"Wat als we de wereld zien als een ultieme bron van kennis, vol kennislichamen"

Iedere maker is op zoek naar kennis. Katrijn doet dat op verschillende manieren. Ze vraagt zich vaak af vanuit welk perspectief ze deze kennis heeft vergaard, of welk perspectief degene heeft die haar deze kennis heeft aangereikt. Ze zegt daarover dat kennis vrij benaderen nooit zou kunnen vanwege de cultuur, geschiedenis, positie, herinneringen en dergelijke die je met je meedraagt (situatedness). Daarom vindt ze het zo belangrijk om ook met niet-professionele performers te werken om te ervaren hoe mensen zijn die een andere relatie met hun eigen bewegende lichaam hebben. Hoe zij in zo’n setting bewegen en ervaren hoe hun lichaam reageert als je niet gewend bent om op zo’n podium te staan en voor mensen te bewegen.

Het elkaar stimuleren is wat Katrijn zo enorm aanspreekt in het interdisciplinaire werken. Ze zocht voor Morphling contact met theatermakers, met mensen van de Master Performance Practices in Arnhem, maar ook met niet professionele performers, zodat ze met zoveel mogelijk verschillende bewegende lichamen kon werken. Katrijn organiseerde vervolgens repetities voor deze deelnemers om met elkaar haar thema en onderzoek te bespreken: hoe dachten deze mensen erover om samen één ‘kennislichaam’ te vormen en hoe konden ze dit gaan belichamen.

Die kennis waar we het al even over hadden zit niet alleen maar in ons en dat vindt Katrijn zo interessant aan een denker als Donna Haraway die onze planeet beschrijft als oneindig web van onderling verweven werelden.

Want, stelt Katrijn, wij hebben een lichaam, maar wat is dat eigenlijk als je kijkt naar bijvoorbeeld alle microben waar we uit bestaan? We kunnen onszelf zien als dragers van heel veel klein leven en al die microben om ons heen die interacteren daar weer mee en als wij iets eten, eten zij ook iets, dus … (lacht) hoe kunnen we dan zeggen dat we een (autonoom) individu zijn?

This is the third publication in a series of three, based on my interviews with alumni on the theme of Body and (Un)Power. This blog is an adaptation of the conversation I had with Katrijn Westland of Design Art Technology about her work and research practice and what role the body plays in this. These publications and the research that preceding them, I am making because of the internship I am doing as a third year DBKV student at studium generale.

Morphling:

Is an interactive installation, covered by biodegradable lick-licking beet skin that breathes, smells, moves and ages;

Is constantly inhabited and kept in motion by different performers and each of these residents gives a different 'movement character' to the work;

The main ingredient of Morphlings skin is 500 beetroots, harvested by Katrijn herself from Dutch soil;

Is a physical elaboration of the idea of our body as an open system;

Is a being that (like us) is constantly in motion;

On the inside of Morphling is a network of beet wires with which the performer/resident is attached to the rest of the installation, so that if the performer moves the rest of the installation moves with it;

During the performance, the resident can work at different points in this network connecting and disconnecting.

It was a conscious choice to ask as diverse a group of people as possible to perform her work, not only because Katrijn likes to work interdisciplinary, but especially because you come to richer insights and experience together. She says that at the graduation exhibition the entrance of Morphling was turned away from the walking direction, because of which one only later saw what caused the movements. Many people were convinced that Morphling made mechanically controlled movements. Behind that, Katrijn had lined up to observe the reaction of the audience. When people suddenly realized that they were face to face with a performer, they often became quiet and cautious. They started to move more slowly and became aware of their own bodies; how do I look, how do I stand?

Her experiences during the Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven, 16-24 October 2021) show something similar. Here Katrijn was positioned in such a way that people would not be distracted by her presence, but she could observe the audience. The audience was very diverse. Children sought interaction by taking the beet threads and attaching them to themselves. Or provoked Morphling by pulling on her beet threads or sticking their arms through the openings in the beet skin. In general, the adults were more reserved and quieted as soon as they stepped into the room in which Morphling was lined up. That's why it was surprising to see an older man with a walker walking to the heart of the room. He couldn't really bend down properly and gestured with his head to the performer and then to the wire that was close to his walker. After he was connected to the whole, he started to move along.

When I asked if Katrijn had made instructions for the audience, she replied that she mainly wanted to observe how people reacted to the work instead of steering their reaction too much. There was no literal instruction, but there was a subtle control. Through the sound composition in the room, through the direction of the light, the smells and the movement of Morphling. And the presence of a seat inside Morphling as a sign that the public was also welcome there. Katrijn finds it important to stimulate the senses of her audience, so that they can make a physical connection with Morphling. The performers had been given instructions: always keep moving, stay connected to the whole at least in three points and they were allowed to leave the room at any time if they would not feel comfortable (anymore).

1 Knowledge of non-professionals
Every maker is looking for knowledge. Katrijn does this in different ways. She often wonders from which perspective she has acquired this knowledge, or what perspective the person has who gave her this knowledge. She says that approaching knowledge freely would never be possible because of the culture, history, position, memories etcetera that you carry with you (situatedness). That's why she thinks it's so important to also work with non-professional performers to experience what people are like who have a different relationship with their own moving body. How they move in such a setting and experience how their body reacts when you are not used to standing on such a stage and moving in front of people.

