METAHUMAN SUMMERLAB – 2024
Techniques of the Body & Body Intelligence: the Reversal of Extinction
- SESSION 1 – 17 to 21 July – Inscriptions till 25th June
- SESSION 2 – 22-25 August – Inscriptions till 25th July
In rural SPAIN: in Casa de la Libertad, in a small village of Salamanca two hours away from Madrid and 40 min. from Salamanca. There is train or bus to Peñaranda de Bracamonte, which is 13km away.
Inscriptions and information: metabody@metabody.eu
At the METAHUMAN LAB we explore we ways of being in the world that may help undo the planetary catastrophe that human dominion has created over the past 10 millennia. Challenging ruthlessly all forms of oppression, non-human and human, and their underlying concepts (of species, gender, race, ability, etc.) we confront the fact that it is the totality of forms of sedentary living and its related overpopulation emerging since the rise of farming that have created the extinction cycle that drags us along all other species.
The lab onto-hacks our most deeply rooted Human Supremacist assumptions and proposes experiential practices and techniques for rediscovering a lost moving-sensing body, which is the only means to undo our toxic ways of living and regain a symbiotic relation to the Earth and its 8,7 million species. From movements exercises based on proprioception, through flexinamic structures and interactive projections, to gathering plants this fully vegan event proposes techniques for transforming our ways of living and regaining the dance of life.
The Original Affluent Society theory stemming from the 1960 in anthropology tells us that gatherers hunters lived and live better than sedentary cultures, and for 99% of its history of around 300.000 we lived only like that and we were just one million population: never accumulating, with egalitarianism and respect for other life forms and the environment, moving with the earth and its flows. All modes of oppression have appeared with accumulation and our devastating occupation of the earth with farming, agriculture and cities. But the Lab, building upon Del Val’s movement philosophy suggests that it is the gradual loss of movement in the Sapiens that lies in the roots of the problem. Regaining the moving body is key.
Programme:
- Morning:
- Micro-movement improvisation technes: Disalignments
- Performative Theory: Ontological Therapy
- Texts for dicussion:
- Metahuman Futures Manifesto
- Del Val, Jaime. 2022. “Trash-Human Unhancement and Planetary Health. Undoing the Planetary Holocaust by Reinventing Movement and the Body: A Manifesto for Cosmic Response-Ability and the Future of Life”. Journal of Posthumanism 2 (1). London, UK:3-30. https://doi.org/10.33182/joph.v2i1.1876.
- Texts for dicussion:
- Lunch: Cooking Vegan
- Afernoon:
- Metawalks: disaligned wanderings where we:
- non-verbally explore environments and their affordances and textures, through multisensory integration and kinesthetic, proprioceptive variation (micro-dancing, small movements, torsions, touching, lying, crawling, smelling, hearing…)
- gather food, wild plants
- consider ways of inhabiting the ecosystem without urbanisation, looking for organic materials for building temporary “nests”, dynamic architectures, learning from animals and plants,
- walk (preferably barefoot) outside of human paths and disaligning bipedal posture
- Play with Metabody techniques, in two modes: Khorós (physical) and Bodynet (online):
- Disalignments – movement techniques based on proprioception and microperceptions.
- Flexinamics – physical flexible and dynamic architecture modules as body extensions.
- Amorphogenesis – non representational VR and amorphous digital intra-active environments.
- Microsexes – cameras on the skin and electronically processed voice for a body without anatomy.
- Collective performance: new version of EXTINCTION
- Metawalks: disaligned wanderings where we:
- Ongoing: exploration of more-than human, non-verbal, disaligned ways of togetherness.
Worshops imparted by the non-binary metahuman philosopher-artist-activist Jaym* del Val sharing ideas and techniques developed over 20 years and presented in over 30 countries.
Participants are also welcome to share their practices.
Inscriptions and information: metabody@metabody.eu
- includes accommodation in the house, and exclusively VEGAN food.
Maximum 10 participants.
It is important to stay for the five days.
Longer stays are also possible. Ask for information.
Fully VEGAN event.
- The space has a strict “Holocaust-free” policy and doen’t allow animal products in the place.
NOTE: some parts of the space NOT YET HABILITATED FOR WHEELCHAIRS, APOLOGIES!
Initiatives to travel sustainably to the venue will be encouraged.
Check similar lab in Lesvos 2023: https://metabody.eu/metahuman-lab-lesvos-2023/