Episode 06: Self-Technology Of Becoming with Annemijn Rijk

Annemijn: Hello, good evening. So I am Annemijn, thank you for your introduction. My intention for this evening is to speak about the work of Bart and Sedrig, but also just to get to know them a bit better. And in my personal opinion, that’s always done best in a more relaxed atmosphere. So I’m trying to cultivate that tonight.

And I also think that getting to know someone best, works best, when we also open up ourselves. So I think in relation to the theme of this evening, an interesting fun fact about me is that I’m indeed a choreographer and philosopher, but I’m also an ultra-endurance athlete. So I run anything longer than marathons and full triathlons, hence the Ironman stickers on the laptop. But yeah, transcending the natural limits of our body is something that’s very close to me in my work and as well as in my private life, which exists almost exclusively out of training. As said, we will start the evening with interviewing Bart, but shortly let’s have a little look at the objective of the evening. The activation seeks to uncover the profound meaning behind the creation and embodiment of artistic expression. And we will examine human urge to transcend the limitations of our natural state, pushing beyond the inherent boundaries of the body. Sounds maybe a bit abstract.

But we will get concrete later on. And yeah, as mentioned, I’m also a philosopher and I thought for this evening, it would be fun to do a little bit of that. So I’ll introduced a little bit about the post-humanism in tonight’s interviews. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard about it, that’s normal. You will learn a little bit this evening.

I will introduce some short snippets of theory and discuss this with Bart and Sedrig and this won’t be something unfamiliar because I drew my inspiration of talking about the post-human by looking at their works, which is actually, I would say very much finding its place and shape in the context of post-human philosophy. But yeah, let’s get started. Let’s start with Bart. Can you please give a little applause for Bart?

Hey, how are you?

Bart: I’m good, thank you.

Annemijn: I said this to you before, but this is like a home football match for you, right?

Bart: Correct, I’m from Eindhoven.

Annemijn: You’re from Eindhoven, you live in Eindhoven.

Bart: A Gelderopp, I’m born in Gelderopp. A small village. A small village nearby. Close by. I have my studio in Eindhoven, yes.

Annemijn: And you live here also.

Bart: Yeah, yeah.

Annemijn: Cool, nice. So Bart, we know you as a designer, but we’re speaking tonight about identity, transforming identity. You’re a designer, but I also see you make work in costume design, film, installation. Could you maybe introduce the evening a little bit by telling us how you would identify today in this moment?

Bart: I think that difference every week, well, no, every month, because I like to do different fields of design or performance or video art, everything combined a bit. And I also like to transform my whole studio then. Like literally. And so this week I’m doing a lot of embroidery. So I would say I’m a textile artist.

Annemijn: Okay, great. Cool. We’ll challenge that a little bit later in this interview. So because you, as you said, you use all kinds of media and outlets to create your work, but also to share your work and to develop it also, I think.

Bart: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think many times something could be a performance and then I think, ah, actually it’s quite nice to film this and then it becomes a film or it’s a film, but I think maybe it’s nice to develop the film into a textile piece and then so it’s flowing a bit.

Annemijn: We spoke about it before, right? That it doesn’t have one shape, but that sometimes an idea gets better once you transform it into another, maybe from film into installation, into performance. And then kind of…

Bart: I quite like that game of changing the, yeah. It’s sort of a sport to, sometimes it’s years later that I think, ah, actually if I look at it now, it should be going into another discipline.

Annemijn: So you have works of years ago that today or tomorrow could be changed into something else?

Bart: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ideally, I don’t know why.

Annemijn: And would a work ever be finished then?

Bart: No, I don’t think so. No.

Annemijn: So you don’t have an ideal that you work towards when you start?

Bart: Like at the, sometimes I think in the moment that it’s finished, yeah. I think it’s nice to look back on it and then continue because I had a fascination and the fascination is not gone by working, actually by working on a project, the fascination only grows bigger. So yeah, then it makes sense for me to continue the topic or the thing that I was fascinating about.

