about the project
pages:
what could an entry be?
people
links:
dictionary of war
participatory action research
VOCABULABORATORIES
What is a vocabulary? First, it´s something that everyone has. Second, it´s something that everyone works with. Third, it´s a toolbox of concepts, which we use in order to position ourselves, move, and make sense within the world. Fourth, it´s always in the language of someone, or a group of people. Also, it´s to do with the voice; it allows us to become vocal. It´s that through which we articulate what we do, how and why we do it. It´s where a concept meets a practice.
For example; the word “vocabulary” has become part of my vocabulary by now, as a concept I am investing meaning in, and basing my practice upon. There are many other words: “strategy”, “collaboration”, “tool”, “movement”, etc. The way I understand those is not strictly in terms of their dictionary definition, or limited to their use in a specific theoretical framework, but comes from where and how a concept can become useful to me.
Vocabulaboratories is a project consisting of a series of laboratory spaces, in which vocabularies are explored as a relevant, local and self-organizing practice. We propose to make a space within which we can write, exchange and discuss the strategies and hopes we invest in concepts. As such, vocabu-laboratories are spaces where everyday, aesthetic, and social practices and articulations will be brought into relation with self-made conceptual frameworks. We understand “writing” in the broad sense, as inscription practice that can take the form of choreography, photography, sonography, etc.
There are two key strategic/hopeful aspects to our project:
-one the one hand, working in the context of the arts, we want to address questions around authorship, collaboration, institutional contexts, ‘activism’, hoping the project might constitute an intervention in terms of a critical engagement with discourse production.
-on the other hand somewhat precarious social contexts that are not related to the arts or academia, where the method of vocabulary writing might challenge our own positons and open new modes of reflection, experience and positioning to all involved.
There will be a virtual online space accompanying the laboratories, where writing gets (b)logged, exposed and offered as a tool to other people. As such, the project produces an ever-changing multi-vocal vocabulary. The working method to arrive at this will be collaboration.
A number of guests from various disciplines will join each laboratory, bringing with them entries for the collective vocabulary. Entries are proposals and access points, providing an opening into the ethics and strategy of a practice, and a mode of articulation. Entries will be framed as experiments that we can engage with in various ways, taking into account our contexts. We – participants as well as organizers and guests – will all propose entries, do research, bring and share relevant resource material, and write together or alone where necessary. For example: an idea for “movement” could be a task, an anecdote, a theoretical text, etc, which we will work with, discuss and help translate into practice.
A few preliminary entries from the vocabulary of Paz and Manuela:
“action”, “autonomy”, “collaboration”, “community”, “discourse”, “future”, “gesture”, “learning”, “methodology”, “movement”, “non-specialization”, “performativity”, “practice”, “proposal”, “question”, “response-ability”, “strategy”, “visibility”, “vocabulary”, “writing”…
A print publication relating to the project will appear in September 2008. Laboratories will take place in different contexts and countries throughout 2008 and 2009.
