Multiplicity in Practice: Emergent Compositions

`Multiplicity in practice` and `emergent compositions` are my working methods and they can have artistic and (political-)ethical implications. In my 2-year active research (2014-16) and my 2-year passive research (2016-18) I used both in the composition and research for performative works and in my writing, which focused mainly on the work conditions of artists now-a-days.

a) How to practice multiplicity?

b) How to compose through emergence?

c) How do art and artists function in and survive the institutional field, which is so highly regulated today?

1) Multiplicity in practice is the practice of articulating plurality, multiplicity, diversity, difference. There are multiple possibilities for articulation. I prefer and have explored more `ecological` forms of articulation, like series or variations. 

2) Emergent systems of composition are time-based reiterative systems which allow the emergence of patterns, orders and a progressive transformation of the materials at work by means of repetition of gestures, movements, actions, behaviours, conditions. These systems can either be found (because already there) or they must be conditioned/created/stimulated.

3) What do curators, theoreticians, critics, cultural policy makers, scholars, etc. know about the artists` work? Certainly a lot, but wouldn`t we run the danger of a speech alienated from the art practice itself and the real conditions/needs of the artists if we always talk on the third person? Shouldn`t artists be firstly listened to when the topic is about their work conditions?

d) How could we overcome this ditch between the artists/the art work and the institutes?

4) Inspired by the American philosopher Michael Hardt and his conference on love as a political concept, About love (2007), and forwarding the practice of love as a possible answer, I`ll propose a discussion on what love is as to try address the question: how could the artists practice love with the institutes, and vice-versa?

Concept: Vera Sofia Mota
Performance/Collaboration/Many thanks to: Flora McMurtrie, Constantinos Voudouris, Eleni Mylona, Maria João Falcão
Mentors: João da Silva, Konstantina Georgelou, Nienke Terpsma

*Research Presentation by Vera Sofia Mota, Master of Theatre Practices, ArtEZ - University of the Arts, Arnhem, The Netherlands, 2018. Video Stills: Vera Sofia Mota, Video: Pedro Manuel