Annemijn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you ever grow tired then of this fascination? Is that maybe why you stop at a certain point and then pick it up later?

Bart: Most of the time I stop for practical reasons, but it has to be finished. The budget is finished. The budget is finished, or we have a premiere. That’s the reason to stop, but I could continue, I think. My inspiration flows quite naturally, I think.

Annemijn: Cool, so when I see your work and when I studied and did my research, it was very clear to me that I was confronted with something new. So for me, I couldn’t really place and say, oh, this is good and this is bad, but I was really observing a phenomenon that was doing something with me, also now the sound is so crackling, tingling, provoking a sensation in me that I first had to observe what was happening with me when I was watching your work and I was asking questions of what does this do to me? And therefore, I couldn’t really put it on a distance and judge about it or have thoughts about it but it became immediately part of my own physical sensations which I thought was interesting, but also it is a way of perceiving art that was, it’s not entirely new to me but it’s present in all of your work, I think. Is this something you actively look for to solicit the audience’s body?

Bart: Yeah, and I think it’s quite nice that you actually analyze that because that’s my whole game of, like to, because many times I’m trying and that is more almost feeling that I never really make something ugly or beautiful or scary, it should be something in between so that you exactly don’t judge or make it easy for yourself. If you’re like in this area that you think, yeah, I can relate, I can’t relate to the whole image, but I can relate to the feeling of the body.

Annemijn: Do you also have that sensation when you are making it?

Bart: No, no, because then sometimes I have that when I’m making the edit of the work. Because many times the sound element makes the balance, for me the correct balance.

Annemijn: Right, because in the creation there’s multiple layers that you have to, there’s the design, there’s the concept, there’s also the video, the lights, sounds.

Bart: If you really see the raw material, it’s most of the time very funny.

Annemijn: Without any sound over it.

Bart: Yeah, you see the struggle, because it can be also a bit intense or weird for the person in there. So if you see the, yeah, that’s not the feeling that I want to bring come across.

Annemijn: No, no, so our shape later in the edits maybe in this case.

Bart: And then I try to find the balance. Also I like to play a little bit with boredom as well.

Annemijn: Yeah, I also think in my own personal work I also try to engage the audience and heighten their senses, not by putting all kind of stuff on them, sound, light, music, but to take layers away, which I also think your work is quite purified in a way, or how should I say, it’s very precise. So there’s no noise, no unnecessary noise, let’s say. Yeah, which makes it very direct. Directed or directive.

Bart: My friends they don’t think that it’s precise. They always think that I make a mess.

Annemijn: This is interesting because this is my next topic, speaking of identity. So you mentioned once in an interview that you have a face that people tend to forget. Yes, uh-huh. And also that you work and that you said, I work for the project, for the innovation of materials. My work is not based on personal experiences. And your father is an impressionistic painter. And as a young boy, you were also allowed to paint like him. But then you said his work is maybe a bit nonchalant. And that you said this is something that also you recognize in your own work.

Bart: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I think that’s why my friend thinks that I’m just doing random stuff. But because I like when it looks, yeah, it looks that I didn’t put in that much effort, that it looks effortless. But I put a lot of research in there to make that come across.

Annemijn: Would you say that when you work, for example, with shaving foam, that you would let the texture of the material do its own thing so that the artwork can kind of happen by itself?

Bart: Yeah, yeah, that’s important. That’s very important.

Annemijn: But you do a lot of research before in order to know how to direct that.

Bart: Yeah, because I think if I would sculpt it myself, it will get a bit kitsch or something like that. Too forced.

Annemijn: Have you tried that before?

Bart: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it doesn’t work for me. So there should be like a sort of design principle that I can semi- control. Yeah. And that the end result is, yeah, that surprises me as well.

Annemijn: Does that always happen?

Bart: Yeah, and if it doesn’t happen, then I think it’s not good for me. Yeah.

