Welcome to the Space of Knowledge - A performative exploration

How do you know where you are? And in whatever space you are, how do you know the rules for navigating? You are warmly invited to the Space of Knowledge, a performative exploration, a short series to explore these questions, and more: improvising with our assumptions and relations to the space, investigating unexplored possibilities, uncovering unpredictability, tapping into creativity and embodied knowledge.

what

We are always bodies-in-space: we cannot be outside a space, any space is an extension of us, protecting, directing, moving, being. Our bodily structure is predictable: we all have bones, blood vessels, muscles, organs. We consider the architectural space as having a predictable, fixed structure: we expect benches, stairs, walls, doors to remain where they are. Yet, even if we adapt to certain rules and codes, we are all improvising. What happens to our cognitive systems if we explicitly acknowledge our assumptions about how to move within a certain space? And then deliberately explore alternative pathways?

when & where

- Tuesdays 18 & 25 February + 4 & 11 March 2025, 18:30-20:30

- Faculty of Philosophy, Oude Boteringestraat 52, 9712 GL Groningen, meeting point in the hall of the faculty

for who

- Students & staff interested in this exploration, both from the Faculty of Philosophy and from other RUG faculties.

- You can join the whole series (preferably, as it has a build-up), or separate sessions. There is room for max. 25 people per session.

- Participation is free of charge

Please register here: https://forms.gle/nu6NFtAGPJqmuBL4A

how

Our base is the university space and its architecture. We will work with and from spaces of work, spaces of meeting, spaces of solitude and withdrawal, spaces of passage.

18 February

We will start with the Dérive (French for “drifting”), a playful practice of ‘getting lost’ and aimless wandering. Developed by French theorist Guy Debord as part of his critique of the modern, structured society.

25 February - 11 March

In these sessions we will investigate and generate actions, articulate and analyze experiences, using these elements:

- Step 1 Find & Define: Participants find and define the space or place you want to work in or with.

- Step 2 Observe, explore, collect & research Data, Impressions, Sensations, Sounds, Materials, Movements, Actions, Narratives, Discourses, Histories, Biographies, Rules, Images, Ideas

- Step 3 Develop What is observed, researched and collected, can be transformed into actions or artefacts (objects (found), text (spoken), sound-collage, installation)

- Step 4 Present The material is ‘given back’ to the room. Actions are performed in the space, artefacts are (re)arranged in the space.

facilitators Andrea Sangiacomo (Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy RUG), Barbara van Male (editor, dancer)

videographer Isidora Jurisic (Communications Officer, Summer & Winter Schools RUG)

background According to enactivist views of cognition, knowledge is not just the inner mental representation that a cognitive subject forms based on inputs received from an external world. Rather, knowledge is an ongoing, adaptive process of the interplay between the subject and its environment based on how the subject moves and perceives it.

This enactivist view entails that knowledge has an embodied basis, and different ways of manipulating the kinesthetic relation between cognizer and its environment have a dramatic impact on the kind of knowledge that is produced. Since knowledge (including its production and transmission) is also part and parcel of socio-political structures, spaces of knowledge are designed to foster specific kinds of knowledge that the society values.

This project is a performative exploration of how these ideas apply to the university space and its architecture, by unearthing not only the implicit assumptions that underpin its structure but also the yet unexplored possibilities and affordances that the same architecture might offer. While a given structure can nudge cognition to unfold in a certain way, affordances used to make this happen are always subject to multiple possible usages. This performative exploration with bodies-in-space aims at uncovering unpredictability through improvisation with our relation to space. In this sense, creativity and embodied knowledge can even become a tool for yet unexplored spaces of freedom.

Flyer workshop Welcome to the Space of Knowledge - A performative exploration