Final report - January 2009

Caroline Plummer Fellowship Report

Submitted by: Sean Curham
Project title: Four Legs Better Than Two
Dates: 1 Feb 2009 – 1 August 2009

“Four Legs Better Than Two” – a dance in the community project based on the experiences of dog walking. This report covers three areas – the original project aims, the actual event (what really happened) and the future.

Aims:
The project aimed to:
create an inclusive event based on participation
to contribute to the body of research dealing with notions of dance and of community
to bring an open, creative and unrestrained attitude to the project

Key proposals:
That dance is an embodied investigation of sensation undertaken through movement. Suggested is the idea that the potential of dance lies in its positioning adjacent to or outside of language – that it functions at a pre-cognitive sensory level and as such is productive – producing new events and/or experience.
That it is at this level of sensation or the production of sensation that creativity emerges both critically and practically.
That the experiences of dog walking not only embody these ideas but can bring such questions to the fore making them accessible and tangible for the broader community.
As a community, dog walkers generate unique characteristics that offer potential for research into the relationship between dance and community or affect/sensation and the experienced world.

Project detail.
The project was made up of one key event - “Four Legs Better Than Two” and many side projects, including “Good dog, bad man”, “The Longest Tail”, “Dog Park Karaoke” and “Commune/Everest”.
The primary strategy employed to realize this project was to participate in the existing activities of the dog walking community and through this engage with the community to realize a creative event.

Four Legs Better Than Two – Project detail
“Four Legs” was designed to enable participation at many levels – from a 'one off' contribution to a more sustained involvement. This dissemination strategy aimed to introduce the core ideas of the project to the wider dog walking community – and to start a broad process of reflection/participation as to what dog walking offers socially, creatively and critically.
This design can be thought of as tiers of access or participation points.

1.Discussion Boards. At the most accessible level discussion boards were placed in five key parks, Forbury Cnr, Green Island, Wakari, Forrester and Rotary Parks. These provided a question and answer forum and a community discussion point. The boards also enable the wider community to stay informed as to the events and developments of the project.
2.Dog diary/blog. A very informal blog with information on the project. Provided links and sites to which dog owners could contribute. As part of this a 'dog diary' was created – a photo diary of the dogs encountered on daily walks. This provided another point of interest for owners and drew them to the site/project.
3.'One off' interviews. During the daily rounds of dog walking I invited owners to participate in a 'one off', on the spot interview to be included in the project. These were extremely successful with over 60 interviews being recorded.
4.Schools and existing dog owner social groups. The project was also designed as an intergenerational event. Two local schools, Logan Park and Queens High were approached to participate. The discussion and development of ideas continued with the support of teachers Kristan Mouat and Diana Strang. Unfortunately as school demands grew the students had to let go of the project. However what had been in development was a series of 'dog cam' videos made with a camera fitted to a specially designed dog vest giving a 'dogs eye view' of the world. This viewpoint explored by these creative youth offered real potential. In addition to this several events with local dog owners' clubs were participated in, including outings with the Dunedin Beagle Club, the Dunedin Whippet Group, the Otago Canine Training Club and the NZ Kennel Club.
5.Core group. A group of ten dog owners' became involved in the project and formed the core group of the “Four Legs” event. This group participated in a series of shared walks and then went on to engage creatively with the project experimenting and producing personal responses to the project, community and their experiences of dog walking. In collaboration with each participant I endeavoured to develop a 'mini' project – a small and relatively constrained creative response to the bigger work. This step aimed to highlight the creativity embedded in daily activities such as dog walking, and to raise questions as to what these seemingly mundane and insignificant routines offer, as situations that can potentially inform the way in which we experience the world. This strand of thinking looks to the idea that the creativity that resides in how we live our lives – what we 'do' is often overlooked for the more 'skilled' or valued creativity of producing things/artifacts. Suggested here is that the process of community making is an inherently creative activity – both in a critical sense and in practice. Many ideas emerged in the process of creating these 'mini' works – and a significant number were realized – including a three hour 'stream of consciousness' tour around the dog walking areas of St Kilda – created as a sound recording; a photo essay that referenced the structure of the movie 'Smoke', three forty minute video works by Dee Sorrel dealing with different aspects of her local dog walking group – including an entire work dealing with the group of teenagers who were walking the family dog. The teenagers eventually befriended the older dog owners – and effectively joined the group/community.
6.Final showing. “Four Legs” culminated in a showing and social event for all the community – and specifically for those who had contributed to this and any of the other side projects.