Because then it doesn’t surprise me and I literally see my own handwriting in there. I really see that I forced the material in a way.

Annemijn: Yeah, you don’t like that. Yeah, so because also I read somebody, you said I’m a designer because I let the textiles, and the objects do its work, and I don’t put my personal stories in there. There’s not a narrative you want to communicate. No, you just want to let the work do its own work.

Bart: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s almost like maybe that it’s a trailer of a movie that doesn’t exist. So very abstract, you sort of get the point. It’s also the length that I like. One and a half minutes, it’s sort of my length.

Annemijn: Yeah, that’s very short.

Bart: The length that I like, yeah. So that’s correct.

Annemijn: And how much work is the whole film? Like how much work goes into those one and a half minutes?

Bart: I think a few months.

Annemijn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the life of the artist or the designer in this case. Before we can go to the post-human, a little bit of introduction to this theory, you first have to understand where this philosophical movement comes from. And the post-human is a reaction on humanism. So humanism has its origin in the Italian Renaissance, so around 1600 and emphasizes the central role of men with attention to the human rational capacity. Men, according to the humanist, is a linguistic and rational being who is able to realize broad cultural, moral, artistic, and economic prosperity by means of his intellectual capacities. As such, it is a particular optimistic view of the potential of men.

And we still very much live in the consequences of this age today still. In the Netherlands, we say we have a knowledge economy. It’s knowledge driven.

The role that universities have in our society is broad. But then there is right now a movement responding to this, which is the post-human. And the post-human, this is a book by Rosi Braidotti, who is actually a Dutch philosopher.

She’s Italian, but she lives in the Netherlands. She’s a key researcher and philosopher on the post-human. And she describes that the post-human involves two domains. Now, the first domain I’m going to discuss with Bart, because Braidotti describes this first domain as biotechnological, future-oriented experiments with new forms of subjectivity. Sounds difficult, but what this means is that philosophers, scientists, anthropologists, and artists working within this domain are researching post-humanist experiences where boundaries between man, machine, animal, and earth blur. Now, this maybe sounds still a bit vague, but imagine maybe some of you have a pet, a dog, or a cat. You could say that it’s not always clear who is the owner and who’s the pet.

Sometimes this dynamic is shifting. And maybe some people have this ayahuasca trip and they feel the voice of the ecological otter breaking through their own autonomy. This post-humanist would call post-human experiences. When I see your work, it reminds me of these blurred categories, of these blurred boundaries between man and objects, man and machine, especially when I relate it to these work Mutants.

Yeah, so I guess in this example, it’s the relation between human and objects, or skin and fabric that is blurred. Is this something you actively look for when making work?

Bart: Well, in this case, I was really inspired by, you know the moment when they finish car in a factory? They have this tube, it’s very beautiful imagery. They have tube lights and then they can see the imperfections in the reflection of car.

Annemijn: Okay, never knew that.

Bart: So, you put like a light grid on top and then you see bumps very easily. So basically, I wanted to make a combination of a car and a human in an analog way. So, there’s no AI because it’s an old work, it’s just real filmed.

I used latex and a lot of shine spray to create this imagery of almost metal that is liquid-fired metal, something in between a robot, car, human, dancer. Yeah, and I just thought that would be interesting.

Annemijn: Because that’s, if I would ask, what is your drive to create and creation that is a mix between a car and a human?

Bart: Yeah, and in the beginning it’s just my own interest. And the challenge of how to make that even. What it then means is something different. It starts with the fascination and this quick idea which inspires me to move on.

Annemijn: And then the meaning maybe is imposed later in the process. Yeah. If it is even there for you.

Bart: If it’s even there, yeah.

Annemijn: Is it always there?

Bart: I think so, but maybe it changes every year a bit if I look back to it. Yeah. But sometimes I put things in there that I forget and then I see it later again and like, oh yeah, that was an inspiration.

