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subtle architectures subtile: Etude de geste granbyenne. Granby, Quebec. 2008

Voici son invitation, ouverte à tous:

Je souhaite que vous me guidiez, lors de promenades qui auront pour but de me faire découvrir votre ville : les lieux que vous fréquentez, soit pour y résider, pour vous y reposer, ou ceux que vous privilégiez lorsque vous vous accordez le temps de contempler et d’observer votre environnement. En retour, je vous ferai part de mes propres découvertes dans cette ville que je connais à peine. Ensemble nous déambulerons dans cet environnement urbain et nous explorerons, à travers nos mouvements et nos gestes, notre rapport à l’espace habité.

Ces excursions, en groupe ou en privé, auront lieu tout au long de mon séjour, du 28 septembre au 25 octobre. De plus, j’animerai des ateliers de jeux par le dessin. et d’exploration du mouvement auxquels vous êtes invités à participer*.

L'atelier aura lieu les samedis 11, et 18 octobre 2008 au 3e impérial de 11 h 00 à 14 00 h. Lieu, 164, rue Cowie, 3e étage, local #328, Granby, Québec.

Le 25 octobre a 14h 00 aura lieu une rencontre festive et la présentation d’une performance par l'artiste Lieu : espace de stationnement sittué face au 3e impérial.

*Toutes ces explorations contribueront à la création d’une chorégraphie spécifiquement «granbyenne» que je présenterai quelque part dans la ville,, le 25 octobre.

Aucune habileté particulière n’est requise pour participer, sinon votre curiosité et votre sens de l’observation.
Je me réjouis de la perspective de collaborer avec vous et surtout, de stimuler une réflexion et un échange d’idées.

Si vous avez des questions ou souhaitez me communiquer vos idées ou anecdotes, veuillez me contacter à : subtlearchitectures@gmail.com

Plastic Optimism: “Soft Architectures”, A Practice in Enabling Constraints.

Head for Two: Task Two

"Locate a neutral stance, move to the left. 

Something goes up, something goes up, everything drops down."

Head for One: Task One

"Isolate a part, move it to the right, 

everything follows, adjust your position, wait."

Head Three: Task for Too Many

"Locate your hands in relation to the space that surrounds you, in one single gesture relay this information."

Project Synopsis: Technical

I have constructed a series of architectural spaces out of foam core and adhesive. These sculptures form the foundation for a series of “Soft Architectures” built from an industrial strength felt. Within, the viewers encounter an environment that strictly prohibits and affects their senses and ability to communicate beyond a physical movement vocabulary: gestures, a corporeal language. Equipped with speakers, imbedded within the walls of these structures, the occupant hears a distant voice whose location is difficult to locate. This voice projects directions to the occupant of the “Soft Architecture”: left, right, turn, spin, etc. In addition, small LCD screens are placed within these structures. Hidden around corners and obstructed by archways. The occupant is able to view a moving image; documentation of the accumulative process that took place within the initial construction. These moving images create the illusion of extending into space beyond the confines.

These “Soft Architectures” are hung by means of bungee cords from the ceiling directly above. This includes a singular form, made for one occupant and a double, constructed to contain two participants. They are hung at a distance from the floor to enable viewers to place their heads inside the confined space. Concentric vinyl circles are placed on the floor below to demarcate the “performance zone” or trajectory for movement. In addition a freestanding structure supports a sculpture build from foam core and adhesive. This consists of a series of steps leading up to a platform, which enables the viewer to place their head inside the structure and view a moving image. This third element is equipped with two speakers embedded in the walls; surrounding the occupant with ventilation sounds and a distant voice counting out the time, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2…

Artist Statement: Abstract

I utilize constraints as one method to provide structure to chaos, to inspire propulsion forwards, towards invention, an expressive curiosity. Currently, I build accumulative prosthetics. These are soft sculptures built through a process of movement. I build a form to move within, this inspires the construction of another, piece meal, structures accumulate, to shape abstract moving sculptures. These plastic forms, made from felt, and sewn by hand, are extensions of the body in motion, a process inspired by Umberto Boccionis “Plastic Dynamism”. By means of this process, I am attempting to make visible an internal language of the body, to accentuate the relation between the form; the architecture, and its function; the constraint. I document these sculptures in movement as a further extension of this process. I utilize these “soft architectures” in tandem with an invitation to the projectionist, to engage as actors in space. Moving images, super eight and video, together with the plastic forms, create an atmosphere analogous to a “moving city”; where each element of the production is shifting, continuously. Text is employed to direct the partaker, to observe through simple gestures; “Place your palms on your eyelids, with trepidation spread your fingers apart, look in the direction you desire to see….” (Head Three: Task for Too Many, Emma Waltraud Howes, 2007) Each element of the process is in dynamic contrast with one another by this means of accumulation. I am working towards a shifting stage, the context of the gallery in flux, the public and the audience repositioned. 

