#auto – self – domestication, #self-referenciality, auto-reference-reality, automatic (unaware?) domestication, becoming of pet, learning unaware self– and other, becoming domesticated, #pet, domestic work, auto-reference-reality autodomestication…
As a performer you provide your audience with something that can not be measured in material terms. As regards to the activity that produces the cultural content of the commodity, your labour involves a series of activities that are not normally recognised as work — activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and more strategically, public opinion. As a performer you are primarily a producer of subjectivity.
Typically the artist’s value does not lie in what they “do” but in what they “are”. Now remember for example how Richard Florida described the processes of gentrification caused by artists and creative workers’ migrations – the artists may or may not be aware of the value of their mere presence however on a larger scale they produce “results” by simply existing.
Survival in the (performing) arts requires creativity that goes beyond the artworks one creates. In fact a typical performing artist spends about 99% of their time off stage - as audience member, critic, administrator, networker, friend, advisor, student, teacher and so on. Inventing and re-inventing oneself on and off-stage, adjusting to various situations, moving from project to project, residency to the next, animated by creative energy, training and re-training yourself is the way to move along.
Autodomestication is about becoming what one already is. Autodomestication asks the participants to colonise themselves to the furthest edges of our souls, extend in all directions and go nowhere. This is the first level of this multi-layered performance, which will extend beyond workshop hours and breaks. Infinite moods where one is not fully aware of what type of decision will be asked to be made next, time-based ways of being, spaces of attention, autobiography as a tool of speculation, insurrection of experience and emotions, and non-causal reasoning.
Autodomestication is about you. Autodomestication is the reinvention of the discipline of freedom and performance. When we say performance we refer to “the performance of a vacuum cleaner” or “the performance of the artist” as well as things happening in theatres and circuses.
In this workshop we will not discuss, we will train. We will not think, we will merely be. We will not create, we will react. We will not change, we will stay the same.
Krõõt Juurak