Annemijn: Cool, yeah. So, you mentioned now this is a mix between a car and a human, which I didn’t know. So, this is like fitting straight into the ideal of the post-human where we mix these, yeah, these two different categories. But are you consciously putting your work in a larger context sometimes? I would now say, okay, this fits perfectly in the context of the post-human philosophy. But are you actively thinking about this?

Bart: No, not at all.

Annemijn: Your just place your work in the world and then it finds its way.

Bart: Yeah, and I think in the beginning I would make the work with the idea that nobody has to see it even.

Annemijn: Okay, interesting. Yeah. Does this give you freedom?

Bart: Yes, yeah. I think especially in the beginning of my work, when nobody saw my work. It is easier to create.

Annemijn: Yeah, I understand, yeah.

Annemijn: Next to me is sitting Sedrig Verwoert.

Sedrig: Hi everyone.

Annemijn: Hi, thank you for being here. So, like your dancer and choreographer. Yes. To start off, maybe the same question as with Bart. As of today, how would you identify yourself?

Sedrig: I just had a performance. So, I’m kind of in the state of coming back to myself and finding Sedrig again before I can take off again, let’s say.

Annemijn: Do you lose yourself when you perform?

Sedrig: Yeah, I transform or try to transform. Also, the work has different colors and I try to really engage within those colors.

Annemijn: And is that a place that you have to look for outside of yourself in order to serve the performance as good as possible?

Sedrig: Yes and no. Yeah, I think every performance, every piece, every work has a story to tell. And I kind of really want to find almost where is myself and where is the performative state and where do I push myself?

Annemijn: So there’s a state of being that you have to push toward yourself towards in order to… Definitely. Yeah, this is something we will definitely talk more of later because I know it’s at the heart of your work. But let’s have a little introduction also into your career because coming from choreography, I knew the name Sedrig Verwoert quite well. You studied at the Dance Academy in Amsterdam.

Yes. You’ve taken part in more commercial TV shows such as So You Think You Can Dance.

Sedrig: Yeah, when I was 18.

Annemijn: When you were very young. But you also won the Eurovision Young Dance Award, which is not a small thing. This is a huge prize to win all young dancers.

Every European country sends one young dancer to represent them into a competition which is televisionised. And you won it?

Sedrig: I did.

Annemijn: In 2013?

Sedrig: Yes. Special moment.

Annemijn: Yeah, special moment for you?

Sedrig: Yeah, definitely. Because I think when you’re younger and you get into academia, it’s very much… First you get excited and then it’s very technical and then you kind of lose yourself and then you need to be your intern and find your voice again. And then all of a sudden you kind of find a space where you belong and then you represent Holland.

And then you’re like, OK, and then you go, and you win. That’s… Yeah, I think it was very special. Also, the dance scene is quite a small scene. It’s like you kind of know of each other. So also, to meet and get introduced already to that lifestyle and all these young contestants. And yeah, it was fun.

Annemijn: It was really fun. I’m glad to hear that also, because I can imagine it’s also insane pressure.

Sedrig: I mean, it was like… The competition was a competition. It was fierce. And also, a bit political. And then also being of color. Representing it was complex. But within that, I feel I always find my joy. So, yeah.

Annemijn: Good. You were also an associated artist at the Dutch National Ballet.

Sedrig: Yeah, associated.

Annemijn: But you also have collaborated with Beyoncé for one of her works. Yeah. Is there a highlight for you in your career?

Sedrig: Of course, there. I feel like it’s an ongoing conversation with the artistry. And I think definitely there are moments that are pushing you further within your career. Like Eurovision was definitely one of them. Because of that, I got a contract in New York and I was living…

I was like very young living abroad and being there. And I think every occasion kind of creates a better continuation or a flow within the work. But for me, it’s really hard to sit here and be like, oh yeah, that was the highlight.

I mean, of course, to be handpicked by Beyoncé in this world. I mean, that’s for me like…

Annemijn: Let’s mention that. Yeah.

