Around Liminality: A Lecture on Transitions
Lecture on Transitions is a lecture-performance that explores the concept of liminality—in-between spaces or transitional moments that hold creative potential. In the work I consider the edges of experience where transformation occurs. Through examples from my own work—poetic interpretations of exterior happeningsand others, like Bruce Nauman’s studio performances and Nono’s La Lontananza, I examine how the act of lingering in liminal spaces fosters a transition into a new way to think (or read, or perform).
I am interested in the liminal.
The term “liminal”can refer to something "on a threshold" or "the space between" (a transitional space)
In (1994), Homi Bhabha refers to liminality as a transitory, in-between state or space, characterized by indeterminacy, ambiguity, hybridity, and the potential for subversion and change.
In my own work, I find that the spaces I like to dwell in or inhabit are the in-between spaces—an artistic mode that exists on a threshold. I enjoy lingering in the spaces surrounding a subject, moving from one destination to the next, the edges, and transitions. For me, this is a creative breeding ground.
To inhabit transitional space, to linger in ambiguity, and to work in the edges of gray instead of black and white.
And if nothing comes of it, so be it—that’s not the point. At least you went there.
Between 1967 and 1969, Bruce Nauman made a series of films of himself performing various mundane actions in his studio. These range from playing violin and pacing, bouncing a ball, stamping, and all of them usually include walking. In each of them the mundane becomes the subject. In the late 60s this kind of walking as performance art became fashionable—Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and others created works that incorporated some kind of walking. Lucy Lippard calls this the dematerialisation of the art object. kind of exploration of a threshold, both for the performer and, later, for the viewer.
Nauman’s works exemplify a transitory state with no clearly defined beginning or end. He walks the perimeter of his studio in an exaggerated fashion. In Lachenmann’s Toccatina for solo violin, the edges of sound are utilized as a microcosm of something that is 'almost.' The screw of the bow is used to create pitch, the hair of the bow is bowed everywhere but the strings. These sounds mostly associated with the ‘extraneous’ or on the perimeter, and without amplification, you may not even be able to hear the work.
Poetic forms can shape the way we move in the world
