Hana Magdoňová
Putting the human body into the physical extremity (either with ecstasy, trans or deprivation) is bringing different conditions for awareness and perception of reality. Transformative liminal space-time, linking us to collective unconsciousness, a sudden understanding of the principles, and meeting mythological archetypes takes place between temporary chemical re-set of synaptic connections of the brain. And yet, the inner experience steps out of the brain and in a changed corporeal form reaches the environment and reacts to it. How influential might the output be? Could it heal? Could it foretell the future? I am fascinated by the potential and power of the liminal pre-formed, hyper-sensitive and fragile body to penetrate through established material reality and re-create a new one.
This knowledge which was so obvious to our ancestors, had to re-discover with intellectual retour. Fortunately, the performative turn in the 60s disrupt the dichotomy of artist and spectator and brought them back to a common experience that is closer to a healing or spiritual platform than and artistic one.
Instead of dealing with objects or situations in material reality, it stresses the active approach of performativity, the shift of perceiving reality itself. It is becoming a method of aware experienciality, which we can find in different forms of spiritual practices.
As a performative artist and researcher, I am developing my practice on body and senses based exercises to challenge my perspective and share it in a collective experience. Also in the theoretical part of my work, I am searching for the framing in rituals and spiritual practices as well as in more current approaches to posthuman theories. Through phenomenology and deep ecology, I work with concepts such as embodying, becoming, corporeality, and feedback loop to apply performative aesthetics as a method of posthuman theories. Are we able through this performative practice to shift out of the anthropocentric approach and get more sensitive to the surrounding environment? Can we apply spiritual experiences to realize that we are in deep connection and common dependence in multi-species collectives?