Brigitte Wilfing
The unrepresentable and the pathos formulas of the present. An etymology of gestures in motion.
I am interested in gestures as a form of motion and perception oriented towards the world, as a contact of inner and outer world. I want to proceed from poses to gestures of participation, of togetherness, from representation to being present. Here, gestures as a materialisation of culture encounter the body as an agent, 17,000 feeling bodies in the palm which, turned to themselves, stimulate the voice or organs, and turned outside, enter the sphere of a potential intent of We. Gestures generate identity – in the body, the family, culturally, politically. Their often ideological meanings do not leave motion untouched. Their place is not the mind alone. In the act of permeation, they concrete to become the flesh and blood of movement. Reappropriation. Becoming subject. Through feeling. Following the trace where the gesture abandons its physical purpose and unifies in abstraction. To the source and onwards. Defying the generation and globalisation of gestures through the internet and technology by sensitivity. Not in order to defend national identities, but as a gestural plea for the receptive and the unrepresentable. For opening a poetical space in one’s own body as well as the body of society. Plural and polycentric.
BRIGITTE WILFING (AT) focuses on choreographic works situated in the transition area between visual and performing arts and on artistic research, where she initiates and participates in collaborative projects of artists and theoreticians. Her solo-pieces and her works at the interface of new and experimental music and movement in collaboration with contemporary music ensembles and composers are shown at home and abroad.
2013/14 she conceived the script »stop listening start screaming« which was premiered at the Junge Oper Stuttgart.In 2014, she co-curated the discursive performance festival OPEN for the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and from 2012–2014 co-managed the performance evenings of the University’s department for transmedial art. Co-curator of the series Performance als Lecture (Kunsthalle Wien) and the symposium and laboratory pornonom (Tanzquartier, WUK). Since 2011 she has been a member of Im_flieger_team.