Dancing Plague

Landscaping

Reorienting The Fall

Bare Time

The performative role of Jewelry

Body DROP - Event

Macro architectures and abstract objects

ARTISTIC RESIDENCIES, CAMPUS

JUN 15, 2023

Macro architectures and abstract objects

Elisa Zuppini

Macro Architectures

Massive virtual structures emerge in space, transforming and vanishing, surrounding the body. Architectures-of-feeling, generated by sensual suspensions, are organized by possibly unthinkable geometries through force fields. Nearly unrepeatable, they rise and envelop themselves in space, as if independent forces superimposed on the actual site. They produce synthetic realities that each body differently reengineers by itself. The actual space and the one of the mind merge into an indissoluble whole, yet almost provisional. In this sense, these subjective spaces appear to be extensions of individuals’ sense-perceptions, granting the subject the possibility of reorganizing their sense of “self” or “selves”. Technologies with which the body is endowed, but that are simultaneously autonomous from this, as if they were mere instruments, albeit the resulting sensations by these generated.

A rose, enwrapped by a transparent membrane that is also time. The background is that of a common office-like-milkwhite-shelf and a desk. The focus is on the rose. Time (the transparent membrane), ripples and crinkles like plastic on fire as if disappearing into nothing.

The expanse of the mind, once partly reengineered, motions forward through abstract thinking. Lately, I have been reflecting on architecture as the ultimate structural manifestation of reality, and in the relation between spatiality and cognition. The mind being the producer of images - but also responsible for how these become animated, in what seems to be a non-human sense of time and extension - subjectively shapes the ways of meeting “oneself” through internal or external forms.

Remains interesting the relationship between projecting and designing. Particularly, how design can be a “technology of the self”[1] or “selves,” with which, the subjects can reconfigure themselves and their environment. Consider a free fall or being immersed in a water pool. Now, look at the furthest point from you; punto di fuga. Visualize the vectors surrounding your body running to that point and beyond it, to a space you weren’t able to see and a time you were not able, at least not yet, to know; viaggia nel tempo. It’s through this virtual, but gravitational space, that one can start to envision.

Mass and Abstract Objects

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Not only through multilayered outlines, but also through their distributed intentions, architectures themselves become tangibles vectors of construction that model a mass-object producer of other mass-objects, while involving the body in an ambiguous, and perpetual entangled relationship between being a creator and being nothing. These architectures disintegrate, collapse upon themselves, through their own meaning gap. Undisclosed forces are the ones that shape abstract objects. I understand these to be objects of thought, objects of the mind.

An object is an entity that one can seemingly possess, but it is also a document, a file, that one can revisit when it has been recorded. A concept, like a sensation that crystallizes, once recognized for us as such, tends to become an object that defines itself by the act of definition, just as a form that settles on a flow of continuous movement, one that seemingly fixed, expands. Motion and stillness in thiscoexist, albeit the object belongs to the quality of immobility, while everything else keeps moving nearly all the time. The object, as a conceptual construct, establishes our cognitive sphere.

Structures made and unmade, majestically, dizzyingly, appear recursively. New constructions and new heights, a painting on the ceiling of an old church, repeated into sameness, in a series, portraying Christ, or at any rate a Christian figure, resembles a surface floating with religious content. Emerging lineaments from the force field color the world of introspection. Micro scissoring sensus, between what we visualize, and how we move, but also between what we build and how we hold our breath.

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Exteriorized Introspection: extended previously, internal structures of feelings. Miniatures and Self Disciplines (postures of the subject)

You may wonder how macro architectures refract through the sensing subject into miniatures. That I can’t tell. But I know that the macrostructures are inhabited by minor architectures and incomplete objects. These are produced from within. Their mechanics are quantum-like and therefore act as if seemingly incomprehensible. Occasionally, these fragment into small yet extended superimposed landscapes that are alternated by boundless voids. The futural aesthetics by these evoked deliver a sense of unity, even if provisional. The actual space and the one of the mind merge once again, into an almost indissoluble whole, yet, again this collapses and refracts into infinitely self-shaping, quasi-like sculptures, mere stuff, and tiny things.

Pouring in abundance, the reiterated minute thoughts divided and looped remain in the background. Occasionally, these behave as ornaments, details, that sit next to a unified sense of being. Other times, these act like decentered protagonists or an anarchic mass of bacteria, while feelings themselves, locked behind such thoughts, leak through as rarefactive golden liquid.

