reports of some thursday afternoon sessions

Report week 3

We read alltogether the text “The Laugh Meter”, written in the New York Times in 1916. It is about trying to fix the time of public's essential share in the performance through laughing.

Bojana wants to create some performance investigating the issue of “laughter time”, what happens in this in between, which impact on the presence of the performer.

We saw an extract of Lilia's performance “SOB”.

A proposition of Thomas: himself, Lilia, Bojana and Coralie had a practical laughing session, each on his turn is filmed while laughing – of interest was the sometimes confusing border between forced and genuine laughter.

Coralie: talked about her wish to work on the humor of children. It will be a visual anthropology, with a cognitive linguistics and development psychology background. Visual art will be involved, dolls with funny children intervention were showed.

Practical sessions with plasticine. Pictures were token.

Report session 3:

Workshop with Antonia Baehr and Valérie Castang.

The work of Antonia on Laughter is part of a broader work on emotions. Her project is now to investigate to 4 basic emotions (fear, anger, happiness, sadness). Her research is based on workshops she is doing with people using different disposals to observe and study emotions.

Laughter is approached as a musical composition – an issue is the process of creating a notation system, giving account of the sound, the facial expressions, the movement of the body, etc.

We started with an initiation to Laughter Yoga. ( noteworthy is that during one of her performance in Ghent, Antonia was overwelmed by a laughter yoga club, that finaly occupied the stage at the end of the performance. They do not accept the idea that it is possible to reproduce the laugh of someone else, the laughing being something irreductibly personal) After we received a partition of the laughter of a woman Antonia recorded. A partition A. Baehr is interpreting on stage. lots of different sounds, rythms, body interventions. We tried to interpret it alltogether, then listened to Antonia's interpretation, and finaly to the original recording.

The second part of the session was devoted to the study of a wide range of emotions. Starting from an analysis of filmtracks acting several strong emotions ( eg. fear in King Kong, anger sadness in Thomas Vinterbergh's Festen, a baby's laugh, Ingmar Bergman's Persona). After a meticulous observation, the proposition was to find out a notation system that would help us to memorize and who would be readable by others who would interpret the same film fragment. We then went to perform our intepretation of the emotion (without speaking) of the filmtrack. After there was a collective discussion on the issue of the complexity of a notation system, and on the performativity of emotions reproduction.

Report session 4

-Maria Clara: interactive installation with a hybrid creature composed of teleguided cars (toys) and a latex pussy or dick. Was tested in the swimming pool. Mcl also showed her one minute video, the exploration of a hilarous body.

-Davis: brainstorming session on what crazy things we could do with 400 000 euros.

-Christophe Meierhans presented his project about “Paul Bremer: Keynote Address at the TD Waterhouse Investment Conference, delivered 4 February 2005, San Diego, CA” , the strategy of getting progressively drunk. His future work will be about transoccidental identity, observed in international organizations like the UN (cf. former project in Sudan) He will investigate this issue further in Palestine.

-Bojana Bauer: report on her Tuesday session with Lilia and Thomas on her idea of the laughing meter. She used you-tube tracks of humorous film series, these tracks were reproduced. The focus of the work is on what happens during the gap that is the time of the (virtual) public's (fake) laughter.

-Coralie: proposal to interview the art and humour members, format: a half an hour plan sequence, with one funny object, about their relationship to art and humor, and their current research project in BC. This video will be showed in loop during the plankton bar.

Resume Session on Bergson's Laughter

23/04 : Session lead by Bojana Bauer on Bergson’s theory of laughter.

A collective lecture of the first chapter of “Le rire. Essais sur la signification du comique”, followed by a discussion.

The full text is available on :

http://philo.breucker.org/Bergson_le_rire.pdf

In english translation:

http://books.google.be/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=bGnK6YKGTeQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=bergson+laughter&ots=7g3Qb0ZzC0&sig=2uGA5OwKI4O2SNeDS5IezZnOz6A#PPP1,M1

With the first chapter we dig into Bergson’s approach of the comical. No essentialist definition is given, but a description of how laughter can be provoked. According to Bergson, laughter comes about when something mechanical is introduced into something living. This idea is related the philosophy of the Elan Vital, a vital impetus which explains evolution in a less mechanical and more lively manner, as well as the creative impulse of mankind. The comical comes about when human behavior disconnect from the flow of life itself to get into the mechanical: eg. automatisms, habits. This according to the two tendencies of life: the continual creation of new forms versus the degradation towards inert matter and mechanisms. “Le rire” also highlights the social corrective function of humor that by the means of laughter punishes the ones who deviates from the norm.