Plastic Optimism

Plastic Optimism: A Proliferation of Forms Through Movement.

The Containment

Subtle Architectures: A Practice in Enabling Constraints is an ongoing research project informed by a personal epistemology. A body is contained in elaborate costumes, made from felt and thread, sewn by hand. This is a singular body, informed by an amalgamation of experience and rigorous studies, a monstrous body in its accumulation. It performs the task of engaging within its containment, in an effort to reference the bodies of others, at once singular and plural, a universal body.

The corporeal is utilized to initiate movement, and transformation, towards a developing methodology for illuminating this history of the body. Interactions with self-constructed environments, as prosthetic extensions of the corporeal, produce an awkward gesture vocabulary. This serves to reveal interiority, towards an exterior sight, and provides the inspiration for further constructions to be realized. Abstractions of the internal are produced, providing a means for illuminating precepts, the thought of a body in motion.

The construction directly reference architecture, and the proscenium arch of the theatre, two milieus that frame the body in relation to space, influence movement amidst social bodies, and affect social engagement. It is at once a critique of these structures and an active engagement within.

Internal to Relation to External

A conflict occurs between an internal and external environment. A contradiction is made evident amid a desire to be seen and heard, and an impulse to hide and protect. An effort is made to search for a place of liberation within the constraints imposed by the boundaries of these restrictions. These limitations provide the structure required to make evident the relation between body and its environment. These are enabling constraints, utilized to provide form to chaos, in an effort to stabilize the body and an innate corporeal ability, to adjust to the environment. This is thought in motion, influenced by research into internalized mechanism of control (Foucault), and in search of a liberated becoming other (Deleuse and Guittari), by techniques of investigation, a proliferation of inventive reactions to spatial limitations.

Conflict, Liberation, Confinement

The covering masks all skin and vulnerable physical attributes. This acts as a protective layer that liberates the body to move, separate from the gaze of an audience. Although it may provide a false sense of security, this structure is utilized as a tool to enable the body to articulate a vulnerable interiority to an external environment. These are self-constructed environments that serve to protect the body while providing a structure for envisioning possibilities for emancipation. The architectural suits perform the task of revealing more then what is contained. They serve to accentuate the immense effort required to articulate what is hidden within. This is where the contradiction lays, a desire for freedom from constraints, by means of limitations, imposed upon the corporeal. It is a visual metaphor of the proliferation of techniques employed to control and mechanize the flesh body: through science, medicine and architecture. It is a monstrous virtual body articulated through moving sculpture that acts in opposition to these constraints.

Object vs. Artifact

The containment is a perpetual motion machine. When the body is absent form this containment the remnance of a physical presence remains. The evidence is situated in the materials, the stretches and folds of the felt. It suggests an accumulative experience of interaction between the corporeal and its containment. The suit, when discarded from the flesh, remains an active object. It is not an artifact to be studied and displayed as an article of curiosity, but a trace of a performance. The construction is discarded, left to lie on the ground in a pile, as the only reminiscence of these investigations. The Futurist Manifesto, the writing of Boccioni on the progression of plastic moving sculpture, inspires these acts.

Formal Concerns

A rigorous background in the performing arts and contemporary modern dance inform the formal attributes of this process. This includes the work of Yvonne Rainer, Martha Graham, Russian avant-garde performance art, the situationists, and Picasso’s drawings for theatre. My aesthetic decisions are anti-virtuosic with the intention of celebrating the contradictions and revealing tensions. This is an aesthetic celebrated by Agnes Martin and the progression of abstract art. Further, the work aims to disrupt the passive observer in relation to the spectacle. I search for methods to implicate the audience in relation towards the work, to engage the audience through the corporeal. Felt prosthetic limbs are constructed for the viewer. The observer is required to actively engage with these sculptural elements in order to view documentation of an accumulative process: the construction of these environments and the engagement that takes place within there containment.

