIES: Can we create a livable Future? Facing the Extinction Challenge” Metahuman Futures Forum 2022 aims to investigate the role of art and the body for a complete reinvention of sensibility and vital techniques towards a profound change in the dominant ways of living. From the recovery of the lost sense of proprioception to vegan harvesting techniques, going through the reinvention of our relationship with mechanical and digital technologies or the criticism of humanistic supremacism and overpopulation, the Forum is based on the experience of Reverso in the preceding 20 years to open an unprecedented horizon of unmitigated criticism of the dominant model since the emergence of agriculture, and of total reinvention of ways of life, and proposes to do so from the body in motion.

 

Programme

pdf flyer 2022          pdf cartel 2022

 

 

 

 

 

FORUM – Public presentations:

o   Wednesday 7pm: Workshop – Project presentation for locals (Major and other village people) and indoors interactive experience in the main hall (Valhall) – Vegan aperitive – if interested call 687558436 or write to metabody@metabody.eu.

o   Thursday 7pm: Workshop – Nomadic choral improvisation with Flexinamic structures in the village and fields – Barraca del S. XXI.

o   Friday 10pm: Outdoors choral metaformance – Barraca del S. XXI: interactive installation-performance with audience participation in a public space of the village & nomadic, setup all afternoon.

o   Saturday 10pm: Metaformance/outdoors interactive projections with audience participation in the house (façade and suspended structure), with open doors for local people (or other visitors). setup late afternoon.

o   Sunday 7pm: Workshop – Project presentation for locals (or other visitors) and indoors interactive experience in the main hall (Valhall) – Vegan aperitive – if interested call 687558436 or write to metabody@metabody.eu.

 

LAB & SUMMER UNIVERSITY  – (Internal, for project partners and collaborators)

21st August SUN: Arrivals and welcome. Distribution of rooms and introduction to the space. Dinner together. Disaligned exploration of the house.

22nd-28th August (MON-SUN)

  •       Mornings:

o   Breakfast  + (Checking the orchard and garden, house maintenance) +     Metaorganisational meeting at breakfast for the (self) organisation of the day.

o   Morning exercises:

      • Disalignments-Khorós guided by Jaime and other proposals from Jean Marc, Charles, etc.

o   Ontological Group Therapy – theory as practice of challenging Human Supremacy –

      • First day, morning, theory session introducing the Bodynet-Khorós project, the Khorós research, ideas for the Vision Statement, and Jaime’s core philosophical proposals for the project. – Please check the proposed READINGS (below) before hand. – Followed by
  •       Cooking vegan together and lunch
  •       Afternoons:

o   Introductions to the partner’s proposals

      • Reverso’s methodologies and techniques
        • Bodynet as telematic version of the previous
      • TMA – Katharina Gross and Charles Washington
        • Virtual Choir and other
      • K. Danse – Jean-Marc Matos and Arnaud Courcelle and Laure Lapeyre
        • Myrco and other

o   Putting it all together, envisioning the project’s unfolding and collaborations for at least the first year, and preparing the October event between Toulouse and Dresden.

o   Management meeting.

  •       Evening:

o   Sunset walks, enjoying the terraces and panoramas

o   (Checking the orchard and garden, house maintenance)

o   Cooking together and dinner  (VEGAN),

o   Monday to Thursday: testing/playing with night projections indoors in the main hall and  outdoors in the façade and terrace with suspended structures…

o   night walks or discussions…

o   …sleep…

29th August (MON): Departures

 

All along:

  •       150++ Hours experience/Ongoing metaformance: taking the entire process as open experiment of conviviality with improvised unexpected situations,

o   exploring periods of nonverbal intra-action,

o   disaligning whenever, alone or with others,

o   readings…

o   sun…

o   walks…

o   improvised ontological therapies one to one or groups….

o   ….

 

Participants – attending the whole week unless otherwise stated:

  • Reverso & collaborators: Jaime del Val and Sirio
  • K. Danse & collaborators: Jean-Marc Matos, Laure Lapeyre, Arnaud Courcelle
  • TMA & collaborators: Thomas Dumke, Katharina Gross, Charles Washington, Hanna Ulmer, Alba Alvarez, Lisa Hoffmann, Maria Pätzold

 

 

 

 

 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.