2 Knowledge through interdisciplinary work
Stimulating each other is what appeals to Katrijn so much in interdisciplinary work. Before Morphling, she sought contact with theatre makers, with people from the Master Performance Practices in Arnhem, but also with non-professional performers, so that she could work with as many different moving bodies as possible. Katrijn then organized rehearsals for the participants to illustrate the theme and research together: how did these people think about forming one 'knowledge body' together and how could they embody this.

3 Knowledge from nature
That knowledge we talked about is not only in us and Katrijn finds that so interesting about a thinker like Donna Haraway who describes our planet as an infinite web of intertwined worlds.

Because, says Katrijn, we have a body, but what is that when you look at, for example, all the microbes that we consist of? We can see ourselves as carriers of a lot of small life and all those microbes around us that interact with that and when we eat something, they also eat something, so ... (laughs) how can we say that we are an (autonomous) individual?

The importance of the theme Body and power(lessness)
In the conversation, the theme of body always comes up as a reference, as a tool to understand the world around us. Power and powerlessness emerged in the performers' experiences during graduation. Katrijn had several reflection conversations with them about this. Sometimes they had the idea that it depended very much on who was watching and with what intention they were looking. They noticed that when a female performer inhabited Morphling, people looked more often with a sexual gaze or intention. She deliberately has had many different types of people performing: older people-younger people, performers-non-professional performers, men-women-non binary people to see what it was like for them to be watched, to embody the work and to look back. And to experience how strong, powerful and or powerless they felt.

Determining what you do with that look is a very exciting and difficult line that we occasionally balanced on or over, she says about it. But the performer determines whether the spectator actually exercises power with his gaze. If you as a performer shift the focus to your motives to be present there at that moment and in that way, a subtle and perhaps not so visible change takes place, in which the sexual gaze can be made subordinate or irrelevant. As soon as the performer consciously starts looking back, that relationship changes. Whether and what the spectator does with your watching may not be so visible, but with your intentions you take control again.

Cross-domain approach to body and knowledge
Morphling approaches the body as an open structure. It is a physical elaboration of the idea of our body as an open system. With this, Katrijn criticizes the idea of the individual: wat if we do not see ourselves as an indivisible thing, but as a we (microbial constellation), as a host of knowledge and systems, divisible and open. And according to Katrijn - following Donna Haraway - we are also crossroads on that network, just like trees or rivers, where it is important that we open more and can therefore enter a completely different kind of social connection.

By working together with people from other disciplines or outside the art field, you can share that knowledge, you can also connect it to the knowledge from nature or from technology. Katrijn experimented a lot with the presentation before her graduation. The reactions of the audience and the experiences of the performers have given her new knowledge, although not yet fully crystallized, but enough material to certainly be able to make a few new versions of Morphling. It is precisely the evolving process that Katrijn finds so important because, she says, you must maintain a kind of openness and at the same time critical view and perhaps also must accept that you will never know / be able to do it perfectly and will therefore continue to make attempts.

Body, and especially the sensory, runs like a red thread through Katrijn's entire oeuvre. What we see is not necessarily the only thing we experience and that is why it is so beautiful to let the rest of our senses work together a bit more. Precisely because Katrijn wants to continue developing a new Morphling, she does not believe that the theme of body will disappear from her work any time soon. It would not surprise her if there is a third and fourth Morphling who may be called differently, but where she continues to examine and manifest the body in different ways. In this sense, Morphling is an evolving process: a study of the evolving perception of what a (human and not human) body is. The question she likes to talk about with others is 'what if we see the body as open and as a carrier of knowledge and other systems that are also outside of us?' Katrijn finds those blurring boundaries of what a body is, evolving ideas of how we experience our bodies and what, for example, can be disembodied or cyber-body very fascinating.

Katrijn says that she noticed when she was in Japan that people have a completely different way of dealing with everything around them. People seemed to be much more natural with technology and less anxious, which may have an origin in Shintoism. She underwent a very physical experience in a laboratory when she was allowed to touch the hand of a clone that a scientist had made of herself. She had also met the scientist shortly before and at the touch of the clone's hand she was very aware of how human the clone seemed, even though she also knew that it is not human. Her hands got all warm and started sweating a little and she saw the same reactions in other people from the group she visited the lab with.

Summary
Katrijn proposes to see ourselves, our bodies, not as an indivisible thing, but as a microbial constellation: a host of knowledge and systems, divisible and open. Collaborating with people from other disciplines or outside the art field means that knowledge can be shared and connected to knowledge from nature or technology. The evolving process requires openness and maintaining a critical approach.

Katrijns inspiring sources in art and science
Lynn Margulis, Saša Spačal en Sonja Bäumel

About Katrijn Westland and Design Art Technology
Katrijn graduated in 2021 from the Design Art Technology programme with Morphling. For Morphling she developed a canvas made of beet powder, which is edible, breathes, smells, discolours, ages and, through the partially open structure, invites the viewer to enter. Katrijn prefers to work in a multidisciplinary way and is driven to make contacts outside her own field, to stimulate each other, to exchange knowledge and she approaches knowledge, but also the body as open and divisible.