Vision: Post-Architecture and Aesthetic Core

Architectures and tangled furniture collapsing upon themselves, coiling up into ones that arise anew, but now more as archetypical symbols than objects. These are symbol-objects that extend into space. Their external anatomy is internalized. These become observable at their most aesthetic core, and even when these are rendered explicit and behave as if remaining inaccessible, they are not devoid of an aesthetic interiority.

Complete or partial darkness, absolute abstraction, crashing thoughts, floating mental objects. For fractions of seconds, we seem to experience the most condensed entropy. The bodies’internal space expands externally like an ocean wave that starts retracting swallowing back, that what belongs to an outside. Each item becomes part of the internal chaos, implosion, or even death, but also, nonsense, even if for just an instant of its prolonged lucidity. Yet, through such mayhem, almost reassuringly, a clear dense, plutonic, cold, and metallic mass, one that we are well familiar with, occurs within us.

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For you, the audience out there, come with me. I will guide you through space within my body, through my attention. I will bring you to the space of vision. I appeal to you to construct your own. What is this? How does this work? Trust the darkness that rests behind your eyes. We partake in the same delirium, in the thought of space itself. Yet, our bodies, erotic manifestations, are the very phenomenon of intention and movement. We are the intention that we are moved by. I also move you through my intention. We contemplate a form, the same form. But how do you feel within this form? How does this form feel? How does this form feel itself and feel you? How does this suggest other forms? How do these other forms feel themselves? Microgrid, sensory fabric, abstract mediation. I project into space, shaping a new sense of space. Metal object, mental object. Projection of the mind, the way, it isn't of the mind, the how this glides, cuts through, sharp.

1. Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. University of Massachusetts Press. This book is a collection of lectures delivered by Foucault at the University of Vermont in 1982. It provides a comprehensive exploration of the concept of technologies of the self.

Written by Elisa Zuppini © Author editing by Bruno Listopad
Monday, May 22, 2023

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Relational Field

Relational Field_concept proposal

Written by Elisa Zuppini (2018)

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Vertigo is an intensified relational field ruled by sensations, where the usual distribution of senses is displaced and wired. Its components, actual and virtual (human and non-human), are hypersensitive matter that enter in significant affective relations, generating unpredictable, fragmented and obliques mis/alignments through the sensory chaos.

Everything is matter. Everything senses everything, therefore everything is potentially in relation.

However the elements enjoy independent ownership and features and they distribute their relationships through selective sensory attention. Nevertheless, in turn, each element is considered as a porous mass of independent entities (open by thresholds in its precarious boundaries) that can agglomerate and reshape, functioning as a system where the will is entangled and complicated.They can get involved in relations in its totality as well partially, triggering infinite possibilities of relational movement. So doing, as well their features/materiality can potentially mix or even dissolve in the swirl.

The elements mutually function as performers, events, agents and attractors for each other, even for themselves (being self-related systems). Enjoying specific characteristics of its being a system (system of being a plastic cube, human matter, a virtual force, audience etc.) they have different and limited range of possibility and features of: materiality, movement and aesthetic. When entering in a relation with each other this range augment and stretches, transforming the way they behave and of how, themselves and we, perceive them.The re-orientation of each component, in the actual and abstract spatial dimension, is therefore destabilized. They are pushed to experience the vertiginous and to constantly re-align and recompose in unpredictable modality in order to filter the chaos and to resist to the verge of collapse. (Is important to already point out that this extend to the audience as an element in itself).

The idea is obviously not literal, the creation activates through imaging, sensing and visualizing as main practices. However we can say that those operations are material too.When speaking of the human body this course is more easily detectable and me, as the maker, can analyze the process in relation to my own body.But how this apply to non-human elements and even to the abstract ones? How do matter feels and move? How can we feel matter feeling?

In my work I try to create conditions and space for this unknown (to us) to manifest. In the role of maker I put myself as well in an hypersensitive state towards the elements. By observing their features and selecting the involved material, I allow a sort of collaborative creation. Also, by crafting and scoring certain part, juxtaposing and cutting away others, I leave wide but defined space/time where those relations can just exist, transform each other and transform the experience of the audience.

Not all the relations actualize, would be impossible. Moreover this is fundamental in order to make the space thick of potential, awaking a sense of desire. At the same time the relations will always overlap (in different intensity through the piece). The audience will be challenged to design its own experience, as well to operate a selection through their sensitive attention.

The final aim is not to show how the relation works. On the contrary I am interested in how all this manifest in an event, affecting the audience, making it feel part of it. Leading it in a vortex where sensations triumph, possibly, beyond language.

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De.sy.re.

