“What’s in a name?”: A Symbolic Reading
Rebecca G
Something that piqued my interest when I was first introduced to the event in question — the Per°Form Open Academy of Arts and Activations — was the seemingly diminutive symbol that cleaved the title’s first word into its constituents. Commonly known as the degree sign (‘°’), I was told that it was a recommendation made by the project designer, and the team at T:>Works had decided to include it as part of the collaborative process. Though it might have been a purely aesthetic choice initially, taking a closer look at the symbol revealed its presence in various disciplines, and how that multiplicity reflected the overall ethos of the Open Academy as a porous gathering of epistemologies from Global South perspectives.
This inaugural reiteration of the Open Academy promises to be a platform that transcends “silos, disciplines, and fields”, and one that advocates for “contextualised research, situated practices, and translocal knowledge production as shared resources for the future”. Each of the fifteen ‘Fellows’ who were invited to be a part of the Open Academy are individuals who straddle the colourful intersections of art, philosophy, geopolitics, and technology in their work. The event consisted of a keynote speech by Art Labor, followed by a series of artist-led workshops, and culminated in a ‘marathon’ of presentations delivered by each of the Fellows. Notably, Art Labor discussed their creative collaborations with the indigenous Jarai community of Vietnam, who believe in our ultimate return to the air as dew after death¹ — and there is subsequent rebirth in rain. Drawing a parallel between water and existential cycles reveals a necessary symbiosis, which prompted a reevaluation of our positionalities within the ecosystem through time and space. The indigenous activist and economist Winona LaDuke described the source of all food and nourishment to be found in “our relatives, whether they have wings, or fins, or roots” (“Seeds of Our Ancestors, Seeds of Life” 00:44 — 00:52). There is a need to challenge the anthropocentric detachment from our environment that we have inherited from settler and extractive colonial worldviews².
‘°’ can be used to denote cartographic coordinates and time itself³, which is an evocative reflection of the Open Academy’s focus on translocal exchange beyond time zones.
Figure 1
As illustrated in the image (Figure 1), the presence of the Fellows highlights yet transcends geographies, cultures, and identities. The circular bridge between the past and present as a vehicle for the future was a common motif across all three days of the event; this was particularly evident in Keren Lasme’s and Aouefa Amoussouvi’s presentations about the importance of decolonizing literature and scientific study with reference to self-determination and growth.
The degree symbol implies positionality as well, in relation to axes; an angle. The Open Academy was a meeting of methodologies. All fifteen Fellows had diverse responses to the thematic arc of the event, and it allowed for a refreshingly panoramic view. It was deeply invigorating to meet other queer, diasporic, and interdisciplinary artists, and I felt less alone in my current practice and approach to performance-based research.
Additionally, ‘°’ is a measure of film speed and light sensitivity (widely known as ISO), and temperature. They are both processes that involve individual molecules reacting together to create sufficient energy for change. This collective vibration unexpectedly manifested as an invitation to dance, which was the penultimate act of the evening — a rave that galvanised the artists and the audience to co-create a spontaneous moment of radical joy on stage. It proved the capacity of art and dance as forces for activation, and as an escape from inertia.
A circle is an infinite loop of connections that has no start or end. It encloses space that is visually devoid of definition, yet brimming with imaginative potential. My experience of the Open Academy leads me to envision individuals and communities holding hands to form a whole — a self-sustaining relationship that encourages direct contact and conversations. One could argue that the act of selecting the Fellows and the creative team is in opposition to the aims of the Open Academy. However, the entire event was free-of-charge for all attendees, and there was a conspicuous lack of application forms to complete which minimised barriers to entry. Though this was a dichotomy that I found myself grappling with, I believe that the event has indeed disrupted the traditional structure of an ‘academy’, which has its intellectual foundation in the disenfranchisement and exclusion of those whom it deems ‘ineligible’ for admission.
Democratising public access to these platforms is a reprieve from capitalist hierarchies that have influenced the ways in which we convene, distribute, and value art and information. The Fellows are suggestions of how knowledge through introspection, and knowledge inherited through cultural genealogy, are as effective as fixed bodies of theoretical practice that are perceived to be more ‘objective’ or ‘scientific’ in their construction. Our bodies, opinions, lived / living experiences, and local communities are unique, evolving archives of intelligence that can be articulated through artistic expression. Being a part of the Open Academy was for me a precious insight into a concerted effort towards a pluralisation of cosmovisions, dreams, and world- building that restores the hidden and the forgotten.
Works cited:
¹ “Jrai Dew.” Art Labor, Accessed 23 May 2023.
² Settler colonialism is a process whereby large numbers of settlers claim land and become the majority. Employing a “logic of elimination,” as Patrick Wolfe put it in the American Historical Review, they attempt to engineer the disappearance of the original inhabitants everywhere except in nostalgia.
Extractive colonialism happens when all the colonisers want is a raw material found in a particular locale. The desire for natural history specimens and ethnographic artifacts could also be considered extractive colonialism… Extractive colonisers might destroy or push away indigenous inhabitants to access resources but more typically depend upon native diplomatic mediation, environmental knowledge, and labor.
Shoemaker, Nancy. “A Typology of Colonialism.” Perspectives on History | AHA, 1 Oct. 2015.
³ “Latitude and Longitude Positions: Degrees, Minutes, Seconds.” Barcelona Field Studies Centre, Accessed 23 May 20
“TEDxTC - Winona LaDuke - Seeds of Our Ancestors, Seeds of Life.” YouTube, uploaded by TEDxTalks, 4th March 2012.
