WILL - FOR ACTION / VILJE - TIL HANDLING While working on the piece «Will - for transformation» (2017), it dawned on me that I, as performer and creator of a piece of art, was a medium for experience with the audience. It was an interplay with various kinds of people, an exchange with unknown outcome and in that sense impossible to define. Before the piece was performed it felt impossible to know just what kind of art I was making. Likewise during the six days and in total eight performances. Still, now in the aftermath of the working process, it is still not clear to me. I had a set of parametres, Cages concept of indeterminacy as a grounding tool for exploration and the concepts inclusion and transformation to explore. Some would argue that the mode defines the form, and that the outcome or the result of the art work is not relevant. I agree to the fact that the work was performed as a staged performance. My point is, however, that this is not the relevance of the work. UTDYP And further more, because of the open attitude to what the work itself could bring to surface, the outcome of this was surprising. If I should conclude on anything, the art work was and is a process from meeting with the audience, however minor og major, setting off new experiences to reflect on and transform from. These texts play the part as one piece of written mode in the art work «Will - for transformation». What was a staged art piece labelled as a performance was also a study of transformation. With this text I will reflect on the role of action as mediator for experience, reflection and transformation. SCHOPENHAUER Each performance during Tromsø Scenekunstfestival 2017 represented actions which in themselves were a source for experience, reflection and transformation. These actions contained a methodical aim exploring how the three different epistemological concepts of a priori/Will and the immediate body (Schopenhauer) and a posteriori «knowledge» relate to each other and affect the working method as well as the artistic expression. The Will is a priori in the sense that there is no human life without this driving social force manifesting itself in various relational strategies. A priori represents here what can be said to exist always and beforehand, experienced and expressed through action as the Will meets the immediate body within time restricted events. For those who are not familiar with the works of Schopenhauer (1788-1860), he is considered to be the first in Western philosophy who broke with the mind and body diversion in western philosophical thinking since Plato. He was greatly inspired by Eastern philosophy. Better known philosophers following his ideas on corporeality are Sartre (1905-1980) and Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961). This corporeality is linked to todays term «embodied cognition» emphasizing the bodys role in shaping the mind. The body is shaping the mind through action. When we move we transform. And when we experience and reflect on this transformation, we have a posteriori knowledge. It doesn't necessary mean that we are any wiser, but we are cognitively situated differently than we used to be. This is unavoidable. And from this place in time and space we can act and continue our transformation. This transformation however, is always in relationship to the world around us. To the people we interact with. And therefor is this piece of art in constant transformation, and not possible to define. ACTION I make art - and art make me. JOHN CAGE fritt ord frist 5. januar Indeterminacy. WILL CORPORALITY INCLUSION - nærhet og avstand BORDERS Art is source for information through action/interaction. fritt ord frist 5. januar