Documentation

From Contactencyclopedia

Notes taken during a studylab on documentation, guided by Konstantin Mihos on the last day of the ECITE 2004 in Chorologio Studio Athens (Greece) on sunday april 18th 2004. Notes taken by Dieter Heitkamp, written in one of those blue books, with our names written in greek signs on the cover, which every participant got as a present at the beginning of the conference.

TASK
Ask questions about documentation and than give/find answers even to questions that have not been asked.

QUESTIONS
_What is the reason for something that is improvised, that is there & that is not there?
_What are we documenting?
_What do we choose to document?
_How do we document the change in our body?
_For whom are we documenting?
_How much of our personal life is part of the shared experience?
_How will we use it?
_How complete is the end result?
_Is the content subjective/objective?
_Is there any objectivity?
_What are the tools for documentation?
_Who will see it & where?
_Why do we want to put our lives in frames?
_What is the deadline?
_Do we communicate our documentation?
_How is TIME changing documentation?
_Who is informing us?
_What do we loose when documenting?

ANSWERS
_It is completely subjective.
_The person that documents just gives the reason why.
_Tools: video, sound equipment, written form, myths, oral, handwritten, foto, sketches
_What stays in the body is important
and in the memory.
_Revisiting is more important than the actual endproduct.
_Helps to digest: situations, feelings, concepts, pathways, questions....
_I can not stand Time passing.
_Making/Creating History by capturing certain things.
_A source of information that I can use in a different context.
_The recipient of Documentation must be aware of her/his own objectivity.
_Oral history is limited.
_We can see the evolution of CI.
_To inspire our further teaching.
_Documentation can be used politically.
It can help to create Lobby.
_It can help to create a bigger public interest.
_It can be done from inside or outside.

STUDYLAB
After this we started to work in smaller groups,
doing individual documentation projects.
Some worked on Computers, others on handwritten reports.
Andrea Keiz and Dieter Heitkamp did Video Interviews with participants,
asking them to read or share some of their experiences from the ECITE.
They tried to get verbal informations, scetches, but also close ups from the people they were interviewing, from their skin, hair, clothes, from the environment in the studio and view from the city of Athens through the windows of Chorologio Studio.
The aspect of skin became part of the structure, because of the Studyllab on „Moving from the Skin“ and the first version/ performance of the „Lecture Performance: Moving From the Skin“ at Roses Theatre with support from the Goethe Institute.

Videoexample on Youtube:

„How do you document...“ written and read by Deborah Sbeiz
filmed by Dieter Heitkamp

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZjQcoj4Dw

Reading what was written.
Sitting in a circle_ everybody describing a „film“scene
Closure

This became the basic idea,structure for a documentation project, that both did during the ECITE 2005 Viljandi (Estonia):
In Viljandi already after a few days they introduced the project and asked participants to read from their written notes during the conference. For the interviews the dancers had to choose specific locations in Viljandi, a WALL of their choice from one of those wonderfull wooden houses.

Videonotes on notes taken in the landscapes of viljandi (parts 1-3)

ECITE 2005, Estonia
camera: Andrea Keiz, Dieter Heitkamp
videoediting: Andrea Keiz

Part 1