Living Lab
2018 - Ongoing
A Living Lab focuses on the body as a feelosophical medium and a somatic laboratory for art-in-the-making. Situating the span of a (non)human lifetime as a liminal framework for attending to the everyday with a sense of critical wonderment, the spontaneous and improvisational perspective-shifting experiments in the Living Lab often require the experiential processes of (un)knowing: a destabilization, contestation and subversion of senses that have been made-sense into, normalized, and instituted as facts or forms of knowledge. Responding to the vitality of (non)human companionship and the radicality within these interactions that hold the potential to constitute change, the resulting outcomes of the Living Lab pulse arrhythmically to an intuitively chaotic score and oscillate with the hybridity and multiverse languages of (im)material, (non)living, and (in)animate worlds.
A Living Lab is an intention:
A becoming with a blob that contextually shapeshifts to sense, sense-make, and make-sense.
A Living Lab is a body as a medium:
A critical site for (non)human interaction and experiences of the uncertain and the unknown.
A Living Lab is a thing:
A constellation of emergent blobs resonating from the vibrancy of (non)things.
A Living Lab is a feelosophy in doing:
A doing of intuitive and improvisational thinking-through-making in the everyday.
A Living Lab focuses on the body as a feelosophical medium and a somatic laboratory for art-in-the-making. Situating the span of a (non)human lifetime as a liminal framework for attending to the everyday with a sense of critical wonderment, the spontaneous and improvisational perspective-shifting experiments in the Living Lab often require the experiential processes of (un)knowing: a destabilization, contestation and subversion of senses that have been made-sense into, normalized, and instituted as facts or forms of knowledge. Responding to the vitality of (non)human companionship and the radicality within these interactions that hold the potential to constitute change, the resulting outcomes of the Living Lab pulse arrhythmically to an intuitively chaotic score and oscillate with the hybridity and multiverse languages of (im)material, (non)living, and (in)animate worlds.
A Living Lab is an intention:
A becoming with a blob that contextually shapeshifts to sense, sense-make, and make-sense.
A Living Lab is a body as a medium:
A critical site for (non)human interaction and experiences of the uncertain and the unknown.
A Living Lab is a thing:
A constellation of emergent blobs resonating from the vibrancy of (non)things.
A Living Lab is a feelosophy in doing:
A doing of intuitive and improvisational thinking-through-making in the everyday.
< < < ----------------------------------------------- Unknowing --------------------------------------------- > > >
< < < --------------------------------------- Experiences of Sensing -------------------------------------- > > >
Life...15 second = 15 minutes = 15 hours = 15 days = 15 years = 15 centuries = 15 decades...Death
< < < ----------------------------------- Experiences of Sense-Making --------------------------------- > > >
< < < ------------------------------------------------ Knowing ------------------------------------------------ > > >
< < < --------------------------------------- Experiences of Sensing -------------------------------------- > > >
Life...15 second = 15 minutes = 15 hours = 15 days = 15 years = 15 centuries = 15 decades...Death
< < < ----------------------------------- Experiences of Sense-Making --------------------------------- > > >
< < < ------------------------------------------------ Knowing ------------------------------------------------ > > >
Phone Pre-Touch Plushy (PPTP) Ritual
Video, 5min 47sec, Sound produced by Ryan Wurst, 2020
As part of HARD/SOFT "Vicarious Touching,"
Faith Holland @ Transfer Gallery (transfergallery.com/)
As part of HARD/SOFT "Vicarious Touching,"
Faith Holland @ Transfer Gallery (transfergallery.com/)
Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW): Relaxation and Recovery
Video, 22 minutes, Music by Chris Corrente, Virtual workshop commission by Heavy Breathing (www.heavyheavybreathing.com), 2020
Have you been feeling unfamiliar guttural sensations but have not been able to pinpoint the cause? This virtual workshop has been designed for mind-body-conspicuous humans who experience increased feelosophical flows triggered by the subtle yet rapid changes from living-through-feeling in the technological environment. Through a series of intentional and meaningful synergistic micro-movements, the Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW): Relaxation and Recovery session aims to help you get in touch with your own embodied emotions -- those that are often felt before touched and sense-made before made-sense into. Together, in collaboration with a household cylindrical object of your choosing, we will focus on releasing muscle tension by means of self-myofascial release and return to a paused-state-of-condition that is mindfully present in-the-real-life-now.
