Funny feeling –
Introducing a Performance Art Approach towards Visual Literacy
Elke Mark
Europe University Flensburg, Germany
Abstract. How can one succeed in making the experience of a lecture performance comprehensible to people who were not present? How can it be translated into a text which still gives an idea of what happened? This paper is an experiential attempt to access the underlying complex tactile experience and the Gleichgewichtssinn (sense of balance) and translate it into a perceptible interactive experience. A textile ribbon approximately 60 meters in length, on which the whole lecture is printed as a single line, accompanied the experience. The ribbon was set up in the entrance of the lecture room serving as a guide to those who joined the audience. Based on visual imagination of the lecturer, and emphasizing a logic of its own, this concept introduces the example of a reading practice which acknowledges bodily experience, and opens visual literacy beyond usage and design.
Keywords: Body, experience, performance art, reading, sensuous knowledge, tactility