Page 12 - JCAU-5-2

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Gestures for interdependence: Designing the unfelt

Figure 1. Walking down the stream. Source: Drawing by Breg Horemans as part of the BAC Arts Lab Residency.

making, and (iv) presencing and the micro-gestures practices. Some of the discussed design gestures emerged
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within every step of the development: Breathing, asking in the moment as a situated reaction to the site’s givens.
permission, and intuitive cocreation (a.o., experimental I took the liberty to combine different “bodies of water”
exercises). Every site-specific experiment, we discuss (Neris, Dommel and Maas) and different encounters
fits larger developments toward a series of performative with these bodies. I will lay the different dramaturgical
installations . In all situations, an “unseen body of water” moments (approaching, arriving, taking-making, and
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is staged as a guiding force in the design process. Every presencing) over these encounters. I will do this for reasons
subsection carries the name of the river it refers to. I will of dramaturgical composition and to open up senses of
generally be speaking in the first person singular, making polyphony throughout your reading experience.
reflections on micro-moments and in the first person
plural for the reflections concerning a group process. The 3.1.1. Neris
design gestures that were tried out and implemented are The Neris’ fountainhead lies in the north of Belarus. It passes
gathered from previous work or other spatially oriented by the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius to continue to Kaunas
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23 Presencing refers to the consciousness of being present, and ends in the Baltic Sea. During my three encounters
where — in the case of this group process — we incorporate with the Neris, I was present as part and cofacilitation of a
the aesthetic qualities of the site, the walk, the silent score, multidisciplinary team gathered within the ecosystem of
the reading-writing to augment processes of meaning the TAAT arts practice. As a working location, we engaged
making in regards to the Maas as an unseen body.
24 Within and alongside the practice of TAAT arts collective; 25 March 2020, November 2021 and September 2022, all within
for more info go to the website www.taat.live. the Vilnius city limits.

Volume 5 Issue 2 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0358