TRANSIT A

3 DAYS OF RAIN (WITHOUT SNOW)

Transit A - 3 days of rain (without snow) is first in a series of performances for video composed collaboratively with bodies beyond the human. Considering Bio-semiotics as a launching point for an experimental sympoetic composition method, Transit A documents the performance of a visual score, co-composed with site, and local weather at 61.562905, 23.092831. In unseasonable mid-winter warmth in 2020, the snow melted in this Finnish region, the sudden thaw unveiling crushed plant life, disrupting hibernation cycles, and melting the thick ice of the nearby lake. Created over three full days of this climactic event, the visual Rain score marks a small portion of atmospheric movement, a record of land, time and weather, composited into a performative score for four bodies. The gestures performed within the score were formed as interpretations of the angles, speed and volume of rain patterned across the duration of it’s composition.

By foregrounding the site, and weather bodies as active participants in the development of the composition, Transit A seeks to affirm the agency of forces often relegated to the background of human endeavour. 

This Rain Score positions these non-human agents (forces, materials, bodies) as equal collaborators in the development process, grappling with modes of respectful engagement and interpreting the ever-present, immanent languages of more-than-human ecologies. Challenging the anthropocentric habits that can creep into site-based inquiry, this process wonders how human makers can de-center themselves, and instead respectfully engage other entities to create something that shifts in the uncertain territories between the human and what lies beyond.

Performance for video

Featuring Ana Tiquia, Rebecca Wyn Kelly,

Guilia Mattera, Rachel Pursglove

Assisted by Christian Bishop