Sedrig: I’m such a super fan. And so that was also just a compliment, not just from ego perspective, but like… She’s seen, They/Them a performance about queer identity, black identity. And she connected with that. She saw me literally. And she was like, I want you to be part of my choreographic team.

So, then she also asked, can you perform? So, like that’s a highlight, but because of the work of They/Them, you know, so it’s like one plus one in a way. It’s like, you never know who’s watching, let’s say.

Annemijn: It’s maybe also who perceives it and what the effect the work can have on those people. Right, of course. That’s a beautiful way of thinking about it. I would like to ask you about movement as a dancer and choreographer. For you, I think a very important theme, as you already mentioned, is transformation and identity.

And identity. There’s already movement in there, I think, transformation, moving forward, moving inward. And then as a choreographer, there’s movement. Could you elaborate a bit about your perception on what movement is for you?

Sedrig: Well, you can take it literally like I’m moving now, but also us together today. That’s movement in space, I feel. Yeah, it’s very minimal. I see it. I kind of register it in everything, in music. But there’s also internally, like you’re moving, you’re changing your emotion, you’re breathing your heart, the blood streaming through your body.

Like, yeah.

Annemijn: Would you say you’re always moving?

Sedrig: I’m always moving, or my thoughts are always moving or I listen to music that puts me in a certain movement motion.

Annemijn: Are you the kind of person that listens to music and then immediately has like a choreography in their head?

Sedrig: Not per se I do kind of I connect with colors and I think of certain emotions, but also Yeah, sometimes when I need to like create or get commissioned to create a performance Yeah, I can do this into music and be like, oh, this is it, but I also try to find innovative ways how to like get the reason to create so finding composers people don’t know and yeah It’s very minimal can be very small.

Annemijn: You don’t need much in order to be inspired.

Sedrig: Maybe yeah, it sounds so cliche I’m so sorry, but that’s really where I’m at.

Annemijn: Yeah, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Yeah, I also think because you made a work called The Ritual which is on rituals and redo passages in which you and transformations take place, and you said about this work that you choreographed a ritual that leads to the identity that you have and which determines all the relationships that you have. What kind of ritual are you speaking about?

Sedrig: You already asked me this one. I was like, no If I think about it today, where the ritual comes from for me was also like I’m growing up in this traditional classical bubble how do I deviate from it and what are my like the rituals we have like also I was born in South America and Suriname, where we move differently so from a cultural aspect the ritual came actually and then it kind of transform in the day-by-day rituals that we have very simple like even the praying, eating, the way you shower the way you make your breakfast like very like the basic human things and then just in between with coming from post-colonial background and then also finding your way within this structure of Western performance…

Annemijn: Yeah, and the institution you have to deal with.

Sedrig: This gray area in the middle but taking both in a way and navigating so this is a bit the idea where we I say we because it’s also the music like the instrument and the sound the color the cast.

Annemijn: How would you how do you translate it to the body to actual choreography?

Sedrig: It’s a physical internal reaction I kind of feel I kind of sense and then it’s very much also dialogue with the team that you’re working like what does it mean ritual? What’s your ritual? How are we connected within that ritual? But yeah, it’s a physical reaction. It’s a physicality that comes from within I guess.

Annemijn: Does it mean that you have this concept or idea, inspiration and you go into the studio and the body tells the story to you or reveals itself to you?

Sedrig: Yeah, that’s beautiful said sometimes I feel… Lately I’m very much spiritual in the sense of I see that the choreography talks back, so like when you I also connect with what Bart says with reworking stuff or re researching but yeah, sometimes I’m in the studio and I give myself tasks and I just do it over and over and over and over and over and over again and then maybe within that whole session of the week of improvisation and task, there’s maybe one movement that I get inspired by and I’m like, that’s it and the rest I maybe collect as data for later.

Annemijn: Yeah, yeah, but that one thing then speaks back to you. Yeah, hello. Here. I am here, you must pick me.

