" (...) it is not enough to have a movement, nor even a behavior, it requires a bad behavior [misbehavior], a deviation, a sidestep, a hesitation, a transgression, a form of strangeness that deviates from all logic. Only in this way can the object conceal its nature as an artifact, emancipate itself from its dependence, and become something else. To become another – one that faces the human, that escapes it, that challenges it." Emmanuele Quinz
Intent Note
Revisiting Sensations
BAD BLOCK invites humans to revisit the listening of their sensations and to let themselves be surprised by the place that their interiority, intimacy, and imagination can take in this collective experience.
Tools of Relationship and Empathy, Mirrors of Our Humanities
Our blocks were initially designed to spatialize sound and manipulate it infinitely, which in itself is already an exciting research project. But it was during our first laboratories with the public that we discovered how much these small sound objects, in addition to their poetic and suggestive potential, imposed themselves as tools of relationship, sharing, and empathy. Over the course of our experiences, we observed humans experimenting with a unique relationship with the autonomous objects entrusted to them. A singular experience resonating with the intimacy and personality of each, amidst the equally unique experiences of other participants. From these multiple experiences emerges a vibrant, generous community rich in complex emotions.
Contrary to what one might project onto these technological objects, cold, impersonal, and closed in on themselves, the blocks strongly stimulate the imagination. They are like paint or clay: they can represent anything. The difference is that they impose no image; images arise from the projections and imagination of the participants. Beyond their power of suggestion, the blocks are operators of relationship and openness to oneself, to others, to the world. Despite their appearance, they possess a true personality and engage us at the core of our humanity.
What touches us in this theater of things? What are these objects charged with for a life to manifest in them? For us to lend them autonomy and intentionality, even for us to become attached to them? And what does all this say about us, humans?
A Reversal of Anthropocentrism
In the introduction to his essay titled "The Behavior of Things" (2021), Emanuele Quinz addresses the question of the reversal of perspectives induced by the representation of "a world inhabited by subjects other than humans.":
"At times, [the object] makes us forget its status, it suggests other possibilities. In the absence of believing it, we begin to doubt: can an inanimate object, under certain conditions, come to life? Can its movements, under certain conditions, become behaviors? In other words, can the artificial, under certain conditions, become nature? All these questions force us into a reversal of perspective. This is precisely what is at stake in these complex ecosystems where the living and technology intertwine in relationships of resonance, similarity, interdependence, and where it becomes difficult to understand the chain of causes and effects: a subtle but radical reversal of anthropocentrism. By questioning the behavior of things, we aim to consider how things question us."
BAD BLOCK is part of this research that aims to create a reversal of perspectives in which the human is no longer at the center of the world and attention. By decentering, it allows a shift of gaze towards all that is alive and sensitive in our surroundings. With this change of perspective, the human is placed back in a world infinitely larger, where it is about creating community with an expanded assembly of beings and things, human and non-human. A deeply animated world.
Behavioral Object
The blocks fall into the category of behavioral objects defined by Emanuele Quinz in "The Behavior of Things":
"Behavioral Objects are more than machines or automatons, as their movements are interpreted as behaviors, evoking a form of autonomy, agency, intentionality. They are objects seen as subjects, machines seen as living beings."
Regarding this "living" character of objects, he specifies:
"(...) it is not enough to have a movement, nor even a behavior, it requires a bad behavior [misbehavior], a deviation, a sidestep, a hesitation, a transgression, a form of strangeness that deviates from all logic. Only in this way can the object conceal its nature as an artifact, emancipate itself from its dependence, and become something else. To become another – one that faces the human, that escapes it, that challenges it."
If the "Bad" in BAD BLOCK was initially a nod to a more adult and "dark" version of our work with the blocks, it is today rather justified by this idea of emancipation and transgression of the object that, by behaving, objects to the human and its world.
Keeping the Secret of the "Living"
In BAD BLOCK, the objects gradually take the floor, dialoguing with their humans and sliding from the status of object to that of "living" entities. To create this effect of life, we rely on the principles of theatrical convention, and more particularly on puppetry and object theater, in which the audience chooses to voluntarily adhere to this "illusion," and on technical tricks. Regarding these tricks, we choose - just like in new magic or mentalism - to maintain the secret and disclose nothing to preserve the pleasure of doubt and disturbance and maintain the surprise for future participants.
SF Thrills
"In its finest accomplishment, the SF genre combines ruthless logic with effervescent imagination. And thus it raises the desire for another framework of thought, reminding us that this world where many dystopias have materialized is not the only possible one. That we can diverge. That there is no fatality, and that tearing apart illusions is a prerequisite for the invention of other values, other systems to imagine..." Evelyne Pieiller - Le monde diplomatique - Manière de voir - "Science fiction, eagerly tomorrow?"
BAD BLOCK does not primarily address themes such as human-machine hybridity, transhumanism, artificial intelligence, the destruction or takeover of machines over humans. That said, we embrace a certain ambivalence in the process since Bad Block plays with the codes of science fiction and so-called "genre" films in the choice of climates that succeed one another. Indeed, by relying on a common cultural foundation that contributes to the construction of a collective imagination, conscious or not, we seek for the audience to recognize signs, references - markers in short - allowing them to receive everything that will be more abstract and disorienting in the proposal. And in the palette of possible emotions, we will probably not hesitate to make them shiver with fear...
The Game
BAD BLOCK is an invitation to play, with the device and with others, and to observe what the game provokes, triggers, and calls forth within oneself. It is also an opportunity to question what the absence of play says, in a subtle way, about our adult lives.
Shows as Microcosms
In our work, we position ourselves with the intention of cultivating an ethics of relationship, a reflection on the need to be and act together, in sharing and joy. Our shows and installations seek to create small protected ecosystems, suspended moments, in proximity, where encounters can take place and thought can unfold.