(decentralized systems of relation) - a movement system developed by Elisa Zuppini

Written by Elisa Zuppini (through 2018-2020)

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De.sy.re. (decentralized systems of relation) is a relational technology for performative bodies that operates in between actual and virtual, human and non-human elements.

The technology is based on the principle of decentralization, on moving attention in between points/zones. By decentralizing we activate relations, we shift and move attention, we observe and feel the space in between those zones. It functions through logics of sensation and features the body as a vibrant and transformative material interface, a decentralized system of embodying forces. An hypersensitive and multi-sensory tool for direct experience of its environment which in turn is active and ever moving.

De.sy.re. operates through an idea of space such as relational fields, where all the elements mutually function as performers, events, agents and attractors for each other, even for themselves (being self-related systems). By allowing micro and macro elements to enter into a relational movement a system of systems is initiated, generating unpredictable, fragmented and oblique (mis)alignments through the sensory chaos.

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The practice thus builds on layered systems of relations of which the outcome is only partially controllable. In order to free the motion the system constantly requires to be bent, to shift hierarchies in the prioritization of relation, to re-configure in form and function and to feature every relation as unique. The technology brings together a multiplicity of movement systems that are not necessarily consistent with each other. In this sense the technology is in constant movement as well. It is not based on dogmatism but, by its very nature, on the constant transformation and re-understanding of its principals. The only principle that does not change is that of relation, even if it means non-relation. There is always more than one, even if the object in question is the body itself. At the same time it does not reject unity.

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By moving attention we create potential space, we allow movement to flow and its discontinuity.

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De.sy.re. is a practice that questions movement and body though material and virtual lents. Through the technology I attempt to rethink dance from a non anthropocentric vision; movement, activation and orientation as a product of re-configurable systems of forces where the entanglement with diverse types of elements comes to be fundamental. It can be seen as a dance-performative (or even choreographic) practice but also as a tool for everyday life: for orienting and relating and for opening our perceptual understanding to our environment. To filter, block or absorb information, to creatively engage with our material body and to subvert micro power structure.

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Workshops

Contact

Bio

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‍Elisa Zuppini (IT/NL) is a dancer and choreographer. She graduated in 2018 from the Amsterdam based academy in choreography SNDO - School for New Dance Development. Her dance background includes the study of classical, modern, and contemporary dance that she attained in Italy, Portugal, and the Netherlands. Driven by the philosophical and artistic generation of dance, she became interested in performance and choreography as expanded ways of understanding movement. She currently operates at the intersection of dance and visual arts, using choreographic devices as if they were temporal sculptures.

She won the Young Talent Choreography Award at OpenFLR 2016. In 2018, she received a scholarship to participate in Danceweb Longlife Burning in Vienna. She completed residencies at CAMPUS choreographic center, Veem House for Performance, FLAM Festival, CC-Heidelberg, ICK Dans Amsterdam, Ricerca X in Turin, and won the research grant Bodyscapes, among others.

She has presented her work at Theatre Rotterdam, Tanzbiennale Heidelberg, GAMeC Gallery for Contemporary Art, Veem House for Performance, the Van Gogh Museum, W139, Frascati Amsterdam, Theatre de Meer Vaart, BASE Milano, Danza Urbana, Villa Strozzi, among others; she created commissioned work for Expanded Contemporary Dance academy, for the exhibition Dancing Plague curated by Panos Giannikopolis, as well as for the Amsterdam-based platform WhyNot.

As an educator, mentor and artistic advisor, she has worked at SNDO - School for New Dance Development, Rietveld Academy, ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Artez Aki, OHT Nomadic School in The Alps, Campus choreographic center in Porto, Faiic - professional course in interpretation and choreography, DT Danseteater Copenaghen and the University of Pennsylvania.

Over the years, her practice has become a fertile ground for collaborations and interdisciplinary projects. She collaborated with the artist Lavinia Rossetti at the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts on the performative jewelry research project from 2018 to 2020. She led with artist and scholar Dahlia Lì workshops at the University of Pennsylvania in New York.

Between 2019 and 2023 she created the work "Himalaya'', a long time research work made in collaboration with renown musician M.E.S.H, between 2019 and 2023.

Since 2019 she is part of Jacuzzi, a convergence of Amsterdam-based choreographers, and since 2018, she has been collaborating regularly with the artist and dramaturg Bruno Listopad.