So with Bart we discussed the first domain of the post-human and I would like to dig into the second domain. So a little bit of a little bit of theory incoming again. With Bart we discussed in the first domain we concluded that the research done is blurring the lines between man machine earth object, etc. and now these kinds of experiments within the post-human are interesting, but the question remains: What do we do with them?

What does this mean? And a second domain of Rosi Braidotti’s post-human concerns the question of direction, and she writes in her work that one needs at least some subject position which becomes the platform for political and ethical accountability and affirmative politics. Now unfortunately, it remains unclear what this exactly means and this is also the weaker side of the post-human debate, but it does mean that this conclusion is still open. So, we are doing research beyond the certain boundaries that are set by our rational way of thinking but we don’t know what it means and we can translate this into question such as: How do we take the voice of the other or the ecological other serious? How do we communicate with the sea?

How do we let a mushroom tell its story? We have these we can come up with these questions, but we don’t know how to answer them yet. And what I wanted to ask you Sedrig is that what this actually implies is that it’s for us as humans impossible or at least very difficult to fully understand the perspective of the other and right now in the post-human domain this is the sea or the rock or the plant but not so long ago in the humanist domain and especially or I must say crucially in Europe where very humanist movement was founded the other was anyone not looking like the white straight man the male ideal on which the humanism was actually based. So that could be the child or the woman or the enemy but also the black man and I know that within your work being the other and being seen as the other or respected as such is also a driving force, I feel like you want to say something about that.

Sedrig: I mean, it’s not that I picked it It’s like not that I woke up and like I want to be this spokesperson for the other but I think when you work and you get the privilege to be in certain situations and you’re aware of your privileges, let’s say then how do you translate that in the environment and for me like I come from a very classical background where I’ve always been the only person of color.

But also, just like talking about contemporary art and contemporary dance and physicalities and different narratives culture or dance. Is it contemporary dance like all these discussions. I feel yeah, it’s my responsibility to kind of touch upon so yes being in Associated Choreographer I was the first choreographer in years that entered the building of Dutch National Ballet and to kind of they then want to put you in a box and I’m like no actually I really want to talk of different subjects and also I want to use different bodies so that also connects to the next piece I felt it was my responsibility to always speak the different or the they/them or she or the gender non comfort like I was the one that was like no, let’s go left instead of right and I feel that’s I’m again going to go with a cliche like Nina Simone said ‘I like how can you be an artist and not reflect the time,’ right? And I think like now within political like the conversations. Yeah, I need to address certain things. That’s also where the physicality comes from, the force.

Annemijn: And do you feel this responsibility of okay I must address this within the position that I have in the world in which I live I cannot ignore is this something that gives you power, or do you feel like it limits you because you feel like I must take this responsibility again.

Sedrig: What do you mean with power? The power that I feel?

Annemijn: That you feel I would say that you feel empowered to do so to step into an institution like that and say guys we’re going to do it differently from now on because I entered the building, and you took me in.

Sedrig: I’m a rebel in a way. So, like yes, and no so like I have my artistic practice and I have my dreams and my visions like what like Bart said before like you want to try things out and you want to experiment and sometimes in big institutions they don’t have time to play around they you know, it’s it’s cha-cha-cha and for me within those cha-cha-cha you can still play and yeah, it has to definitely to do with resilience and also perspective like throw a stone and I’ll use it and say with it in a way.

Annemijn: So last question before we go to the double interview. What is for you a body?

Sedrig: Wow! I feel knowledge in a way. There’s so much within that can come out I feel stored in the body. Yes, I just created a piece where we were really researching generational trauma and black memories, we call them so I feel there’s a lot of information within the body that can come out but also a body is yeah, that’s I mean to work with a performer that can translate that what’s in my cookie head. That’s magical in a way it’s very intimate. So, like it’s I don’t want to be superficial and quick-witted. But like, my relationship to the body is very almost a spiritual thing.