https://heavyheavybreathing.com/49-Laura-Hyunjhee-Kim
Have you been feeling unfamiliar guttural sensations but have not been able to pinpoint the cause? This virtual workshop has been designed for mind-body-conspicuous humans who experience increased feelosophical flows triggered by the subtle yet rapid changes from living-through-feeling in the technological environment. Through a series of intentional and meaningful synergistic micro-movements, the Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW): Relaxation and Recovery session aims to help you get in touch with your own embodied emotions -- those that are often felt before touched and sense-made before made-sense into. Together, in collaboration with a household cylindrical object of your choosing, we will focus on releasing muscle tension by means of self-myofascial release and return to a paused-state-of-condition that is mindfully present in-the-real-life-now.
https://heavyheavybreathing.com/49-Laura-Hyunjhee-Kim
Soul (Re)cycling with Raccoons in Human-Time
Video, 3min 43sec, 2020
Soundtrack by Chris Corrente
"It’s a full-moon evening, raccoons! Today, we will learn how to survive in human-time."
"Soul (Re)cycling with Raccoons in Human-Time" (2020) was created while in self-isolation during the pandemic. The piece was inspired from taking short nightly walks around the block and sharing moments of pause, locking eyes with numerous nocturnal scavengers in the neighborhood dumpster.
The work positions a (non)human raccoon as a speculative fitness instructor and playfully remixes zoological studies with language from the tele-fitness industry, specifically that of indoor cycling classes and live stream workout products. By embodying the persona of a raccoon, speaking to and from them on “how to survive human-time,” the (non)human performance becomes a complex site for tending to an improbable future, troubling the fragility of timescales — which time are “we” ready to survive in and whose survival are “we” preparing for. In short, the project intends to explore the indeterminacy of cohabitation-in-the-making for survival: the absurd processes of anthropomorphism that helps humans reimagine kinship with nonhumans and the necessity to share resources and maintain a balanced relationship with all (non)living beings in the biosphere for coexistence.
Soundtrack by Chris Corrente
"It’s a full-moon evening, raccoons! Today, we will learn how to survive in human-time."
"Soul (Re)cycling with Raccoons in Human-Time" (2020) was created while in self-isolation during the pandemic. The piece was inspired from taking short nightly walks around the block and sharing moments of pause, locking eyes with numerous nocturnal scavengers in the neighborhood dumpster.
The work positions a (non)human raccoon as a speculative fitness instructor and playfully remixes zoological studies with language from the tele-fitness industry, specifically that of indoor cycling classes and live stream workout products. By embodying the persona of a raccoon, speaking to and from them on “how to survive human-time,” the (non)human performance becomes a complex site for tending to an improbable future, troubling the fragility of timescales — which time are “we” ready to survive in and whose survival are “we” preparing for. In short, the project intends to explore the indeterminacy of cohabitation-in-the-making for survival: the absurd processes of anthropomorphism that helps humans reimagine kinship with nonhumans and the necessity to share resources and maintain a balanced relationship with all (non)living beings in the biosphere for coexistence.
Nose Nose
Video, 1 min, 2020
Soundtrack by Chris Corrente
Soundtrack by Chris Corrente
A Virtual Lotioning Session
Video, 3min13sec, 2020 * Video has been optimized and intended to be played on a mobile device
Have you been longing for a human touch? A handshake?
Another foreign extremity impress on to your's?
In times that call for constant hand-washing and limited human-to-human contact, "A Virtual Lotioning Session” is about noticing and attending to one’s own body-to-body. Through an intimate yet public presentation of applying lotion to one’s own hand(s), the video performance positions self-care as a doubling act, one that is for others as much as it is for oneself. With a humorous spin on a daily ritual that is simultaneously mundane and absurdly sensual, an emollient-for-skin morphs into oil paint and a hand transforms into a “sensorial canvas,” waiting to be touched by all felt-experiences. As noted in the video, "Time to give your hand(s) some loving that only hugs your hand and no other human's."
Give the attention and care to your hand(s) they desire.
Have you been longing for a human touch? A handshake?
Another foreign extremity impress on to your's?