Topics of discussion were:
-laughter as something purely cerebral requiring an emotional distance to its object;
-the power relation exerted by the spectator with the « puppet »figure;
-the issue of predictability and the comic / the surprise element as a principle of movement;
-the comedy as an impure genre, between art and life (versus the normative view of aesthetics as belonging to the realm of the sublime) Actually Bergson’s definition of art coincides with contemporary approach…
-the introduction of banality as a strategy to undermine the tragic;
-the absorption of vitality and the creation of the new by capitalism, immediately rigidifying the invention.

Further Readings:

“Bergson et Freud, théoriciens classiques du rire”, Catherine Kintzler in « Le moment 1900 en Philosophie

« La fortune du rire chez Baudelaire, Bergson, et Bakhtine », Pierre Siguret

« Pour une esthétique du comique. Considérations sur le rire de Bergson.» Romeo Bufalo

« Le rire étrange : Bergson avec Freud » JL Giribone

« Bataille et Bergson », JF Fourny, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France

« Le comique et le risible » Martin Felder : http://www.martinfelder.net/TEXTE/memoire.pdf

Tanganyka

for people who are interested to work on the laughter epidemics, the text is available in BC's office. cheers, coralie

references on The Performative aspect of humor + gender

These articles will be in BC from monday on

The Performative aspect of humor

Pragmatic approach / Cognitive Linguistics

Pragmatics of performance and the analysis of conversational humor
Helga Kotthoff, University of Education, Freiburg. – International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 271–304

On the conversational performance of narrative jokes: Toward an account of timing, Neal R. Norrick, International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 14, Issue 3, Pages 255–274,

Performance studies /Gender Studies

Joanne R. Gilbert (2004) Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique, Wayne State University Press

Hengen, Shannon Eileen (1998) Performing Gender and Comedy: Theories, Texts and Contexts, Routledge

Lesbian jokes: Some methodological problems. A reply to Janet Bing and Dana Heller
Christie Davies - International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 17, Issue 3, 2004

Laurie O'Higgins (2003) Women and Humor in Classical Greece, Cambridge University Press

Lisa Renée Perfetti (2003) Women and Laughter in Medieval Comic Literature, University of Michigan Press

Dianna C. Niebylski (2004) Humoring resistance: laughter and the excessive body in contemporary Latin American wom

***Coralieen's fiction, SUNY Press,

Baseball humor

"Baseball humor", article by C. Kenneth Pellow

Baseball has often be said to be an insight into the American personality of the American character. When one examines the kinds of humor associated with baseball, one finds that humor to be also typically American, as well as an index of baseball's essence.
The same factors that make baseball a humorous game also make it a "literary" game: it is a verbal game, one that provokes conversations; its rhythms and its spaces lend themselves to artistic duplication: and it necessitates an almost perfect balance between luck and skill - an existential precariousness that makes it attractive to humorists and/or novelists.

You can consult the full article in the office of Bains Connective!

Failure to appreciate one's partner's sense of humor seems to be a significant indicator of marital distress.

"Humor in marital adjustement", article by John Rust and Jeffrey Goldstein

It has often been postulated that humor plays a part in emotional well-being. The converse of this should therefore follow: states of emotional distress should be associated with impairment of humor. This study examines the importance of humor appreciation in marital adjustment. Two groups of subjects, one with marital problems, and one representing the general population, rated their appreciation of their partner's sense of humor as well as filling out the Golombok Rust Inventory of Marital State (GRIMS). It was found that there was less humor in the distressed group, and that appreciation of partner's humor correlated significantly with the general state of the marriage. Failure to appreciate one's partner's sense of humor seems to be a significant indicator of marital distress.

You can consult the full article in the office of Bains Connective!

A&H Questionnaire

Art & Humor Questionnaire

You can choose to answer, not to answer, or to answer by a question.

1) Do your vowel laugh pattern is structured like: hahaha, hahahaho, hihihi, haahaahaaaa or maybe some other pattern?

2) What is the object that you consider as the most funny ever conceived, from the Early Neolithic to the consumption society on?

3) Do you think that the audition of a tape with the record of dog's laughters can have a stress reductive effect on you?

