portfolioyori

Forming groups was an complicated action to take, in the beginning I especially looked out for fellow students that would be able to add something, one of the first times we as a group sat together we sort of clicked regarding our common topics. I noticed Juliet being interested in topics like the cyborg and artificial, and also noticed she has a certain calmness and freedom to the discussions we had. Julia for instance is different she had this fierce attitude towards righteousness and a shape of direction in her working ethics. Tosca brings something else to the table, for me she is the bonus player, the joker which isn’t to be taking lightly but as a person who could assist us to think differently and change our attitude towards a set path. If I were to describe myself as a player in this “transdisciplinary team” I would see myself as a hard worker, one that likes to bind all things together and form new things. I like to bring in “out of the box” topics that could be moulded and transformed into an over-encompassing subject. I think we eventually made this group because we all had the mentality to do something with the topic of sexuality, identity and the future. It also helped to identify each others roles by partaking in a workshop I organised. This workshop helped to understand each other on a meta kind of level. For me this worked very well to get to know the others. For instance understanding how Juliet and I reassemble each other more than the others made it easier for us to work together and with direction and momentum. I will get back on this later on.

The first meeting we had, came right after the last class we got in the first 3 weeks. There is something funny about that class which I come back later to, but I noticed that everything we do effect our direction greatly. If we talked about colonialism we are bound to go in that direction. I think this is related to a sort of openness we partake and therefore anything we encounter gets to be included in our research. Giving the first 3 weeks of lectures and workshops we had, they all in some sort of transformation became a part of our project. Below here are some examples. So at the end of the last class we had to come up with a new story and I also created a little funny sketch, now in hindsight it kind of resembles the Campfire by the Entangled Brians.

Clara's workshop creating multiple storytelling by using 2 inputs

Creating a fictional narrative by Tamara

Using Hyperstition as a tool to form a new approach by Sami

The first couple of weeks on our own felt like a slight shock, regarding the incident with one of our fellow students, we tried to get together as much as possible to perhaps feel a sense of togetherness that was now missing. I instantly noticed that we as a group benefitted from this self organised structure. It gave me the possibility to not only work a lot with my fellow students but also get to know them on a deeper level. This helped me a lot to feel invested and not like just another collaborative project. I feel that's what's also needed in a Transdisciplinary project. Without exaggerating we met on average 4 days a weeks from 10 till 4. This not only lead to a comprehensive research, but also an understanding of the difficulty on taking positions. As I mentioned before Julia is a fierce woman with some strong directions on how to move within the society, and this led to sometimes intense discussions between her and I. I learned a lot about her, but also from her. Not to say we only had disagreements, to the contrary we often had a lot of similar wishes for the world but our approach started from somewhere else. From these talks we somewhat formed our approach to new and unknown topics, and also within our group, I at some point started to talk differently, we became sensitive towards the other.

And this very sensitive approach lead to a new methodology we wanted to create for our project. Whilst talking a lot about a variety of topics we came to understand that it is actually impossible to see every problem, every topic on its own, they are all related to each other therefore creating an entangled network through which we must travel. A lot of these so called wicked problems are to be handled with sensitivity and are to be approached from multitudes of perspectives. This in turn lead to a collection of what we discussed and tried to include these discussions in an installation that represented our proces of the research. For me this also felt like the only option to handle the current research we have done. In the end I didn’t feel like “solving” a problem but rather depicting the intensity, proceses, approaches, methodes, and entanglements of the discussed topics. I at first had the idea of a wanderer that takes the listener on a voyage of our struggles to visualise this collection of works. But eventually, after a some brainstorming lead to a different form of story telling, that of togetherness.

The intense working atmosphere got the toll on some of my team members, though I really liked the way we worked, because it felt difficult and like a struggle, I knew this would eventually produce something amazing. This friction, what I would call it, produces a lot of heat, which in the end resulted in a big campfire. Having this friction, and intense collaboration with each other caused one negative effect to me, it created an effect that I was completely exhausted at the end of the day, this resulted in not seeing the opportunity or being able to fully adhere to one of the learning goals I set for myself. Every week I wanted to create a self portrait which reflected my state of mind. I hope to solve this in the next upcoming 10 weeks, by setting up a small installation in which I am able to just step into and have a moment for myself to reflect.