Good dog, bad man
Along with “Commune” and “Dog Park Karaoke”, “Good dog, bad man” was a minor project staged concurrently with the larger “Four Legs” event. Undertaken on campus “Good dog” sought to include staff and students in what was otherwise a community based project – and in the process create a link between these two groups – the University and the 'other' Dunedin.
The 'white board' idea was translated into the University context – whereby a large board (with pens) was placed in a public space – and passersby were encouraged to write or draw in a way that contributed to or commented on the story of the 'Good dog, bad man.'
The project looked to ideas of creativity and performance or action in public.
This was a very popular event – each day or so the board was cleaned and the story restarted with a new picture or phrase.

Dog Park Karaoke
Like “Good dog'” this event was originally designed to create an access point to the larger project for staff and students on campus. Being explored were ideas of performance, creativity, and the role of technology. These concerns grew out of the “Four Legs” work. It was hoped that a different audience would produce new and alternative responses that would further inform the larger project.

“Dog Park Karaoke” presented a number of technical difficulties; however a working draft was ultimately presented at the final 'Four Legs' showing.


The work was designed as follows:
“Dog Park Karaoke” is a game.
Recordings of owners and dogs had been made throughout the bigger project creating images in preparation for the work.
On a monitor an owner is presented with an image of their dog.
By selecting the image a message appears on large screen in front of them – 'call your dog' is the instruction – delivered both as text and as a soundtrack.
The owner is then required to call their dog in the manner they would normally – once a certain intensity/pitch is reached a giant projected image appears of their dog running and growling.
The running/noisy dog is overwhelming large and 'animal' in its presence.
This event again aimed at getting at ideas of performance/action in public, scale, intensity and the visceral sensuality of a dogs run/growl/bark.

The Longest Tail
In the process of developing unique 'mini works' with the key participants of “Four Legs” another side project was created in the form of a 'Chinese whispers' camera. A video camera was passed around anonymously within the dog community – those who received the camera were asked to record a short interview reflecting on their dog walking experiences and the community – eventually returning the camera on a set date.
The initial project was started in Brighton. The camera then traveled across Otago – to Wanaka and back complete with twelve interviews. Subsequent projects were staged in Port Chalmers and Portobello. These later projects also involved still images whereby a dog walker would take one photo and pass the camera on.
This approach was employed to create some distance between myself and the community – in the hope that new or unsolicited ideas/perspectives would present.

Commune/Everest
This event sought to translate the experiments of the larger “Four Legs” project into a theatrical or conventional art making context to again engage a new audience and more specifically enable dance studies staff and students to participate.
Reflecting the inclusive approach of the community events 'Commune' invited staff and students to work together and in the process develop an informal collaborative environment that enabled all to contribute as equals.
The project began by looking at questions to do with materiality, performance, representation and the communal. These are concerns that are embedded in the bigger “Four Legs” work – and provided the means to begin a discussion being familiar terms for dance/theatre practitioners.

Following a number of meetings a project event was defined.
Proposed was a work that referenced the performance happenings of the 60s and 70s. “Commune” would be presented as a theatrical mountaineering trip – whereby a group of performer/collaborators would attempt to climb a 5m cardboard mountain complete with mountaineering equipment and summit teams. During the two day event all performers would live on site, cooking, eating and sleeping either on the mountain whilst climbing or at 'base camp' – in real tents pitched around the set. The event was to be performed in the Otago Canine Training Clubs' premises at Forrester Park – and although inside, the buildings large double doors would be left open to funnel the wind and rain onto the set.
Underpinning this work is an ongoing investigation into the differences and similarities in creative potential that exist in each setting, that is the community setting or normal environment vs. the more particular experiments undertaken in an art/theatre/research contexts.
Unfortunately this event was unable to be realized due to financial constraints; however it is being reconsidered for an upcoming show in collaboration with the Blue Oyster Gallery for 2010.


