Naturalização [working title]
Alessia Wyss catches fleeting gestures and the memories they evoke. She preys on performers as they move according to a set of rules, seeing their bodies as untapped reservoirs of movement artefacts from which memories can emerge.
In her research Alessia Wyss collaborates with Koen Cobbaert to record these movements and memories using textual descriptions, visual representations and contemporary means such as 3D scans. They then recite or project the movement categories back to the performer. This creates a feedback loop which triggers the emergence of new movements, resulting in new categories and new memories.
They try to fit these gestures and memories into catalogues. When confronted with untameable movements they reach for intuitive classification schemes and invite the spectator to decipher the categories. The work results in a movement archive haunted by Aby Warburg, art historian and cultural theorist famous for his unfinished Mnemosyne atlases.
The work is shown as a cross-over between performance and Wunderkammer. The spectator enters the archive and finds the movement researcher observing her test subjects while she collects and catalogues their movements and memories.
Concept: Alessia Wyss, Koen Cobbaert
Archiver: Alessia Wyss
Performers: Anne-Marie Dehon, Castelie Yalombo, Cindy S, Laure Cavallera, Naomie Gross, Pietro Gaudioso, Rossandra Nicoletta
Photography: Koen Cobbaert, Inez Kaukoranta, Lisa Billuard, Pauline Richon, Gabriela Jimenez
3D scanning: Polygon 360
3D printing: Eddy Willaert
Thanks to: Julia Christensen, Stéphane Menti, The Warburg Institute, ZSenne