4) What kind of performances of the everyday life provokes a stimulation of your brain’s right frontal lobe (the region that bears a huge responsibility in the fact that you have a sense of humor and in originating the physical act of laughter)?

5) Do you agree with following statement? “Contemporary Art has the potential to create a Pathological Laughter Epidemic.” And do you consider that Humor in Art can impact on the global financial crisis?

6) Do you prefer to interact with laughing rats, or with computers that smiles and generates puns?

7) Would you accept to contribute to the advancement of the scientific research on laughter, by submitting yourself to a Laryngeal Elcetromyography. A Laryngeal Electromyography implies that bipolar hooked wired electrodes made from bifilar insulated stainless steel wire – each strand 0.002 inch in diameter, are inserted into the laryngeal muscles by an ortholaryngologist. Don’t worry to much about this, it doesn’t hurt! Indeed the skin overlying the ventral the ventral portion of your larynx will be locally anesthetized: a 1.5 inch, 25-gauge hypodermic needle, carrying the wire in the lumen will be inserted through the cricothyroid membrane, and then directed into one of the three laryngical muscles. You will be able to speak, swallow and laugh without any discomfort.

8) Do you think that we should consider the application of a misogelastic artist (= an artist who hates humor) to join our residency during the moth of May? Should we use a gelotometer (which is a gauge for measuring laughter) during the next planktonbar – where the ah’s will show the work issued from their residency – to measure public’s reaction to ah’s showings?

"j'adore empêcher mon rire d'éclater"

"J'adore empêcher mon rire d'éclater. C'est un chatouillement si merveilleux de ne pas pouvoir lâcher ce qui aimerait tellement jaillir. La chose étouffée en devient plus pénible, mais aussi plus précieuse" Robert Walzer, L'institut Benjamenta 

Such is also the truceless warfare of the waves on the surface of the sea - BERGSON

"Here, as elsewhere, nature has utilised evil with a view to good. It is more especially the good that has engaged our attention throughout this work. We have seen that the more society improves,the more plastic is the adaptability it obtains from its members; while the greater the tendency towards increasing stability below, the more does it force to the surface the disturbing elements inseparable from so vast a bulk; and thus laughter performs a useful function by emphasising the form of these significant undulations. Such is also the truceless warfare of the waves on the surface ofthe sea, whilst profound peace reigns in the depths below. The billows clash and collide with each other, as they strive to find their level. A fringe of snow-white foam, feathery and frolicsome, follows their changing outlines. From time to time, the receding wave leaves behind a remnant of foam on the sandy beach. The child, who plays hard by, picks up a handful, and, the next moment, is astonished to find that nothing remains in his grasp but a few drops of water, water that is far more brackish, far more bitter than that of the wave which brought it. Laughter comes into being in the self-same fashion. It indicates a slight revolt on the surface of social life. It instantly adopts the changing forms of the disturbance. It, also, is afroth with a saline base. Like froth, it sparkles. It is gaiety itself. But the philosopher who gathers a handful to tastemay find that the substance is scanty, and the after-taste bitter."
extract from "Laughter, an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic" by Henri Bergson