Annemijn: Mm-hmm. There’s more that we can show which is collaborative work between you and Bart. We can have a conversation with the three of us and you gave me the subtle hint when we spoke before about a piece that we should start with because this was also the start of your collaboration, and it’s called Woven Bodies.

Sedrig: We didn’t rehearse no, I think what was so special first of all to start like I did my homework and I was aware of Bart’s work and I was very attracted to the work but also like I got a physical response and so we already had in mind that we actually kind of wanted to reach out to each other without knowing without knowing without speaking and then Bart invited me actually to be part of he had a he had a plan and he was like I would like to collaborate so Bart was the one that actually reached out and extended invitation and the collaboration and this is the first child. That was born out of that came out.

Annemijn: And did you know about Sedrig, Bart? How did you get to know him?

Bart: I think you reached out on Instagram. Yeah, and you said Bart, maybe we can collaborate. I didn’t know your work at the time, but I researched your work, and I did find it very interesting that he like said it’s felt for me a bit animalistic as well what you’re making and for this idea I wanted to create showing now like four years later at Dutch Design Week. It is a long process. I wanted to create like a mix of different body types that sort of roll literally over each other. It looks very easy if you now see this but it’s a puzzle.

Sedrig: It was painful but experimental. To become one and feel one breath that was I think the aim also of it. How are you individual, but how can you become one body?

Annemijn: Yeah, one moving organism. But this was your like you had like this idea of okay I want to make a creation which is just not clear anymore which body part belongs to who

Bart: Yes, and from here I took a still like a film still and I printed it on a huge scale and now I’m embroidering wrinkles so it’s a textile piece with emphasis like it’s nice to show the wrinkles in the butt and the feet here and I did a like three years research to come up with how to make a nipple in textile.

Annemijn: You did a tree or research?

Bart: Yeah, not every day but it yeah, it continued and now I have many different textures and this whole piece is now an embroidery piece.

Annemijn: And where did the fascination come from to make one organism to make one moving body?

Because again, it reminds me a bit of this anonymity which seems to come back in your work a little bit.

Bart: Yeah Yeah, here literally now we see here, but this is the end of the film we see some faces like, but my plan was that Sedrig had to find a way that all the bodies move towards the camera, but the faces are always facing away. And I think then you get really like beautiful sculptural pieces in the in the spine and in the back because you don’t see the face it’s harder to know which body part but of course you have the different colors of the skin, that gives it away, but yeah.

Annemijn: Maybe it becomes also harder to recognize…

Sedrig: It then becomes very personal like then you’re like you’re seeing Aina you’re seeing uh, Rebecca, but like to almost undo the identity to not place yourself like hey I’m Sedrig, but to feel really one…

Annemijn: But it also gives me this feeling of a like a universal body. I can’t see who’s in there if this is a male or female how tall where they come from. You know these lines maybe blur a bit. Is this something you’re both interested in or maybe that is a common ground in your collaboration the search for this, let’s call it the universal body for now.

Sedrig: Yeah, yeah? Yes and no. Sometimes I just feel like that’s part of the world we’re kind of creating it’s not really about gender specifically or it’s more about like an entity I feel, an energy then giving something an identity because when you give something identity then you get all these questions like, what is it? Is it this and that?

Annemijn: Yes, it’ll be more about taking away actually, you’re blurring it or making you wonder what it is. Rather than putting it out there.

Sedrig: Yeah, I guess.

Bart: I think in general our collaboration is we talk a lot but not really about what we’re making, right? It’s just about daily stuff and then meanwhile we are creating and then it makes 100% sense and if we look back and, you make a lot of films on the research and we look back and then we immediately see which part does work and a little bit, we both think okay, this part is great.

Annemijn: You’re both very intuitive people.

Sedrig: Also.

Annemijn: I still like to dig a little bit into you met, you’ve sent a message on Instagram and there’s five very successful productions. What happened in between? How do you how did you learn to read each other’s language?

