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17th Conference of the Society for Artistic Research (SAR)

Gesture as a construction technique

Presented by: Sara Gómez
🗓️ Thursday, 25 June — 3:10pm - 3:50pm (40 mins)
Presenters
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Gesture as a construction technique
Abstract
Through a performative lecture (20 to 25 min.) I will present my current postdoctoral research in which I seek to define the term choreographic aesthetic apparatus. To do it, I must ask whether choreography has the capacity to reveal something unintelligible through its aesthetic production. I maintain that a structure of meaning is created through the gesture. Gesture can be understood here as the technique by which one element is joined to another -object to body, gesture to words. That union is not only formal but related to meaning: if each object has multiple meanings (due to its linguistic and cultural dimensions), the gesture creates heterogeneous meanings through the union between several objects; an assemblage is created through contradictions (Rancière) between concepts and symbols. Choreographic construction unfolds a thought that is ordered on the stage (P. Valéry). Thought must unite emotion and intellect because it is not reduced to the production of knowledge, it is something more comprehensive: integrates ways of knowing the world (E. Kant). Choreography could be an aesthetic apparatus if it offers us ways of thinking (in an integral way), aspects that have not been ordered in intelligible processes. In a performative lecture I propose to work on the following problems: the creation of meanings through the gesture of uniting things; the relationship between choreography with the concept of construction (V. Fabbri, W. Benjamin, J. L. Déotte); a choreographic final meaning that offers an integral way of thinking. The way I will address this is by sharing a reflective text while working with diverse objects (things, books, letters, images, writings), exploring their possible relationships, and leaving a trail of their unions in the space. With all of these I will form an (choreographic and spatial) utterance that articulates and makes visible the main idea: the ephemeral but visible construction of the choreography through gestures.
Biography
Sara Gómez. Visual artist and choreographer. Postdoctoral researcher at National Autonomous University of Mexico. Ph.D in Philosophy at Autonomous University of Barcelona. Master's in Art and Design Research at EINA, Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona. She holds a BA in Choreography, and a BA in Fine Arts (INBAL-Mexico). She held the FONCA-CONACHYT scholarship for studies abroad. In 2025, she was awarded the Cobertizo: Artist Residency Grant (Mexico). In 2024, she was part of the curatorial committee of the 27th Jalisco International Dance Festival. She has shared her artistic research at universities, congresses, and artistic encounters in Austria, USA, Spain, Finland, Mexico, Switzerland, and the UK.