A Workshop with Natasha Lushetich, Joel White and Rowan Lear
The word ‘matrixed’ was first used by Michael Kirby (1972) to describe non-scripted and non-representational performance. The purpose of emergent – or ‘non-matrixed performance’ as Kirby called it – was somatic and kinetic. It was simply to execute the task at hand.
Matrixing is, by analogy, a process of emergent action-based structuring. Different media – sculpture, image-making, musical and object composition, film, choreography and notation – all have different modes of formation and aggregation (of material and immaterial components and durations).
This workshop explored three cross-medial matrixing methods:
Transposition, which uses one or two media different from the medium in which the initial artefact was created to further explore relational potential, e.g. by transposing an image to a sound sequence or choreographic notation.
Layering, which uses sequences from procedural or time-based media (music, film, performance, durational painting or sculpturing) to de-construct and re- structure compositions/artefacts).
Symbolic compression, which uses spatial, temporal or form-based compression to create symbolic resonance, e.g. by condensing the duration of a human life into the time it takes a human body-shaped candle to burn.