Bart: It is also four years later from that message. So, it’s not like five successful things in a year. Like it took us some time. Yeah, I don’t know. You know, you start a collaboration if it didn’t work out, we wouldn’t collaborate again. Go with the flow a bit and that’s why you continue and that’s why it’s working. I like that Sedrig doesn’t think that ideas are crazy and also the other way around. And we see potential in even a garbage bag. We can make something beautiful out of it.

Annemijn: I mean, you’re both quite modest people. You’re both willing to work with anything as long as it… You don’t have high standards like I only want to work with this kind of quality or these kinds of people or…

Sedrig: I also think like again, we as adults sometimes forget to play and I think that’s what I love the most of like collaborating with Bart like we can like throw something at each other and we’re like, no, no. And then we’re like hour later you see me running in the studio or like Bart is like try this or like it’s, it’s playful It’s like, it’s a dialogue. It’s an understanding but also, I think what makes it a rich experience, sorry to be a bit cockier with that is because he also is multi-disciplinary in a way and I approach my work from a multi-disciplinary aspect so like then it’s, there’s no limit basically in a way. So, I think that makes it exciting to work with Bart and yeah, all the like my dancers that I they know and appreciate like it’s like a little family and also still the challenge and the work is still there.

So, it’s not like oh, we’re comfortable. Let’s make pretty productions. No, it’s we do feel and then connect and then brainstorm and rework and I think when you have a formula and instead of like producing and getting empty and getting burnouts and like you can call it whatever like rework that with what you’ve done already and try to go take it to another level.

Annemijn: Is this also something that you recognize Bart the sense of play when you’re both in the studio?

Bart: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and but also, it’s serious playing.

Annemijn: Ambitious playing.

Bart: Ambitious playing. But I can say that Sedrig is a skippy ball. Can you see what you can do with that and then I record that and that’s the example with Wave.

Annemijn: Yeah, good! So, with regards to the time, I would like to maybe open up the floor.

Audience: Yeah, thanks, that works. Maybe it’s a question for you, Annemijn. I was wondering in the beginning you talk about Humanism and it’s a lot about rationality. How is that in post humanism because what we’ve seen tonight here is that for me what comes out sometimes, I’m not good in getting the words out but, there’s a lot about play and intuition and feeling and connection is the position of rationality changed in post humanism?

Annemijn: The rationality is still accepted in post humanism, but it’s not limited to humans only. So, for example, there’s research now that plants for example also, can sense gravity and see gravitational fields beyond what we are capable of doing. And trees are communicating with each other and scientists even speak of trees in ways of friendships and helping each other which are human like traits. So, this rationality is still present in the post human. We don’t delete it. We don’t say this was stupid of us, but we extended maybe beyond only human beings.

Audience: Exactly the way you explain it becomes broader also; the boundary is also changing.

Annemijn: And it’s so tricky because we then we think oh so the sea can think but this is not what it is, but we have to train ourselves in new ways of thinking what kind of autonomy does the sea have or how does it evolve itself, for example, beyond logical thinking and that is a huge challenge that we are facing and steps have been made. So, Bruno Latour, for example, is a philosopher who says there should be a parliament of things. Mountains should have rights and actually in Colombia rivers have now rights. They deserve to be clean, for example, and this is kind of stretching the ideas of what is limited to only human beings which is very exciting research. But we’re not there yet. It’s not you know; we don’t have a fixed ideal yet. Which I also like by the way, but there’s still lots of research to be done and the nice thing is that there’s research to be done, there are scientists, there are philosophers but very much also artists who are showing us what is possible beyond what the paradigm that we were familiar with before. And for me that’s so present in both their work which I think is so exciting. And also, it helps me, looking at your work helps me to understand post-humanism more. Good! Thank you so much for your time and your attention. Thank you for being here. They will probably still be around. So, if you have a personal question, this is your moment and yeah, thank you for being here. Hopefully see you next time. Thanks.