Minimal Action
In the spirit of this blog—of attending to things in their birthing pains rather than as polished certainties—here’s a video study, in preparation for a series of projects in the works on using minimalist performance as a way of researching our embodied engagements with the cities we inhabit. The working question was how we can take up the kinds of micro-actions that reflect the thresholds of a place. What does it take to slide in under our usual thresholds of perception, but also what are the limit experiences that we experience everyday in our navigations? (The Situationists would have said, the “psycho-geography”—often made explicit only when one gives oneself over to wandering.)
Hey this is very Baudelaire/Benjamin. I like the Slacker aesthetic (I’ll send you the link later). “I’m walking down the road, not tryin to loosen my load, got nothing particular on my mind.” Yeah how is it that minimalism captures those limit/threshold situations? E.g. the looking to right or left before crossing the street.
Dwelling on the kerb is fun too.
(So warm today flies are hatching in my apt)
Then I count us in good company. Would love the link…
I’m not sure how it is that minimalism has this effect. I know it through working with movement. When you slide down to thresholds of what is barely perceivable, the whole field can shift. Habitual patterns can coexist or dissolve within a more fluid expression.
It does nothing to cite the Weber-Fechner Law, which basically says that perception is proportional to intensity. (It is easier to feel the difference of weight of a piece of paper added to another piece than it is added to a book.)
But this law is itself merely a formula gleaned after the fact, not an account.
One is better off simply going there and exploring. Get the conditions right and things hatch like flies…