Readings - Humor, a scientific approach

Further Readings, at your disposal at the first floor office of Bains Connecive::
Humor, a scientific approach
Introduction
“Disciplinary boundaries in humorology: an anthropologist’rumination” Mahadev L. Apte, International Journal of Humour Research, Duke UniversityEthology
‘‘Laughing’’ rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy?Jaak Pankseppa, Jeff Burgdorf
“Dog-laughter: Recorded playback reduces stress related behavior in shelter dogs” Patricia Simonet*, Donna Versteeg, Dan Storie
“The study of laughter provides a novel approach to the mechanisms and evolution of vocal production, perception and social behavior”, Robert Provine Development psychology
“Origins of smile and laughter: A preliminary study”Kiyobumi Kawakami a, Kiyoko Takai-Kawakami b, Masaki Tomonaga c,Juri Suzuki c, Tomiyo Kusaka d, Takashi Okai d, Japan Women University, Tokyo
Humor and the brain
“Humor and the brain: A selective review”, William F. Fry - International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 15, Issue 3, Pages 305–333, 26/07/2002
"Neural correlates of laughter and humour Barbara Wild",1,2, Frank A. Rodden2, Wolfgang Grodd2 and Willibald Ruch3, Brain, Vol. 126, No. 10, 2121-2138, October 2003
"Humour appreciation: a role of the right frontal lobe" P. Shammi1 and D. T. Stuss1,2,3 1 Departments of Psychology and 2 Medicine (Neurology, Rehabilitation Medicine) University of Toronto and 3 Rotman Research Centre, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Canada
Humor and breathing
“Respiratory dynamics during laughter” Mario Filippelli1, Riccardo Pellegrino2, Iacopo Iandelli1, Gianni Misuri1, Joseph R. Rodarte3, Roberto Duranti5, Vito Brusasco4, and Giorgio Scano1,5
“Patterns of Laryngeal Electromyography and the Activity of the Respiratory System During Spontaneous Laughter”Erich S. Luschei,1 Lorraine O. Ramig,2 Eileen M. Finnegan,1 Kristen K. Baker,3 and Marshall E. Smith4
Humor research and Artificial Intelligence
“Computers that smile, humor in the interface”, Anton Nijholt, University of Twente“Getting Serious about the Development of Computational Humor”, Oliviero Stock and Carlo Strapparava
“Computational Mechanisms for Pun Generation”, Graeme Ritchie, University of Aberdeen, UK“Current Directions in Computational Humour”, by Graeme Ritchie Artificial Intelligence Review , Volume 16, Number 2, October 2001
“Password Swordfish: Verbal Humour in the Interface” 1996, International Journal of Humor Research. Volume 16, Issue 3, Pages 281–295
“HAHAcronym: Humorous Agents for Humorous Acronyms”, Oliviero Stock, Carlo Strapparava, International Journal of Humor Research, Volume 16, Issue 3, Pages 297–314

The 1962 Tanganyika ‘laughter epidemic’

The Tanganyika laughter epidemic of 1962 was an outbreak of mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness (MPI), rumored to have occurred in or near the village of on the western coast of Lake Victoria in the modern nation of Tanzania near the border of Kenya.

The incident
It is possible that, at the start of the incident, a joke was told in a boarding school" and that this joke triggered a small group of students to start laughing. The laughter perpetuated itself, far transcending its original cause.
The Tanganyika laughter epidemic is sometimes understood as implying that thousands of people were continuously laughing for months. However this may not have been the case. Other reports tell that the epidemic consisted of occasional attacks of laughter among groups of people, occurring throughout the vicinity of the village of Kashasha at irregular intervals. According to reports, the laughter was incapacitating when it struck.
The school from which the epidemic sprang was shut down; the children and parents transmitted it to the surrounding area.Other schools, Kashasha itself, and another village, comprising thousands of people, were all affected to some degree. Six to eighteen months after it started, the phenomenon died off. The following symptoms were reported on an equally massive scale as the reports of the laughter itself: pain, fainting, respiratory problems, rashes, and attacks of crying.

(thanks to wikipedia!)


Readings:

Rankin, A.M.; Philip, P.J. (May 1963). "An epidemic of laughing in the Bukoba district of Tanganyika". Central African Journal of Medicine 9: 167–170.

Christian F. Hempelmann (February 2007) "The laughter of the 1962 Tanganyika ‘laughter epidemic", International Journal of Humor Research 20 (1): 49–71

Abstract
The present article discusses the role of laughter in the much cited ‘laughter epidemic’ that occurred in Tanganyika in 1962. Despite its extraordinary nature, the veracity of the event is confirmed, crucially on the basis of similar reports. But most current representations are flawed by their exaggeration and misinterpretation of the role of laughter in the event, relating it to a humorous stimulus, a virus or environmental contaminant, or identifying it as contagious laughter. It is argued that the event is a motor-variant case of mass psychogenic illness of which laughter is one common symptom. Therefore it cannot serve as support for other arguments in humor research.

GUSTAVIA - Mathilde Monnier / La Ribot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPIneZjBmPE

