Immediate Transition Between Crawling and Swimming

Abstract

Participant or observer? Within my artistic research practice, I explore the dualism between the active and the passive. In the past, this has related to the relationship between performer and audience, or the act of speaking versus listening. Top or bottom, swimming or crawling, penetrating or penetrated? As part of the 2023 conference of the Gender Studies Association, I further investigated the significance of the active/passive opposition with regard to scientific conceptions of sex and gender. To what extent can the lymphocyte membrane serve as an example for deriving continuous (dancerly) movement that resists classifying anyone or anything as purely active or passive? Referring to the research paper “Amoeboid Swimming Is Propelled by Molecular Paddling in Lymphocytes” (2020), I proposed a simple body exercise designed to imagine and trace inner (membrane) movement. This contribution collages and juxtaposes four of the main elements of my performance lecture at the membra(I)nes conference in Halle.