Community, art, creativity.
Central to this project sits the idea that the normal events of daily life (in this case dog walking) are creative. Here 'creativity' refers not only to the familiar use of the term – creativity as invention, as play or even inspiration (manifest as objects/performance/writing or ideas) – but refers also to 'creative potential' in a philosophical sense. This is creativity linked to an argument examining the way in which the world appears or is understood.
Creativity in this sense deals with how the 'real' world emerges – and with this the development of an argument or consistency of thought that can present an understanding of this emergence. From this then comes an 'ontology' largely as an alternative to a Cartesian or Kantian approach that can accommodate or support change without a predetermined outcome.
The particular strand of thought engaged here follows Deleuze through the work of Massumi, Colebrook, O'Sullivan, Grosz and Parr to name a few.
This opportunity enabled the testing of the idea that the most interesting and constructive context for art is not the studio or gallery but in the way in which daily life is experienced.
There are many similarities between the 'constructed' art work/context and the norms of daily life – however experience in the community has freedoms that are unavailable to the conventional artist. In the routines of daily life there is no 'beginning', no deliberation about where to start or what to investigate – no formation of a starting idea or concept around which to develop thought or objects/performance, no agenda – (or the agenda is generated from broader forces – social, cultural and capital) – that there is no 'aesthetic' – and no real content – other than the fulfilling of daily needs. Events are experienced but not recreated or re-presented. This type of experience is very different to a strategic investigation of a hunch or concept. I am suggesting that such experience carries unacknowledged potential in its direct connection to forces inaccessible through a calculated experiment.

The routines of daily living are unpredictable and volatile in a way that art endeavours to be yet can never achieve due to the style with which it is approached. A thoughtful, informed, well researched and referenced project can never approach the disruptive potential found in the haphazard events of daily routines, habits and seemingly mundane tasks of the day.
Continuing this line of investigation it is proposed that daily routines bring contact with events that confront the norms of experience. I am suggesting that the unpredictable occurrences, both minor and more significant, that arrive during the course of routine activities work to unsettle normal experience and in so doing present the 'creative potential' that can alter the way in which the world is experienced and understood. Implied here is that the 'real' world encapsulates a field of potential to which we are connected.
This potential presents as new occurrences and events – perceptions and sensations that offer an 'edge' to normal experience – fleetingly so, before they are acknowledged and codified by our rational needs. In the case of dog walkers these 'new events' perhaps arise as surprises, the unanticipated discoveries and interventions that occur during a walk – from a stumble to the surprise of a cat, an accident, a dog encounter, or weather event.
The project was designed to enable this investigation of creativity to be extended. The key elements were:
Participation: – that creativity is something that is experienced first hand ie in the “doing” – in contrast to viewing an object or artwork that somehow re-presents experience or ideas
Sensation: – that creativity is linked to sensation
Movement: – that new events and sensations are continuously being produced and that this happens through movement.
Singularity: - that experience and or events are singular, being discrete, unrepeatable and constantly renewing.
Dogs: – being instinctive and spontaneous animals they worked to exaggerate how daily routines are constantly altered and interrupted by new and unpredictable events.
Community: – that the making of community and in particular unstable, transient communities like 'dog walkers' reflect the emergence of creative forces that can offer a renewed perception of the world.
Dogs and dance: - this project sought to significantly extend how dance is thought and in the process introduce an extended concept of movement – both involving the human subject and movement in a minor sense – for example how perception involves movement via the senses, natural forces and even matter.
In essence this project explored the idea that dog walking presents new experiences – and that due to the participation of the walker – the fact that the walker is generating or encountering these new events through being active, a new and creative perception is encountered. The suggestion is that this unrestrained experiencing brings forward potential that can alter the way in which community, creativity and art can be further explored.