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Elisa Zuppini - Dance, Choreography & Performance

1990 Ascoli Piceno (IT)

Lives and works in Amsterdam (NL)

Current member of Jacuzzi, Amsterdam

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Education

> EMC Electronic Music Course

Sae, Amsterdam (NL) 2019

> SNDO Bachelor in Choreography

Theaterschool, Amsterdam (NL) 2014 - 2018

> FAICC Professional Formation in Choreography and Performance

Teatro Campo Alegre, Porto (PT) 2014

> Professional Formation in Contemporary Dance, Ballet and Performance

Italy, Austria, France, Belgium, Turkey 1997 - 2013

Own works + performer in her own works

> Performing Landscapes, with 16 dancers from the program Expanded Contemporary Dance, Amsterdam (NL) 2022

> Synthetic disjunctions (work-in-progress), first presented at Dansmakers New Adventures, August 2020, Amsterdam (NL).

Performed by Elisa Zuppini

> Himalaya, with composer M.E.S.H. premiere at Theater de Meervaart, October 2019, Amsterdam (NL)

Performed by Federica Dalla Pozza

> STRAXXE site specific performance, at Picnic Pavillon in Venice (IT), May 2019

Performed by Federica Dalla Pozza

> Transmaterial 0X2 Created for Subbucultcha Horses in The Void, Amsterdam (NL) 2019

Performed by Federica Dalla Pozza, Elisa Zuppini

> TRANSMATERIAL premiere at Frascati Theater - 2018, Amsterdam (NL)

Performed by Federica Dalla Pozza, Gergo Farkas, Tamir Eting, Elisa Zuppini

> LIIL premiere at Frascati Theater -2018, Amsterdam (NL)

Performers by Federica Dalla Pozza, Elisa Zuppini

> Fontana dei movimenti premiere at Veem House -2017, Amsterdam (NL)

A piece for 7 dancers

> Room Xelle premiere at Theaterschool -2016, Amsterdam (NL)

Performed by Elisa Zuppini

> Singularities on the edges of nowhere premiere at Villa Srozzi -2016, Florence (IT)

A piece for 9 dancers

> Might be dancing / manifested perception premiere premiere at Theaterschool -2016, Amsterdam (NL)

Performed by Alex Scholnik, Mami Kang, Imola Nagy

> Over the East, near the West premiere at Theaterschool -2015, Amsterdam (NL)

Performed by Andrea Pisano/Estefano Romani, Elisa Zuppini

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‍Collaborations

> In the frame of 'Landscaping' research project by Whynot organization, Elisa creates a performance with Nica

Amsterdam BosTheater 2021

> Bare Time dance performance, in collaboration with Dramaturg Koen Bartjin

Work for galleries, presented at W139 and Punt WG, Amsterdam 2019-2021

> Reorienting The Fall video work, in collaboration with Visual Artist Chrystopher Tym

Premiered at Cinedans, Amsterdam 2021

> The Performative Role of Jewellery, in collaboration with Jewellery Maker Lavinia Rossetti

Research project at Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp 2018-2021

> Solid Dance dance performance, in collaboration with Choreographer Sigrid Stigsdatter

Premiere at One Night Stand Dansatelier, Rotterdam 2019

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Fashion and video direction

> Movement director for Caterina Barbieri's music video Broken Melody, Milano IT 2022

> Coordinator director for Magliano's Fashion show SS23 Milano IT 2022

> Movement director for Avoidstreet Fashion show 'Piazzale Lotto', Amsterdam NL 2022

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Curation

> Body DROP event- The Material and Political Gesture of Djing and Dancing; curated in collaboration with Choreographer Noha Ramadan

At ADE Amsterdam Dance Event, Amsterdam 2019

> It's waiting to be created improvisation evening, with Lester Arias and Nikki Niklas Bloomberg

at Oorsprong, Amsterdam 2015

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Awards/Scholarships

> DansWeb Long Life Burning, Elisa is selected to participate in a summer residency of 5 weeks at Impulstanz Festival

Vienna (AT) 2018

> Awarded Young Talent in choreography 2016 by Open FLR, where Elisa is invited to make a work for 9 young professional dancers

Presented at Villa Strozzi, Florence (IT) 2016

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Residencies

> Residency at Campus Porto PT, Spring 2023

> Residency at Dock 11, in collaboration with composer M.E.S.H. James Whipple, February 2021, Berlin (DE)

> Residency at Dansmakers New Adventures, March 2020, Amsterdam (NL)

> Residency at ICK Amsterdam Dance Company, July/Sept 2019, Amsterdam (NL)

> Residency at Choreographic Center Heidelberg, May 2019, Heidelberg (DE)

> Residency at Teatro Campo Alegre, Sept/Oct 2017, Port (PT)

