Documenting the Creative Process

from conception to performance

Part of my investigation as a professional artist focuses on the ways and reasons to document, either during periods of creation, or  when the final artistic outcome or/and performance takes place. How do I get inspired, how do I gather information, collect material, choose what strike as important assets for a project I envision, or I am commissioned to materialize?

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For H.I.I.T. there were multiple layers of inspiration and, therefore, multiple layers of documentation:

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It constitutes of a two-year artistic research.

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A nine-month (and counting) case study experiment, followed by a 30 minutes solo dance performance.

Actually, the performance started for me months ago, when I intentionally engaged into a daily customized H.I.I.T. workout and Intermittent Fasting regimen, as a way to comment on the branding of the body within the Fitness industry. As a dancer and certified personal trainer, I knew that the physical transformation of the body takes time, patience and persistence. Even more so, when the goal is double: to create that image of the fit body that is currently projected through media as a sign of success and happiness, only to subvert it on stage, in a solo dance performance (please visit the https://pmorout.wixsite.com/hiit/body-as-archive for more information on this experiment). 

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Since the beginning, however, I knew that, as I needed multiple expressive tools to build up the universe of H.I.I.T. - it is after all about the immanent potential of identity to be multifarious instead of being delimited to the singular image of the body -, I needed multiple mediums to archive this creative process. This project is so inextricably connected to who I am: my struggle to fit in, my frustration with the way recognition is built from the social construct, in order to discriminate and categorize people, cultures, genders. Often feeling torn between society's "should have and must be" and my own gut feeling and intuition of who I want to be in life, this project emerged and gradually revealed all aspects of my identity - my selves. But it is not only about me. My aspiration is to create the space through this artwork for the readers and viewers to make their own associations, to acknowledge their own potentials, to critically lean on the social norms without being trapped at them. 

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This work is still shaped and crafted, constantly in the process of the becoming. There is a post-human philosophical theory I have been grounding this idea of multiple selves inhabiting one body. Catherine Malabou's theory on 'Explosive Plasticity'. Briefly and with simple words, traumatic, shocking events might and will occur in the course of time. And when that happens, our identity explodes, splits, and a new self is born. One that can deal with with the new reality. The theory goes on to how gradually that new self takes the entire 'space' within the body and the previous self disappears.

But here is where I plunge in: within this temporal process, while being constantly exposed to social and political body image ideals, we experience a personal calamity, as an individual. And that traumatic process takes time. And during that time, it is not so easy to shift from one identity to the other, to discard beliefs engraved in our personality, to relearn how to see, to render ourselves defenseless and vulnerable to possible injuries. And it is ok. Because we can be 'more than one', always in search of a dynamic equilibrium, always in the process of (re)configuring the relationship between aspects through shifting and (re)shaping.

 

Within this context, H.I.I.T. was exposed to a calamity: the Covid-19 pandemic. All processes were suspended, life took over, fear took over. Within this new reality, this project 'exploded' in order to adapt to the circumstances. What was previously a comment on the body that is created by the fitness industry, became also about the body that is created by the theater industry. Online festivals, online platforms, online rehearsals, online classes. A screen constantly interfering. A lack of proximity, a restriction of the senses due to the overloading of visual digital stimulus. This solo piece was created to be performed live. I didn't want to compromise that. But I also didn't want to wait until that moment arrives. Life happens now. The project evolved. Other expressive tools were invoked: if I couldn't have access to a theater, I would construct my own theater. Inspired by the miniature effect in motion pictures, I created the performance in animation, drawing the attention to the way we see, rather than what we see (please visit https://pmorout.wixsite.com/hiit/post/h-i-i-t-apparatus-constructing-a-stage to have a closer look on this artefact). 

 

 

So, how did I document this creative process?

Through writing - academically and poetically -, drawing, crafting, filming, animating, moving. A combination of mediums, whether to inspire and trigger my imagination or to use as elements of a final outcome. I am fascinated with detail, there is a certain labor in everything that I do. Partially because I have a very specific lens through which I see things and aspire to direct the gaze of the viewer towards the same direction. Partially because I might be an unidentified case of OCD.

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So, what connects all my seemingly different means of expression? From projected space to reality, from black and white sketching to mainstream filming to performing live, it is the storyboard that is evident in all forms of creation/production. Inspired by films and film-making, it is the framing of elements, the dynamic equilibrium between the elements that enables the creation of this artistic project.

Similarly to the canonical idea of how film and video media gets presented, such as the prologue, the main core, the epilogue, to the way animation films always begin from drawing the characters and the story before they are put to motion, my performance aspires to comment on the canonical ideas and expectations of how the body gets presented.

There is a prologue, a main core and there will be an epilogue.

There is a storyboard, a soundtrack, a trailer.

There is a layering of mediums and a layering of selves.

in search of a dynamic equilibrium.

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