The future.
“Four Legs” represents a major shift of focus from making for theatres and galleries to seriously considering the potential for work based in the community. Since completing “Four Legs” I have finished another community situated work, “One” a collaboration with the Auckland Old Folks Association (Auckland's original provider of support services for the older person) as part of the Heritage Festival. The work was in four parts and incorporated the oral histories of the last eight members of the Association. Other events included a video wall – a season of performance works and collaboration with thirty eight local businesses. The success of this event and the compounding of ideas from “Four Legs” has further affirmed my interest in community based work.
I'm now planning a number of future events – which includes participating in the 'Living Room Project' with Auckland City, a reworking of 'Commune' for the Blue Oyster Gallery in Dunedin a project with Selwyn Village (a community for the older person), another with the community of an entire street in West Auckland, a dog park work in Pt Chevalier and the development of 'Sensational' a work situated both in the community and theatres for 2011.


Challenges, uncertainties and shortcomings.
“Four Legs” was a challenging project. Although the project was well received by the broader community and key participants I was left with doubts as to how effectively I managed these challenges. A number of unresolved questions and uncertainties in the design and delivery of the project became apparent.
The main concern that arose was the relationship between art and research – and the questions arising from practice based research, specifically art practice as research. (For the purposes of this project dance has been treated as an art from). This concern presented most clearly when considering methodology. Here methodology describes how the delivery of a project has been organized to produce a repeatable and accountable event. Built into methodology are the means by which a projects success can be measured. On the one hand I was aware of the need for accountability – to employ an approach that acknowledged the requirements of the University and academic norms whilst on the other hand the need to allow the potential that art practice can offer via the singular experiences of movement and sensation.
Again the essence of this project was in the participation – in the 'doing'. Being explored was the idea that it is in the participatory moment that creativity emerges, as singular, unique events or experiences. Essential to this is the experiencing of this flow – not the reporting or attempt to define, describe or understand. Such steps towards describing or communicating experience only work to generalize and in the process remove the singular condition of the original finding, and perhaps ultimately causing the experience to be lost. So the challenge becomes how to design a project for which a defining characteristic is that the events and experiences of the work are not translated into language.
During the 'Commune' project meetings, the question of methodology again became an issue. In response it was suggested that the project did have a structure and a process of evolution that grew with the work – identifying and responding to the problems at hand. Does this then present a methodology – albeit one that is unique (and unrepeatable) – arising in response to a particular project?
This was an ambitious project as it aimed to collaborate with the community on a series of experimental investigations. Justifying this approach was the idea that preexisting within the community there is an inherent intelligence, vitality and inquisitiveness that readily engages with the most challenging questions. The project sought to acknowledge these resources and work with the community on these experiments – looking to challenge the familiar. At this point the guarantees or safety net of established thinking are diminished as more uncertainties and contradictions emerge alongside the potential to reveal something new and the previously unconsidered. No attempt was made to generalize or down play the experimental nature of the project.
In spite of the generous and insightful contributions of the projects contributors I was left feeling uncertain as to how they found this approach – and whether or not participants felt adequately informed or equipped to contribute to the project.
Another concern I had related to the body of work predating this event and how collaborators would cope coming to the project 'cold' with no prior knowledge or experience of past works. As I see my work as a continuum, current issues and questions carry over from one event to the next – which means that each new event picks up where the last one left off – and any new collaborator is required to enter the project at the point at which they find it – at a certain level of development, which can be demanding.
Throughout the work I again felt uncertain as to how effective this approach was.
For this work all the normal 'signposts' for a community project were specifically set aside. The project didn't celebrate a particular community or attempt to affirm the status of a minority group – in contrast a thriving and wholly independent group was engaged with – the 'dog walkers' - as a means to question notions of both community and dance.
These strategies focused the project in a particular way – making it primarily about participation – for and by the group with which it was engaged. This approach has significantly contributed to my ongoing research - and will continue to be of benefit. I can only hope that the experience of the project and future incarnations will have a constructive influence for those who encountered the work.


Further reading.
Colebrook, C. (2002) Understanding Deleuze, Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Grosz, E. (2005) Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power, Sydney: Allen and Unwin.
Lepecki, A. (2006) Exhausting Dance, London: Routledge.
Lorraine, T. (1999) Irigaray and Deleuze: Experiments in Visceral Philosophy, New York: Cornell University Press
Massumi, B. (2002) Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation, Durham: Duke University Press.
O'Sullivan, S. (2006) Art Encounters Deleuze and Guttari. Thought Beyond Representation, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Parr, A. (2005) The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.