In times that call for constant hand-washing and limited human-to-human contact, "A Virtual Lotioning Session” is about noticing and attending to one’s own body-to-body. Through an intimate yet public presentation of applying lotion to one’s own hand(s), the video performance positions self-care as a doubling act, one that is for others as much as it is for oneself. With a humorous spin on a daily ritual that is simultaneously mundane and absurdly sensual, an emollient-for-skin morphs into oil paint and a hand transforms into a “sensorial canvas,” waiting to be touched by all felt-experiences. As noted in the video, "Time to give your hand(s) some loving that only hugs your hand and no other human's."
Give the attention and care to your hand(s) they desire.
SQUIRRELING Facial Emotion Detection
Video, 5min, 2020 * Video has been optimized and intended to be played on a mobile device
Soundtracks by Chris Corrente
In this interspecies collaboration, we will walk through a series of movements inspired by the behavioral and emotional responses of Fox Squirrels. In this human-adaptation of squirreling that has been modified for the human body, we will learn how to protect our facial expressions from being identified, universally categorized, and mapped by emotion detection algorithms and cameras, while securely signaling nuanced emotive expressions from one human to another.
Soundtracks by Chris Corrente
In this interspecies collaboration, we will walk through a series of movements inspired by the behavioral and emotional responses of Fox Squirrels. In this human-adaptation of squirreling that has been modified for the human body, we will learn how to protect our facial expressions from being identified, universally categorized, and mapped by emotion detection algorithms and cameras, while securely signaling nuanced emotive expressions from one human to another.
GET FITERGIZED
Video, 4min, 2018 * Video has been optimized and intended to be played on a mobile device
⚡️Brought to you by the producers of Get Fitergized TV for virtual viewers like you!
⚡️“Get Fitergized” includes three episodic sessions that will guide you through a series of simple energy-blasting workout steps you can follow in the comforts of your own pajamas.
⚡️Four minutes for all ages = Get Fitergized!
⚡️Brought to you by the producers of Get Fitergized TV for virtual viewers like you!
⚡️“Get Fitergized” includes three episodic sessions that will guide you through a series of simple energy-blasting workout steps you can follow in the comforts of your own pajamas.
⚡️Four minutes for all ages = Get Fitergized!
[Finger Flexor]: A Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout for the Mind-Body-Conspicuous Contemporary Human
Video (Music by Chris Corrente), 9min 38seconds, 2019
Have you been noticing new guttural sensations but have not been able to toggle off your feels or pinpoint the cause?
[Finger Flexor] is a hi-feel lo-tech device that assists in making the mind-body-conspicuous for contemporary humans through meaningful micro-movements of the appendage muscles, joints in the palms, and ligaments and tendons in the fingers. Imagined for those who experience an increased flow of emotions triggered by the subtle yet rapid changes from “living through feeling” in the technological environment, the [Finger Flexor] promotes attention to the body bringing the self back to a physically steady-state condition that is mindfully present in-the-real-life-now. This short workout video introduces a series of intentional synergistic movements of the extremities and appendage muscles that will bring much necessary attention to the modern human body.
Feeling all the feels resonating from your body is only natural. The body’s reaction and response to any given environment is not only an ancient survival mechanism that is necessary for averting stressful situations or analyzing potentially hazardous circumstances, but also a learning mechanism for preventing the cycle of making the same mistakes twice. This streamlined and embodied process is invisible until the body starts to reroute attention back to its physical presence by using neurotransmitters and sense-based-signals to communicate Psyche Jittering Senses (PJS). Although much of PJS research is unpopular and painstakingly slow, due to the fact that the effects of it drastically vary depending on the human subject of study, researchers have been gathering evidence by monitoring individuals who daydream heavily, habitually neglect notifications, experience full force disruption of sleep, and struggle with phantom phone syndrome. The general consensus among PJS researchers is that actively performing intermittent physical exercises throughout the day with devices such as the [Finger Flexor] can help prevent PJS and allow the flow of bodily emotions to feel natural again.
Once the [Finger Flexor] workout is seamlessly and successfully integrated into your daily routine, to the level where you find yourself flexing before you are aware of it, you will feel a significant difference when you reach out and lend a hand to help another human being.
Breathe in and breathe out. Stop daydreaming about a time before emails and phones that are smarter than you, anxiously mulling over the fact that the only phone number you can recall is your own. Get your hands on the [Finger Flexor] and get in touch with your own digits. Stay mind-body-conspicuous.
Have you been noticing new guttural sensations but have not been able to toggle off your feels or pinpoint the cause?
[Finger Flexor] is a hi-feel lo-tech device that assists in making the mind-body-conspicuous for contemporary humans through meaningful micro-movements of the appendage muscles, joints in the palms, and ligaments and tendons in the fingers. Imagined for those who experience an increased flow of emotions triggered by the subtle yet rapid changes from “living through feeling” in the technological environment, the [Finger Flexor] promotes attention to the body bringing the self back to a physically steady-state condition that is mindfully present in-the-real-life-now. This short workout video introduces a series of intentional synergistic movements of the extremities and appendage muscles that will bring much necessary attention to the modern human body.
Feeling all the feels resonating from your body is only natural. The body’s reaction and response to any given environment is not only an ancient survival mechanism that is necessary for averting stressful situations or analyzing potentially hazardous circumstances, but also a learning mechanism for preventing the cycle of making the same mistakes twice. This streamlined and embodied process is invisible until the body starts to reroute attention back to its physical presence by using neurotransmitters and sense-based-signals to communicate Psyche Jittering Senses (PJS). Although much of PJS research is unpopular and painstakingly slow, due to the fact that the effects of it drastically vary depending on the human subject of study, researchers have been gathering evidence by monitoring individuals who daydream heavily, habitually neglect notifications, experience full force disruption of sleep, and struggle with phantom phone syndrome. The general consensus among PJS researchers is that actively performing intermittent physical exercises throughout the day with devices such as the [Finger Flexor] can help prevent PJS and allow the flow of bodily emotions to feel natural again.
Once the [Finger Flexor] workout is seamlessly and successfully integrated into your daily routine, to the level where you find yourself flexing before you are aware of it, you will feel a significant difference when you reach out and lend a hand to help another human being.
Breathe in and breathe out. Stop daydreaming about a time before emails and phones that are smarter than you, anxiously mulling over the fact that the only phone number you can recall is your own. Get your hands on the [Finger Flexor] and get in touch with your own digits. Stay mind-body-conspicuous.
2020 Living Lab PSA
The Living Lab’s Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Group Workout (HFLTW) is a series of exercises and physical activities designed for Mind-Body-Conspicuous Humans (MBCH) who seek to experiment with various Feelosophical Flows (FF) resonating from the body.
Offered as both online and offline (OnO) guided group experiences, each HFLTW class focuses on various aspects of modern technocultural experiences (MTE). In resistance to everyday digital devices that push and pull our bodies away from ourselves, our workouts strive to poetically explore and respond to various types of Smart Technologies (ST) and Internet of Things (IOT) that exhibit the potential to disembody emotion and downgrade Physically-Rooted Human Experiences of the Real-Time-Now (PRHEOTRTN).
There are many Proven Effective Methods (PEM) that help temporarily suspend, refresh, and reboot the human body to resiliently focus back on the PRHEOTRTN. From eating, sleeping, walking, running, daydreaming, or even do nothing, the range of PEMs are as diverse as the individuals who consciously listen to their own bodies. The HFLTW integrates all of these know-hows with simple Easy-To-Follow-Workout-Movements (ETFWM) inspired by Activities of Daily Technocultural Living (ADTL). Simply put, the HFLTW will make you sweat. You will be reminded that although the MTE of each “body” is not the same, it is also not alone. By connecting with each “body” on a primal and physiological level, we aim to make every “body” sweat.
We understand that you are busy and want to assist in maximizing the amount of attention you are able to allocate to your body throughout your ADTL. Finding the energy to participate in an OnO exercise and to productively release tension that builds up from MTE is a luxury, one that is time-consuming and therefore expensive. We want to make PRHEOTRTN affordable and help you maintain a healthy and sustainable relationship with technology. We are not promoting total behavior modification, but should you desire temporary disconnection and isolation from technology, providing you with various alternative solutions and options to select from.
The HFLTW is not only about releasing endorphins and feeling a sense of self-accomplishment, but it is also about turning those resulting chemically-driven guttural sensations into something that is meaningful to you on a personal level. It is about taking the time to be with yourself, your own thinking through feeling body that somatically senses and contextualizes the world around you. It is about discovering how your body affects the way you intuitively respond and kinesthetically navigate your surroundings. It is about igniting your curiosity and compassionately interacting with other bodies and your own. Those decisions you make because it “just-feels-right”? Those moments you act upon because you have an inkling feeling that “something-isn’t-just-quite-right”? The HFLTW is interested in flexing and extending those split seconds and transitory moments of utterances that are rationally illogical, sensorially mysterious, computationally disobedient and improvisational sound.
Note from the Founder of The Living Lab
The inspiration for the Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW) comes from my personal experience trying to cope with guttural anxieties and frustrations from being heavily involved in a digital technology-driven lifestyle. As a work in progress, I have been intentionally setting aside time to bring more attention to my own body by integrating more physical activities into my daily routine. Whether it is through high or low impact feelsical activities, I have been increasingly finding more comfort in being in touch with my own physicality. Thus, what better than to involve others by creating a collaborative experience and working out alone together? Having learning and leading ETFWMs as an instructor, I find shared time and space with every “body” to be special and a tremendously humbling experience.
Therefore, for me, the HFLTW is a reaffirmation for myself, and hopefully to others, that human-human interaction is important and, even in an age when random encounters are becoming a rarity, even if it is for a short cardio-dance segment to profusely sweat and get down-and-dirty, strangers can gather and create meaningful connect through shared physical experiences.
Offered as both online and offline (OnO) guided group experiences, each HFLTW class focuses on various aspects of modern technocultural experiences (MTE). In resistance to everyday digital devices that push and pull our bodies away from ourselves, our workouts strive to poetically explore and respond to various types of Smart Technologies (ST) and Internet of Things (IOT) that exhibit the potential to disembody emotion and downgrade Physically-Rooted Human Experiences of the Real-Time-Now (PRHEOTRTN).
There are many Proven Effective Methods (PEM) that help temporarily suspend, refresh, and reboot the human body to resiliently focus back on the PRHEOTRTN. From eating, sleeping, walking, running, daydreaming, or even do nothing, the range of PEMs are as diverse as the individuals who consciously listen to their own bodies. The HFLTW integrates all of these know-hows with simple Easy-To-Follow-Workout-Movements (ETFWM) inspired by Activities of Daily Technocultural Living (ADTL). Simply put, the HFLTW will make you sweat. You will be reminded that although the MTE of each “body” is not the same, it is also not alone. By connecting with each “body” on a primal and physiological level, we aim to make every “body” sweat.
We understand that you are busy and want to assist in maximizing the amount of attention you are able to allocate to your body throughout your ADTL. Finding the energy to participate in an OnO exercise and to productively release tension that builds up from MTE is a luxury, one that is time-consuming and therefore expensive. We want to make PRHEOTRTN affordable and help you maintain a healthy and sustainable relationship with technology. We are not promoting total behavior modification, but should you desire temporary disconnection and isolation from technology, providing you with various alternative solutions and options to select from.
The HFLTW is not only about releasing endorphins and feeling a sense of self-accomplishment, but it is also about turning those resulting chemically-driven guttural sensations into something that is meaningful to you on a personal level. It is about taking the time to be with yourself, your own thinking through feeling body that somatically senses and contextualizes the world around you. It is about discovering how your body affects the way you intuitively respond and kinesthetically navigate your surroundings. It is about igniting your curiosity and compassionately interacting with other bodies and your own. Those decisions you make because it “just-feels-right”? Those moments you act upon because you have an inkling feeling that “something-isn’t-just-quite-right”? The HFLTW is interested in flexing and extending those split seconds and transitory moments of utterances that are rationally illogical, sensorially mysterious, computationally disobedient and improvisational sound.
Note from the Founder of The Living Lab
The inspiration for the Hi-Feel Lo-Tech Workout (HFLTW) comes from my personal experience trying to cope with guttural anxieties and frustrations from being heavily involved in a digital technology-driven lifestyle. As a work in progress, I have been intentionally setting aside time to bring more attention to my own body by integrating more physical activities into my daily routine. Whether it is through high or low impact feelsical activities, I have been increasingly finding more comfort in being in touch with my own physicality. Thus, what better than to involve others by creating a collaborative experience and working out alone together? Having learning and leading ETFWMs as an instructor, I find shared time and space with every “body” to be special and a tremendously humbling experience.
Therefore, for me, the HFLTW is a reaffirmation for myself, and hopefully to others, that human-human interaction is important and, even in an age when random encounters are becoming a rarity, even if it is for a short cardio-dance segment to profusely sweat and get down-and-dirty, strangers can gather and create meaningful connect through shared physical experiences.
rocKO
Video, 15 sec, 2020
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Pardon me while I work on getting in touch with my feelosophical flow...
In the meantime, you can find more projects HERE