Thinking of the upcoming 10 weeks I would like to further reflect on what is it that we specifically created at the tryouts. It did a lot for some people, but to go past this, I need to know what happend. I hope after these next 10 weeks we can present something fresh and exciting like the first time, but you would still be able to see a connection between the two pieces.

A campfire gave us ancient tools of story telling, whilst combining this with new technologies we can create a cyborg between humans nature and technology. Combining all research we did, be it mining the voyager for data, creating a fictional story about the golden disk, combining multiple narratives into one whilst deleting the vertical lines but keeping a horizontal playing ground, reading theories from le Guin, that eventually encapsulated everything we had done regarding the installation, all this and more created a cacophony of multi layered storytelling.

I think I managed to do what I intended to do with the installation, by creating a divers medium to translate our research into. Using not only a movie, performance, writing or an installation but bringing these mediums together and merge them into something new.

Listening to a science-fiction music piece whilst watching a movie, Caglar

our favourite songs mixed through each other by Dieuwke

Shortly reflecting on the overall RASL minor, I feel like this is something like nothing before, the amount of assistance and collaboration we get from the teachers is great. At first I didn't really get that feeling, more like being left alone to figure it out myself, but understanding they are here and you can ask them anything, really helped me to get to another level. Then again the fellow students not in my group were kind of absent in the beginnen of the minor. Not until we had to arrange the presentation something happend, and still I felt like an "ox" sometimes dragging everybody in one direction to create something we could be all proud off. Why did I do that, or even why did I want to organise an event that would overpass a regular WDKA presentation, not only to reach another level of a professional attitude, but also to see what the amount of effort people want to put into something potentially great. And I think we managed to do that.

We are not you, we are not them, we are not the other because we belong to you, we belong to them, we belong to the other. They long to not being other, we long to us, together.

Voyagers, as voyager 1 is traveling out of our reach we are too travelling trough space and time as a system, as a planet, as a civilization, as a human being. We will encounter multiple struggles that will align with our trajectory. Every human beeing walks a different path because their starting point is not the same for them. All this will eventually lead to a variety of human beings and at the same time these must coexist together somehow. The voyager 1 contains a set data with it. This data could be seen as the upbring of its being. Does this give the voyager a preconditioned view of us? If the voyager is an living entity, and had an encounter with something or someone else would it be able to handle an situation with the given set of data? Does it need more data that has been provided by its creators?

Juliet: Working with Yori on this project has been great. His passion and drive for his work was inspiring and motivated me at the times I got overwhelmed by all the work that had to be done. He would make clear judgements on what was needed to get where he wanted to go in the most efficient way, and then turning these plans into action, while also allowing enough freedom for an extensive creative process. He is not someone who has to be told what to do but has the talent to sense this and act upon it.

In a lot of ways Yori and I are quite alike, which made for a smooth collaboration. I admire how he handled all the discussions. I can imagine that with all these discussions about gender and feminism in a group with three women (of which Julia can get quite fiery), it could be challenging to him. I can definitely back him up for a change of attitude with more sensitivity.

What could be a trap for him is also one of his biggest strengths: his willingness to give it his all. I think me and Yori sometimes strengthened each other in this, and Julia had to call us back. I hope for the next ten weeks he as an individual, but also Entangled Brains as a collective, will still be able to enjoy not only the outcome but the process itself as well even though Julia won’t be there every day to remind us of this.

Tosca: It was the first time for me working with Yori. We have had classes together often last year, but we didnt collaborate. The reason I wanted to collaborate with him this year is because of our similar interests and topics like self development and love and relationships. I was also curious how it would be like to collaborate with a guy because normally I end up in a group of only wonen.

Yori can be very passionate about the topic he's into. He really took the time to explain stuff about the voyager, which was helpful to me. He is straightforward and cuts through bullshit and prevented unnecessary waste of time. So his skill is to let the group collaborate/work in a effecient way. To me it was inspiring to see that he was open to everyone's input and wanted to take everything into account.

I think for the coming ten weeks it would be nice to explore some common interesses together. Like the topics you spoke about in the first weeks. Self development for example and maybe try to implement that element in our project. Adapting conturbative way of looking at things is self development/upgrading in the end.