I utilize the cleanliness and stark aesthetics of black and white in an effort to clarify the intentions that inform this process. This simplification of materials provides structure to chaos. I stumble upon liberation from structure, and initiate invention, through repletion of form. As well, it serves to reference a specific historical context in which technologies for viewing and recording the internal body, by means of microscopes and photography, were developed. This is the doctrine of Cartesian mind/body dualisms, legitimized by scientific discourse, whose aim is to organize the corporeal.

Key Concept

The central concern within this process is to articulate a language of the body in order to legitimize it as site and source of knowledge. It is an abstracted process that aims to clarify the function of internalized mechanisms of control, to accentuate the vulnerability of the body within these structures, and valorize its ability to adjust to these constraints. The challenge of abstraction is central to this process and informs a continued search for liberation amidst a proliferation of obstructions.

Subtle Architectures: The Film

Subtle Architectures (2007)
Run time: 8:50

Performance and Concept: Emma Waltraud Howes
Cinematographer and Edit: Sol Nagler
Sound: Steve Bates

Subtle Architectures: A Practice in Enabling Constraints is an ongoing research project. This process aims to articulate an internal language of the body through performative gestures and the addition of prosthetics. It is a progression that has manifest in a multiplication of forms including a short film that serves as a document for an accumulative practice.

Distributed by Video Out: 1965 Main Street, Vancouver, BC, V5T 3C1
Groupe intervention Video: 4001 Berri #105, Montreal, PQ, H2L 4H2

Subtle Day Two

Subtle Architectures; A Practice in Enabling Constraints

Day Two; May/20th/2007 12:00-4:00

Subtle Five (revisited):

I revisit the last site that I performed in the day before. I have three observers who have come prepared to find me and follow the performance. This drastically changes the feeling of the event. The anonymity is lost and I am self-conscious of my actions, in a manner that is altered by familiar faces.

Subtle Six: Bus Stop, Telephone Booth, Bicycle Parking



A lady asks me what I am up to as she draws in a long hale on her smoke. A man is talking on the telephone. My gestures are subtle in response to the already existent motion.

An observer comes to sit with me and introduces himself. We speak for a while before I depart for the next site.

Subtle Seven: Exterior Hudsons Bay


I am joined by a young women, She is wearing pajamas and has a kinetic, faced paced, movement vocabulary. She wants to play with the chalk. We spend some time together drawing on the pavement.

I return to this spot later and find that the yellow lines have been cleaned up and the only trace of the performance left behind is a drawing that the young woman drew on the road.

Subtle Eight: Loading Dock


I draw myself a bigger boundary, an entire stage. I work within the confines; there are not as many people around. I have the time to explore the boundaries to its fullest extent. In this spot, an empty loading dock, I seem to go unnoticed by the passers by except for the occasional glance in my direction.

Monstrous Mundane Gestures:

The experience of performing has been drastically altered by an inclusion of a familiar audience. The loss of anonymity is reflected within the performance in a manner that I struggle to work against, a desire to please the audience and to provide them with a satisfactory performance. This is an element that is not present in the absence of familiarity. The boundaries between performer and audience that I am striving to disrupt are intensified.

I invest longer durations in the locations chosen as the stream of public engagement influence the duration and structure to the process. A young woman who wants to play with me approaches. I give her a handful of chalk and she begins to draw on the road along side the lines I have drawn for myself. We are playing together. I feel relaxed in this context and happy for the company.

This is an active engagement within the confines of the city. Our behavior is abnormal in a landscape of performed normalcy. We are playing in a manner that is not considered appropriate to passers by, and later on in the day, when I return to document the site, I find that all the chalk marks have been erased, cleaned up, tidy. The only remnants of our engagement are a drawing left by her mark.

Without the safety and structure provided by the proscenium arch this relation between performer and audience is blurred. The observer becomes participant, implicated in the performance. This is a complex relation of kinetic communication. I am hyper-aware at all times of a delicate balance that is interrupted by my movements. Simple gestures become gigantic, disrupting the acceptable performance of the everyday. These are monstrous mundane gestures that influence the movement of bodies around me. As people swerve to avoid these movements I lean towards the imperceptible, gestures that aim to produce a graceful exchange amidst a multiplication of potential relations.