diverse human and non-human materialities. she explores the relationship between bodies and cities, and proposes the figuration of the ‘continuum bodycity’
the potential of moving bodies as activist bodies within the environment. running as not just a ‘mobilities method’, ‘practice-led research’ or ‘action research’, but what she calls ‘action vehicle’ and ‘activist vehicle’, to raise awareness and ‘response-ability’ (Büscher 2015) to the non-human world.
2018-11-06
This is an interview from Elisa Herrera Altamirano's project ‘Running Adrifts: The Memory of Water’, for RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale 2018 #r3fest: Dangerous Movements. Video by Elisa Herrera and Capicúa MovLab. facebook.com/capicuamovlab/
Elisa Herrera Altamirano has a background in Psychology, Gender Studies and Anthropology. She is a research-runner and a casual-runner. Interested in the Posthuman Ethics and Propositions, her PhD thesis explored how the practice of running enhances or diminishes the capacity/potential of bodies to relate/become (with) the world in its diverse human and non-human materialities. Through ethnographic fieldwork (including running interviews), she explores the relationship between bodies and cities, and proposes the figuration of the ‘continuum bodycity’ that serves as an analytical lens of continuity among bodies and environments. Elisa looks at running as a feminist methodology that considers the body as part of the ethnographic experience that generates situated knowledge.
Elisa co-founded ‘Capicúa MovLab’ in 2017. This is a social laboratory that is interested in the exploration of the politics of emplaced bodies through movement. The main idea of exploration and action is guided by the potential of moving bodies as activist bodies within the environment. The first intervention of Capicúa was in Querétaro City, Mexico. This was entitled ’Running Adrifts: The Memory of Water’. Elisa and other runners followed the course of the hydraulic system. This performs running as not just a ‘mobilities method’, ‘practice-led research’ or ‘action research’, but what she calls ‘action vehicle’ and ‘activist vehicle’, to raise awareness and ‘response-ability’ (Büscher 2015) to the non-human world. In other words the proposal aims to shed light to the understanding of human bodies in relational ways, using running as a vehicle for social action. In this clip, Elisa is interviewed while running. She talks about what they learned after running 15K, and the possibilities to work together with other professionals in urban planning and design to engage with urban sustainability from the perspective of the moving body.
KEYWORDS: Running, action vehicle, drift, adrift, ethnographic experience, situated knowledge, hacking, co-creation, response-abilities, research runner, amateur runner, bodycity, movement, mobilities, dangerous movements, art movement, RUN! RUN! RUN!, r3fest, runrunrunart, practice-led research, practice, art practice, Aalto University, Kent University, barefoot running, minimalist running, winter, texture, affect, feeling, sensation, marginal, folk, mainstream, cultures, running cultures
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The RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest is a bi-annual interdisciplinary programme exploring running as an arts and humanities discourse. Founded in 2014 by artist-curator Dr Kai Syng Tan and geographer Professor Alan Latham (UCL), it is characterised by ‘productive antagonisms’ (Latham and Tan 2017) in its activation of running as a methodology and metaphor to connect and disrupt across disciplinary and other borders (Tan 2018) , as well as its ‘positive atmosphere’ (Guardian 2014). The RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest 2018 is held in exile this year in Paris. Hosted by University of Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture (PSAC), this will take place as a workshop on 8 November. The theme is a timely and juicy ‘Dangerous Movements’. Set against our precarious situation today (Brexit, closed borders, the anthropocene et al), and with special attention paid to the Parisien/European mise-en-scene, #r3fest 2018 invites us to think about mobilities and the (end to the?) freedom of movement today, how that relates to art movements like Situationism and the historical boundary-crossing foot messenger, as well as creative steps towards re-making the world around us and what running and ‘Running Studies’ could contribute to this. #r3fest is co-curated by Kai (Artangel Open 100, ASEAN Para Games Ceremonies 2015) based in King’s College London, with author Dr Vybarr Cregan-Reid (Primate Change 2018, Footnotes 2016), who is a Reader in English & Environmental Humanities in the School of English at the University of Kent.
The University of Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture is a specialist postgraduate centre in one of the most culturally rich cities in the world. We offer advanced, flexible degrees across the arts, including in architecture, history of art, film, drama and literature, with modules that capitalise on the city's vast heritage and culture. kent.ac.uk/paris/
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