Devices of Existence : Contact Improvisation, Mobile Performances, and Dancing through Twitter

Abstract

This chapter reflects upon social aesthetics from the perspective of dance, in particular, improvised dance events that reposition the roles of performers, audience members, and the practices of life that occupy the terrain between performance and life. The relational aesthetics of Nicolas Bourriaud acts as a starting point, but it is necessary to turn elsewhere to develop the ideas of relationality and improvisation so that they are meaningful for a corporeal approach to social aesthetics. This repositioning and deepening is achieved by looking to Jacques Rancière’s writing on aesthetics and Jacques Derrida’s reading of the anaesthetic within the aesthetic. This philosophical discussion is situated in the experience of two performances: “Small Acts,” a choreography by Ben Wright and “IntuiTweet” a mobile media improvisation by Keinanen, Kozel and Rouhiainen. The term ‘devices’ is resonant both of the act of devising and mobile networked devices.