Keyword: Pakarnnatam
Definition: The literal meaning of the Malayalam word 'Pakarnnatam' is the transformation/transference from one character to many characters mentally and physically. In 'Koodiyattam' it is the technique of a single actor performing the roles of multiple characters. Also a traditional method adopted by 'Kathakali', 'Pakarnnatam' is being employed as an acting technique in modern Kerela theatre.
Pakarnnatam is a combination of two words. 'Pakarnnu' (pouring out, exchange, transmigration, translocation, synonym, infection and change) and 'Aatam' (motion, moving, play, dance, comedy, drama, shake, and to oscillate from one point to another).
Take for example Othello and Iago. One actor would play all of the roles in the play. There is a tranformation from Othello to Iago. Another from Iago to Desdemona, and another from Desdemona back to Othello. One actor will play every role. The onus is on 'transformation' through body language, gesture, voice, movement etc. N.b. the 'pre-expressive behaviour' we focused on in this morning's lecture following Euginio Barba.
The crisis or the freedom of multiple perspectives. Discourse.
Challenge and elaboration: This idea, this 'concept', can be applied to the 'social mask', especially in the context of globalization, cosmopolitanism and many of the keywords discussed so far in the introductory session. We adopt a 'social mask' in engaging with different people. In the same vein as Pakarnnatam we undergo a process of transformation, exchange, change etc. This is a global phenomenon. It is particularly applicable to many contexts involving dislocation form one community to another.
Keyword 2: Mhlela:
It is a ritual, a set of actions, often thought to have a symbolic value.
Mhlela, the performance of which is usually prescribed by a religion. It is performed at regular intervals or a specific occasion.
Take for example the months of drought. Mhelela, as an artform/ritual/performance is conducted in the hope that rain will come. It works as a means of prayer. It's not directed or written, but has evolved, almost as a means of spectacle, but a spectacle rooted in religious ritual.
Challenge and elaboration: Those that take part need to suffer. They will cut themselves and bleed as a part of this ritual. But a ritual which we propose is an art form, a 'performance'. The boundaries between ritual and performance blur. N.b. Richard Schechner, 'Performance Studies: an Introduction'.
Now take into account globalization. Las Vegas also suffers serious drought. But as rich Countries/States get richer, poor Countries/States get poorer. Las Vegas can afford to build an exceptionally long pipe line to attain the necessary water from Los Angeles. Eritrea cannot. Ritual provides a means of coping with a serious problem as a community, bringing a community closer together.
Keyword 3: 'Media'. The media as a performance platform.
OED Definition: the main means of mass communication (television, radio, and newspapers) regarded collectively.
N.b. Another definition of the word 'media' comes from anatomy. The OED defines: and intermediate layer in the wall of a blood vessel or lymphatic vessel.
Might these two distinct words be linked. In the same way that blood vessels link different areas of the body, so does television, the internet etc. link different parts of the world.
So why a performance platform? Case study: CERN (abbreviation for European Organization for Nuclear Research). Recent events regarding particle collisions in the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) has prompted huge controvesy. But CERN has been dependent on this controversy to work its way into the public eye, to justify its experiments, to utilise the performative platform offered by the 'media-as-stage'.
Why is this relevent for us in this keywords project? CERN's experiments will fundamentally shake the way in which physicists understand the world. But ought this to monopolise a world view? Context is everything. Relativity is key.
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3 comments:
KEYWORD 3 - Media
Thanx for your words.-)
You inspired me to share some more ideas on the topic...
Given the fact that relativity is the key, is there a reason to believe that a world-view will be monopolised one day?
Sometimes it just seems to me that the only difference between a physics theoretician and a philosopher is in their point of view... one seeing the things from the other end, the other from another.
Searching for a god-particle is like claiming that there is only one truth in the age of postmodernism and only a few people have an access to it. However, context is worth exploring forever, of course...
And yes, CERN definitely needs media to promote itself, and keep competing with the US Fermilab in Batavia. I think it has a lot to do with Euro-centrism, too. Letting the world know that it is "them" working on something that seems to be more ambitious than Madonna's embodiments of all kinds of artistic enterprises (eg. writer, dancer, director, actress, performer...) in only 25 years!:-)
I'm just trying to take those experiments easy, and keep believing in mysteries.
M.
Adam, group 1, Warwick.
A "world view monopolised"... I sincerely hope not but we do seem to be heading that way. Ought we not to embrace cultural difference and acknowledge that 'difference'. Instead of bridging 'cultural gaps', why don't we celebrate them? But I also appreciate that in trying to understand that there are gaps, and trying to understand other cultures, we are in fact providing this 'bridge'. But the important thing is not to mold another culture around, for example, a Western set of values and norms, but to embrace the norms and values of the particular culture being addressed.
In regard to the Higgs Boson, 'God particle': I think that if it is found then its prescence cannot be ignored. There is a difference, I think, between fact and thought. If the Higgs particle is found, it becomes fact. But what we make of that particle, of that fact, the role we want it to shed on our own 'world view', is where thought steps in. Whether a philosopher or scientist (or whatever) fact must be acknowledged. But on the other hand, if fact was never challenged the sun would still be rotating around the earth and we could sail off the earth's edge with a nasty bump... So I see your point!
You're right that we seem to be heading to a "monopolised world view", however, this endeavour has been constantly deconstructed
in today's philosophy, and I believe there's no way back.. (unless sitting under the tree and practice zen-buddhism).
Quantum physics seems to be the way how to "prove", or "justify"
that certain things just are the way they are. They're still
trying to find a common ground, something (at least relatively) 'stable' that would explain what is the nature of the world/universe (matter/energy) and why it is so. It has been done so under the influence of Newton-Cartesian causal notions for a few centuries, then the paradigm changed. But is it the last step before the empirical discovery of a "God-particle"? Won't there be another scientific paradigm needed?
However, at the same time, these are the questions which belong to the realm of philosophy and answering them does depend on acknowledging a "fact as such", and how we deal with it in our interpretations.
I rather see it as a meeting point of these two branches of human activites, without distinguishing the practical (empirical) from the theoretical (linguistic, ideal), because they are intertwined and cannot exist without the support of each other.
Even if they find the particle in question, it just still remains in a theoretical framework, which nature is implicitly "thought-like", "ideological" (in reference to your point on the difference btw 'fact' and 'thought').
Yes, in the history of science, if there had been no consensus as to what "fact" is and what not, we would still have believed in other things to exist, and our perception of, let's say, the solar system would have been different. However, in everyday life, it does not seem to matter that much, and some things are just obvious, tested by ages (everybody knows that falling from the 10th storey will be fatal due to the law of gravity). However, at the same time I do not mean to undermine the achievements and benefits of science, whatever preconceptions and theories it must have utilized in its puruit of 'knowledge'. I'm just being sceptical about that self-appointed authoritarian (monopolistic) style of scientific interpretation of the world.
As to bridging 'cultural gaps', I can only agree. It's about embrace, celebration, tolerance, appreciation, acceptance of the "otherness". And similarly to the physics' dream of "theory of everything", there's no point in searching for a unifying element, neither in the arts nor among human cultures as such. I guess permanent unity hinders creativity from its emergence. Let there be diversity!
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