"Nous nous connaissons depuis plusieurs années, nous avons été chacune spectatrice du travail de l’autre.Depuis quelques mois, nous avons imaginé travailler ensemble un projet doublement signé. Nous avons commencé sans savoir quels étaient nos points communs et là, lors des répétitions et discussions sur Gustavia, nous avons découvert nos points de rencontre et nos divergences. Un de nos points communs est l‘attirance pour le burlesque, le corps et la danse. Nous avons commencé à réfléchir sur ce qu’était pour chacune de nous le burlesque, et surtout le burlesque classique. Le burlesque classique possède des codes et des techniques qui lui sont propres et qui traversent à la fois le cinéma (Peter Sellers, Tati, Marx Brothers, Keaton, Chaplin, Nanni Moretti…), la scène et la performance (Leo Bassi, Anna et Bernard Blume…) mais aussi les arts plastiques. Techniques du renversement, du coup et de l’esquive, le burlesque est un art de la transformation de l’incompétence en compétence. Il permet de distinguer les héros burlesques des héros contestataires. Il surgit dans l’excès de parole comme dans son absence. Le burlesque du corps se niche dans la dépense gratuite, dans la répétition, dans l’accident. Nous sommes aussi arrivées à constater que ce qui est nécessairement lisible dans le burlesque est caché dans la danse, puisque cette dernière n‘est pas ou très peu par essence comique. Le burlesque porte aussi sa dimension et son penchant tragiques, comme s’il y avait toujours un revers dans le rire. Autour de ces premiers questionnements, nous avons commencé à réfléchir pour savoir comment nous pourrions utiliser ces codes de langage scénique autour de préoccupations plus personnelles liées à nos parcours d’artistes. Nous avons emprunté des chemins artistiques très différents l’une et l’autre, mais qui sont tendus par des réflexions et des inquiétudes communes autour des questions du devenir de l’artiste. L’art est-il encore au coeur du discours politique et social ? Quel enjeu, quelle marge d’influence l’artiste est-il en mesure d’attendre de la société ? Face à un constat de dissolution de la figure artistique dans le champ sociétal, devons-nous nous préparer à l’enterrement d’un certain statut de l’artiste ? Quelle place l’artiste se donne-t-il et à quelle place le met-on ? Le travail de cette création tentera d’apporter un éclairage assez noir sur ces questions, regard que nous souhaitons singulier, non-consensuel et personnel. Le burlesque devrait être un des outils qui nous permettra de traverser et de donner un espace théâtral à nos visions.

Mathilde MONNIER & LA RIBOT

L’intuition de la rencontre est à la base du dialogue entrepris par Mathilde Monnier et Maria La Ribot. Echanges qui constituent la matière même de cette création. A la recherche d’une forme possible à inventer, travailler, moduler à partir d’éléments issus de leur propre démarche. Mathilde Monnier conçoit souvent ses pièces en collaboration avec d’autres artistes. Projets qui renouvellent ses enjeux autour de la création, de l’écriture et de la pensée du vivre ensemble. Elle a dernièrement questionné la notion de « petits groupes » dans Tempo 76, l’univers de la chanson avec Philippe Katerine et le rapport au texte avec Chrsitine Angot.
Les méfaits de l’art selon Maria La Ribot développent un humour solaire et décapant qu’elle applique à ses propres œuvres. Tout d’abord dans les Pièces distinguées, courts formats critiques empruntés aux arts visuels, et jouées en solo. Mais aussi avec les 40 espontanéos, revisitant le vocabulaire tauromachique pour investir l’espace des théâtres façon arts plastiques, ou encore l’étrange grotesque de Laughing Hole, avec ses mots à double sens trempés dans les secousses du rire et de l’actualité.

Quoi de commun donc chez ces deux chorégraphes, l’une française l’autre espagnole, l’une caractérisée par ses projets de groupes, l’autre par ses performances en solitaire ? Tout commence par le cadre. Volontairement modeste, il va peu à peu déterminer les enjeux. Soit une scène et elles deux en tant qu’interprètes. Une durée, trois mois de travail partagé. Pour Maria La Ribot, il y a en plus la caméra à la main, le témoin. Mathilde Monnier, en revanche, utilise le prompteur comme outil d’écriture. Avec cela, quelles sont les choses que l’on peut faire ensemble lorsqu’on a pour intérêt commun le corps et le mouvement, et que la question posée reste celle du vivant ?"
Irène FILIBERTI

very short notes

What we learned:
(thanks to Coralie)

Rats laugh and they like to be tickled.
Dogs stop freaking out when they hear a recording of other dogs laughing.
Monkeys breath in when they laugh which is why they are unable to learn to talk.
Humans always laugh: ha ha ha or ho ho ho, never ha ho ha ho
Humour lives in the right frontal lobe


We also said that it is important to distinguish between laughter, humor and joy. These distinctions are to be worked on.

We’d like to explore why and how humour is often eradicated from Art and even more from Discourse on art or Art History. How humoristic strategies blur the line between “high” and “low” art, but also how art-world apparatus appropriates and absorbs “inappropriate” forms , very much at the image of the neo-liberal system.