Generating Bodies

Our research program Generating Bodies will analyze the structure of what it actually means to perform an act in space and time. Therefore the problem of the embodiment of "ideal" contents, the real act of issuing propositions will be the focus of our investigations. In daily life we are used to use our bodies merely as a tool ready at hand to realize one`s intentions. This instrumental character of the lived-body precisely hides the corporal constitution of our lives and thereby makes our bodies forgotten: an "invisible", transparent medium. Due to this fact we do become aware of the corporal constitution of our being-in-the-world in the very instance of a moment only in which the fulfillment of an intentional act breaks down. These fragile incidents are the very occasions where the material conditions, involved in the performance of an act, reveal their own weight and significance. It will be a main interest of our research project to elaborate this precarious status of matter within the performance of an act to show that matter is not only a necessary condition to actually fulfill an act, but plays a significant role in determining the semantic meaning of it. Beyond the goal of proving this claim in theory we additionally intend to realize lecture-performances to demonstrate our claim in practice too. In special arranged art-laboratories leading scientists and artists will work together to develop a corporeal presentation of our thesis that the theoretical concept of what it actually means to perform an act is significantly influenced by the form, how it will be fleshly presented. Both lecture-performances will be demonstrated to the public in a performative way at "Philosophy On Stage #4". This event will be scientifically evaluated afterwards and documented on DVD by the Viennese Art Factory GRENZ-film at Passagen Press Vienna in 2013. The DVD should demonstrate that the idea of lecture-performances becomes a methodological necessity in the very moment the traditional distinction between the "ideal" meaning of a sentence and the real act of issuing it blurs. - A groundbreaking event, because it henceforth will force us methodologically to implement the translational research aspect in the realm of cultural studies as a significant aspect of its research field. These goals will be realized in a close co-operation between the Philosophy Departments of the Universities of Vienna and Klagenfurt, the Max Reinhardt Seminar, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the Tanzquartier Vienna. In the course of our scientific evaluation of the performance-archives of the Tanzquartier Vienna we will, in addition, built up an archive of a Thinking in Movement unique in Europe.

The main task of our research project Generating Bodies (TRP12-G21) was to analyse the precarious role of the body in the context of scientific practices and to make it performatively visible on stage in the context of the research festival Philosophy on Stage#3. The theoretical part of this task was realised by three compilations. Compilation No. 1 Korporale Performanz (Corporeal Performance) demonstrates that for the common rites of scientific practice bodies are not only outward preconditions for the realisation of spiritual intentions but involuntarily play a co-decisive role when it comes to defining the meaning of intentions. For example when, by reference to its material preconditions, the thinking of a thought comes to a halt and ones own body starts stubbornly to resist. In the second compilation Wissen wir, was ein Körper vermag? (Do We Know What a Body Can Do?) we pursued Spinozas question of how the action nature of those bodies must be understood whose activities are not mentally represented. Which kind of physical intelligence is at work in deep sleep, for example? Finally our third publication Scores#4 On Adressing pursued the question of the intelligence of unconscious actions from a cross-cultural point of view. The written contributions to this compilation were also performatively demonstrated in the public space at the internationally renowned dance and performance festival SCORES#6 at Tanzquartier Wien. For the artistic-experimental part of our research project we organised three Art Labs where lecture performances for the research festival Philosophy on Stage#3 were worked out. This festival, which could hardly cope with the masses of visitors (Helmuth Ploebst, Der Standard, 28. 11. 2011), happened at Haus Wittgenstein on November 24th-27th. There, in the course of lectures, lecture performances and by new kinds of discourses (such as the Club of Dead Philosophers), our theories were philosophically analysed, discussed with the audience and tried out sensually-materially to find out about new ways of presenting philosophical thoughts. More than one thousand visitors give evidence to the extraordinary public interest in our new research approach. In the sense of the application orientation of the Translational Research Program (TRP) this research approach, to whose development we have considerably contributed, of understanding Philosophy as a kind of artistic practice is meanwhile applied at several research festivals in Europe. Furthermore, in 2014 the research centre BASE ART/PHILOSOPHY/ECOLOGY PVT. LTD. INDIA was founded in Asia, where our research approach is trans-disciplinarily and trans-culturally applied as a model for artistic-philosophical research.