Contemporary Salmon with Daniel Blanga Gubbay @ Semaine SHARE I 26.02, 2022

Daniel Blanga Gubbay : "Two years ago, in my weekly teaching at Brussels’ Académie Royales des Beaux Arts, I started a project titled 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯, which has gradually become a self-run school collectively built with the students. Tomorrow for the first time I will talk about it in conversation with Krystel Khoury, in the frame of Semaine Share."

In her text 𝘖𝘯 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘖𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵, Anne–Françoise Schmid writes how Western Modernity set a way of observation, in which we have to look at objects via predetermined disciplines that influence our observation. For example, take a salmon: we can analyse it from the perspective of molecular biology, zoology, gastronomy, traceability, law, international commerce, genetic manipulation, ethics. «But instead, I suggest we could treat this object as a kind of unknown 'X' whose properties are distributed in an unprecedented way between different disciplinary forms of knowledge. An object with multiple dimensions, each of which is a discipline».

This is not different from contemporary performance, where a project is usually analysed from pre-determined disciplines (dramaturgy, performance history). 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯 is a weekly school of gaze that aims at creating a protocol to look at performances. It does not raise the question ‘how was it?’, but rather ‘what was it’. It does not aim at defining, but rather at treating a project as a kind of unknown 'X' whose properties are distributed in an unprecedented way. If something can be analysed through the grid of Contemporary Performance, what does it say if we look at it from other disciplines such as Linguistic, History of Patriarchy, Geology, Geometry, or Contemporary Activism? Or maybe each object invites to create new disciplines, and we’ll speak from now on of History of Pink; Rhythm and Inequality; or Dance in English. Every session of 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘰𝘯 is constituted by three parts: one performance analysed as an unknown x, one reading group, and exercise of looking at an unknown object.