Page 15 - JCAU-5-2

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

piece of floating material (a leaf, a branch, a feather) on the infrastructural and political decisions that are made to
surface of the river by mimicking its speed and direction with “tame” the wild and unheard body of the river.
their body. In the third part, an experience of presencing You walk back to the Maas.
took place. The score allowed us to surrender to the speed of You feel calm.
the Maas (see also how rafting on the Neris river in Section You hear your own footsteps.
3.1.1 had a similar effect) while staying connected to the Come to yourself more and more.
space-time of the aesthetic framing of the experience and You see the water, it heaves and flows, it is dark.
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the group process of moving together alongside the river. You see leaves on the water.
In 3.1.3 (b), I will use fragments of the written You are going to follow a leaf,
reflections to bring in participating voices, and I will reflect a light yellow leaf. It shakes,
on every text, along the way. The reflection session was set and seems to lie still, but
up as a reading-writing exercise (Sedgwick, 1993): All it appears to be moving anyway
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participants were invited to sit around a table for short In this reflection, the contrast between moving and
sessions of automatic writing and out-loud reading. In stillness appears. The participants “come to themselves”
this way, a slow, attentive, and polyphonic conversation while moving. The leaf seems to become a representation of
appears, where both (i) an inner dialog with the river Maas the “moving stillness” in the participants’ esthetic experience.
is represented in the writing and (ii) resonances between
the different participants’ writings are made spontaneously. You hear something about rhythms.
(b) Reading-writing (fragments of participants) The rhythm of life that seems unstoppable.
Opsomming . Oplossing . Dissolving. The thought of being carried by the river, follows you.
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You hear a story about a skeleton in the room. And pushes you forward.
Your writing is relaxing. Other languages are present.
De maas komt terug. You listen to their rhythm.
In verschillende gedachten. The rhythms you recognize in their sounds.
Dood. En of levend . There are dead entities floating Then: a moment of eye contact.
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down the Maas. Here again, a gesture of being carried by the river — a
You are remembering the flood from last summer. gesture of surrender — is part of the meaning-making
Images of floating rubbish. apparatus. Next to that, a consciousness of different languages
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Floating furniture en dissolving memories. that appear constitutes a polyphonic dialogue with each other
All melts into water. Alles rot weg. Drijft weg. 43 and the Maas. Not everybody at the table is able to understand
You are slowing down your flows of thought. what everybody says, but what we can hear are the rhythms,
A reflection is made on the great flood caused by the sounds, the wavelengths and the implicit flows of thinking,
expansive rainfalls in July 2022 . The participant imagines doing and being carried by the river Maas’ affective force.
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how the river took personal belongings from people’s 4. Conclusion: To the scores
homes (literally) and evacuates these material things in the
direction of the North Sea. Reflections on impermanence In this paper, we staged a series of unseen bodies of water
and transience come into play. This, though, invites us to as the guiding force in spatial design. We used the Venice
situate the aggression of the flood as part of the unheard “fountain” anecdote as an example to shift our relationship
voice of the river and confronts us with aspects of ignorance to water from an act of “othering” (seeing the sea or the river
in (i) our way of thinking about the river and (ii) in the as an “object” outside of our human self) towards an act of
resonance and relationality (we are the water and the water
38 In reference to the notion coined by Bakthin. is in us). Through the fieldwork, we studied experimental
39 Method inspired by the writings of Eve K. Sedgwick and the design processes aimed at the development of a series
conversation scores by Building Conversation. of performative installations (as part of the TAAT arts
40 Translated from Dutch to English: summary.
41 Translated from Dutch to English: solution. collective) in which unheard bodies of water were framed
42 Translated from Dutch to English: The Maas is coming back. as genuine co-creators. Although these performative
In different thoughts. Dead, And or alive. installations are not yet come to a distinguishable form, the
43 Translated from Dutch to English: Everything decomposes. focus here was on the in-the-making esthetic experience.
Drifts away. Through the prototyping of a series of new design gestures
44 See news item on the effects of the flood in Liege and Spa here:
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/07/14/rampenplan-spa- 45 There was reading in Dutch, English and Turkish during the
jalhay-theux/ session.

Volume 5 Issue 2 (2023) 9 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0358