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Teaching and sharing her artistic practice De.sy.re

> Artez AKI, October 2021, Enschede (NL)

> SNDO School for New Dance development, Amsterdam 2020/2021

> Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, October 2020, in the frame of Body and Material Reinvented researchers; Antwerp (BL)

> Rietveld Academy of Fine Arts, February 2020, Amsterdam

> FAICC professional course in choreography and performance, Porto (PT) 2020/2021

> Jacuzzi Amsterdam, 2018/2019

> ICK, workshop with ICK Dance Company, Amsterdam 2019

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Works as performer for others

> Noha Ramadan research presentation at Tec Lab Theaterschool

2019, Amsterdam (NL)

> Museo De Agua by Rodrigo Sobarzo at ADE Amsterdam

2018, Amsterdam (NL)

> In many Hands by Kate Macintosh at Frascati Theater

2018, Amsterdam (NL)

> Renaissance by Marten Spangberg at Stedeljik Museum

2016, Amsterdam (NL)

> Magic Magazine by Ida Katinka at Frascati Theater- graduation work

2016, Amsterdam (NL)

> i feel like a water-dispenser of a hamster-cage by Ahmed El Gendy

2016, Amsterdam (NL)

> Manualis in vacuo by Antonia Steffens at Academy for theater and dance

2015, Amsterdam (NL)

> Maria Hassabi for Sndo at Doc zal

2015, Amsterdam (NL)

> bei by Chanbei Duan at Academy for theater and dance

2015, Amsterdam (NL)

> Maktub noir, Elisa is a dancer in the italian dance company directed by Pietro Pireddu

2012-2014, Florence (IT)

She presented her work at: Veem House for Performance Amsterdam (NL) 2023; GAMeC Gallery for Modern and Contemporary Art Bergamo (IT) 2022; ECD Expanded Contemporary Dance Academy Amsterdam (NL) 2022; Amsterdam Bostheater August 2021; Tanzbiennale Heidelberg Germany 2021, Julidans Off Venue, Amsterdam 2021 (still to happen); Punt WG gallery, Amsterdam 2021; Critical Costume, Oslo 2020; Het Heem, Amsterdam 2020; NDSM ex warhouse, Amsterdam 2020; Kunstelicht art space, Amsterdam 2020; Dansmakers New adventures, Amsterdam 2020; ICK Fest, Amsterdam October 2019; Antidote Festival, Amsterdam 2019/2020; Groningen Friday Night, 2020; W139 Gallery, Amsterdam 2019; Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam 2019; De Apple art space, Amsterdam 2019; Club OT301, Amsterdam 2019; Arti et Amicitiae art space, Amsterdam 2019; Corrosia Dance Festival, (Almere, NL) 2019; Spider Festival (Ljubljana, SLO) 2018; Uferstudio, (Berlin,DE) 2018; Frascati Theater Amsterdam 2018; Dansmakers (Amsterdam,Nl) 2018, Gelderland fabriek (Culemborg, NL) 2017; VRJIDAG (Groeningen, NL) 2017; Villa Strozzi (Florence, IT); Theaterschool (Amsterdam, NL); Baudhuis Theater (Amsterdam, NL); Teatro Campo Alegre (Porto, PT); Magma Events (Florence, IT).

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Elisa Zuppini

Elisa is a member of Jacuzzi since November 2019

Knees –– axes | form | depth

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Performing Landscapes

SYNTHETIC DISJUNCTIONS-Site Specific

SYNTHETIC DISJUNCTIONS

HIMALAYA

Transmaterial 0X2

STRAXXE

Concept and choreography | Elisa Zuppini

Performance | Federica Dalla Pozza

Outfit | Eduardo Leon

Photo credits | Marco Bizzotto

TRANSMATERIAL

LIIL

Fontana dei Movimenti

Singularities on the edges of nowhere

Might be dancing / manifested perceptions

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Might be dancing / manifested perception - mentor report by Bruno Listopad

Dancing Plague_ Intoxication, Acidity, Compression

Landscaping

Reorienting The Fall

Bare Time

The performative role of Jewelry

Body DROP -

The material and political gesture of DJing and dancing

A curation in collaboration with Noha Ramadan for ICK and ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event)

Macro architectures and abstract objects

Relational Field_concept proposal

De.sy.re.

(decentralized systems of relation) - a movement system developed by Elisa Zuppini

By moving attention we create potential space, we allow movement to flow and its discontinuity.

WORKSHOPS

Elisa is a member of Jacuzzi since November 2019

Knees –– axes | form | depth

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