Nina Katchadourian Brainstorming

In her lecture, Nina Katchadourian brought up the idea of making spaces of time that are usually ignored into active spaces of creation. In my own life, I know that oftentimes it's the moments of transition, when I'm driving, riding the bus, or walking down the hallway that I tend most to forget that I am living in this moment, and move forward mentally to the place where I'm going to be. I am working on being more present in these times, and the idea of transience and moments of transition has fascinated me, especially recently, and inspired me to be more aware of these times and appreciate them. On the bus I take a sketch book and draw people who converge in this transient space. In the car I sing heartily along with the music of my favorite band. Both of these may be deemed socially awkward in many circumstances, as most people don't appreciate being drawn by a stranger in a public place, and would rather ignore the person in the next car at a stoplight who is belting out a song and rocking out with a head bob. The most ridiculous of these impulses I've felt of late, to feel my own presence in these moments and remind myself of where I am, is a recent inexplicable impulse to dance when I'm walking down a hallway. Quite unexpected by myself, and almost uncontrollable, I have of late been overwhelmed by the desire to do things like snap my fingers and spontaneously move in gestures down the hallway, rather than continue along in the traditional serious, disinterested walk. I think this began in elementary school, when during mass every Wednesday I would dream of carthwheeling down those long, carpeted hallways as a contrast from the solemn, serious environment. In this school, I have been known to cartwheel by the lockers downstairs, and once I did a stop-and-roll for no apparent reason when no one else was in the hallway behind the media center. I think that allowing these spontaneous gestures to come through unabashedly while walking down the hallway, in forms such as James Bond impersonations and saturday night fever moves, might be a very constructive way for me to bring my attention back to the present and allow my creativity to flow through me in the form of dance and gesture. And yes, I do realize this is pretty ridiculous. But I've been observing dance classes recently for a CFC project, and am frequently amazed at their freedom of motion. I think that for that sort of freedom to occur, where pressures of conformity no longer matter in the face of creative expression, a certain sense of being strange in the eyes of others is possible if not probable. I've come to expect it, and have come to embrace it. This is something I think Nina Katchadourian has become accustomed to experiencing in her work.

This is me walking down the hallway from now on.