Liquid Light

Written from a choreographer’s perspective, 'Liquid Light', is a visual essay that forms part of the Performance Studies international (Psi) Artistic Research Working Group’s online archive curated by the convenors Annette Arlander, Bruce Barton and Johanna Householder. This contribution is the fourth stage in the assigned process of submission, response and extraction, and stems from Denise Ziegler’s response to the work presented by Glenn D’Cruz at the Psi’s 25th Annual Conference, themed ‘Elasticity’, held at University of Calgary in July 2019. 'Liquid Light' is an artistic interaction with digital glitches and, what Zylinska (2017) identifies as non-human photography. Composed of the images that ‘appeared’ sporadically and unknowningly on a mobile phone in the months following the PSi meeting, these non-human photographs were extracted from their original depositary, their date and location purposely removed in order to allow the images a new life, detached from their digital situatedness. Drawing on Bauman’s politics of ‘liquidity’ (2000) and Barad’s discourse on agential realism (2007) 'Liquid Light' uses distorted reproductions of refracted light to invite different ways of contemplating and re-imagining our relationship with digitally-produced matter. My thinking and moving with 'Liquid Light' have been slow, paused and of a dwelling nature, as if embracing complexity with an unagitated rhythm might afford me a more textured synthesis of the task, and a clearer articulated provocation. Or, as according to Walker (2017) acknowledging that in an age of speed and haste, the practice of slowness might offer an alternative, more contemplative and ethical way of doing philosophy. At the Calgary PSi meetings, before every session, space was given to a land acknowledgement. With Liquid Light I reiterate such respect here, across a digital interface, as in this exercise of recall, assimilation and provocation there remains the echo to honour the presence and resilience of indigenous peoples.