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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

the table-word game tool

the table-word game tool is a diagrammatic experiential practice whose result is:

a map that is a relational field of knowledge production and, that participants may carry on to their own framework, and use it for further experimentation of their questions, points of crisis and problematization.

a table that is an object, over which you read again how your initial vocabularies have been crossed, performed and shared collectively.

a video of a plan sequence in which you can observe and reflect upon:

· how thought can be experienced as a plasticity of performative actions, movement and images adapting and modifying all the time.

· the transforming experimental process of your vocabularies and actions

· about how those are experienced and moved collectively

· about how those could become future “entries” or “access points” to consider new actions, concepts, problems or questions.

Basic Idea: to write and move across the table the vocabularies, concepts or terms that makes you busy or concerned at the moment; or that you may find interesting in order to problematize and specific field of knowledge in relation to the thinking process and context you are engaged with at the time.

Number of players: undefined

Necessary materials:

· A long table (you may consider the size of it, depending on the number of participants)

· A sheet of paper that covers the table

· As much color pens you think you may need for the experiment (make sure they are strong enough to be visible through the camera)

· Different types of tape (in terms of color, size…etc)

· Your own notebook or diary and books or texts you are busy with at the moment

· Any objects that are related to the process you are in. These objects can be specific of the work you are doing, the cotidianity of your working space you are in, or your personal life

· A mobile-handy camera

· Necessary sound equiptment to play music at some point.

Time frame: min. 1 hour and half; max. 3 hours

Conditions of the game:

· You have to stick to the table as your only working space. The table is the laboratory-space of this production.

· You should start by writing the concepts, vocabularies or terms you are busy with

· You may continue by relating those, to those of the rest of the players.

· Your entries, as well as the others, are constantly “crossed” by somebody else or, your entry point can become the action of somebody else and all the way around.

· All this may be done performatively. Not only the actions you may do, but also the way the word is inscribed in the table, the way it looks, the process of its writing…

· You may consider that, the production you are making together, is an experimental field of performative operations in between verbal language and action, so as such the concepts, entry points or terms at work, should be considered as a “sensible and shareable experience” not only as a rational, intellectual and individual exercise on making relations.

· The registration of the event through the handy-mobile camera is specific of the kind of performativity the experiment goes through: during the game, you may pass the camera one to another, or take it from each other. That means two things: 1. That you are responsible for registering the perception of what you are reading (you own actions, actions of others). 2. That you are responsible for taking or passing the camera to other players all along the game.

· You may want to take the experiment slowly, thinking how the concept speaks in its context; or how the action takes you into a new field of knowledge and performativity.

· You may have the ability to zoom in out of the specific territories you are exploring in the collective map, so you make sure that the relational experimental activity in the game goes on and doesn’t get blocked into one specific area of the map.