METABODY in The Hague

Two weeks residency and final performance at iii (Instrument Inventors Initiative)

INTERVIEW: http://jegensentevens.nl/2018/11/iii-resident-jaime-del-val-on-the-alien-and-the-body/

Residency: https://instrumentinventors.org/residency/jaime-del-val/

Final performance: October 13, 2018
iii workspace, Willem Dreespark 312, The Hague
Doors open at 19:30, program starts at 20:00 sharp
https://instrumentinventors.org/event/no-patent-pending-34/

RESIDENCE VIDEO AND INTERVIEW: https://vimeo.com/316537883

Videos by Tanja Busking:

Video by Michele Abolaffio:

METABODY/METATOPIA/Amorphogenesis 5.11 – MetaSkin Floating Adrift – Indeterminate Body for a Justice to Come – (Alloceptive Swarms)

During the two weeks residency at iii (Instrument Inventors Initiative) I have been doing interventions and building instruments in the Refugee Camp – AZC (Asielzoekerscentrum) at Rijswijk (one year after I was working at a similar camp in Lesvos); doing outdoors interventions in the Hague suspending metascultptures and mobile architectures from trees; and developing analogue and digital instruments, robotics and AI indoors at the iii projectspace.

The process has converged in a final performance where I float on a small platform adrift in the Canal, moving with the extended skin of the mobile metastructures while processing life electronic sounds and 3D visuals through sensors on the body, as an alien cocoon in constant amorphogenesis, perhaps an alien tulip, sex, creature or shipwreked, where my proprioception becomes extended, as an alloceptive swarm, to the structures and projections, echoing in the water, adrift in the canal, (alien jellyfish floating so near the place where Theo Jansen brings out his Strandbeests). A Body in continuous untrainment (disalignment and mutation) in relation to the algorithmic ecologies that expand its proprioception, in a process of behavioral indetermination.

In times of refugees, human traffic and borders, how to create positive zones of opening within the very borderlands that impose violent lines of domination? From presocratic philosopher Anaximander to contemporary feminist philosopher Karen Barad the idea of indeterminacy as justice-to-come haunts our ontologies: a justice that is inclusive not only of the already known but that includes a sense of ongoing opening to that which is constantly emerging and which may never fully take shape.

In the Hague, where the Palace of Peace and the International Courts of Justice are international symbols at the heart of a Europe that is imposing hard borders for refugees; in times of smartphones, selfies, of autonomous algorithms that everyone carries in the pocket hidden behind every app, of AI and of a Big Data culture that is enacting kew kinds of opaque algorithmic Hyperborders; (in The Hague where Spinoza died) I propose to mobilise BI (Body Intelligence), as emergent proprioceptions, alloceptive swarms, indeterminate bodies and perceptions for a justice to come.

Jaime del Val

Credits:

Concept, production and performance: Jaime del Val/Reverso/Metabody
Residency hosted by: iii
3D visuals programming: Dieter Vandoren

Thanks to:

Nikos Kokolakis and Stichting de Vrolijkheid organization for the collaboration with ACZ Refugee Camp in Rijswijk
Dieter Vandoren for lending the equipment
Michele Abbolaffio for new updates in software and hardware, and for recording
Zuzanna Zgierska for her assistance throughout and for driving me in the performance, rowing with the kayak
Geert-Jan Hobijn for advice on how to build water flutes
Matteo Marangoni and the iii team and inhabitants for their support

Pictures from the performance photo Pieter Kers | Beeld.nu: