DELEUZE KREUZ

Deleuze Kreuz is a contemporary dance piece by Shelmith Øseth, Myclef Laun and Vonrik Haug working between modular synthesizers and choreography to explore the theme “post-vernacular” or what Antonin Artaud called “the language half-way between gesture and thought” from The Theatre and Its Double (1938).

The titular significance of the project comes from conversations between Antonin Artuaud and Gilles Deleuze concerning cultural structures or zones.  Both wanted to imagine cultural paradigm shifts away from the ontological certainties implicit in Western understandings. To this they conceived of a body without organs (corps sans organs), or in other words a structure or zone without imposed organization that can be sentient. Simply, if art institutions (including curators) are to impose organizational limits or structures on the artist what sentient thing is there that might be overlooked? What I mean by sentient thing is the intangible and perhaps immeasurable thing that occurs in a moment between gesture and thought. 

PhD in Philosophy and current PhD in Artistic Research at the University of Bergen, Craig Wells AKA Vonrik Haug describes these phenomena as “post-vernacular” philosophy. The project asks how we can have a thought outside of language.  In other words, might we try to consider a body of artistic work, which finds unique ways of communicating?  And furthermore, how can bodies of artistic work act as vehicles to express something unbridled by western intellectualism or what Deleuze himself might have called super imposing bodies.

Concept‭, ‬Costume Design‭, ‬and Makeup by Myclef Laun

Choreography by Myclef Laun and Shelmith‭ ‬Øseth

Sound Composition by Vonrik Haug

DELUEZE KREUZ is supported by Bergen Centre of Electronic Arts BEK

Performed at BEK and Mikey Laundry Art Garden (MLAG), Bergen 2020