a performance installation
by Karen Christopher & Tara Fatehi Irani
Free/online: Thursday June 3: 11am-7pm (UK time)
Always Already uses materials, text, sound and movement, to explore the weaving together of plant, human and machine, including human/plant and human/machine hybrids. You’re invited to drop in and out over the 8 hours, and also to stay for the penultimate hour (5-6pm) when the performance aspect becomes a thicker weave. The 8-hour scale references the length of a working day.
Always Already draws on practices of weaving, from Persian carpets and their weavers’ pattern singing to textile machines. Weaving revolutionised the textile industry in the 1800s, subsequently influencing the development of computing: looms were programmed via punch cards, the prototype for computer programme cards. And with weaving, the whole is built of small parts through a time-consuming process often associated with “women’s work”. These histories significantly affect the ways we live and interact, but often go unnoticed — they informed this project.
Through the act of performance, we’ll make a machine which assembles the performance — a machine constructed of 100 Forgotten Questions, which turns the room into a loom, as we focus on the repetition of small gestures, insignificant singly but gaining strength through accumulation.
Supported by Dance4 and co-presented as part of Birmingham International Dance Festival 2021, produced by DanceXchange.
https://www.dance4.co.uk/event/always-already-by-karen-christopher-and-tara-fatehi-irani/
Photos by Jemima Yong