Space in motion : the art of activating space in-between

Sammanfattning: As a contribution to the emerging field of practice-based research in the arts, this thesis aims to activate space, experience and the concept in-between. As the in-between cannot be defined ahead of the rhythmic process it carries out and of which it is a part – a rhythm inherent in the city itself and in knowledge production – it is necessary to produce rhythmic relations between bodies, sites and concepts. An art experiment, a forty-two meter high swing mounted on the bridge, Älvborgsbron, in Gothenburg harbour, Sweden, serves as the point of entry to the thesis. A dancer in the swing moved slowly between the bridge and the ground, captured in a rhythmic experience of being earthbound and then weightless. The swing project, together with other rhythmic processes such as walking, weaving and acting physics, activate spatial, temporal and theoretical dimensions of the in-between. Merging my roles as an artist, teacher and researcher by pragmatic production, perception and concepts it becomes possible to transform the rhythms between the examples:   1. A swing mounted on a bridge; one of my art projects. 2. Walking and mapping strategies; as developed in my courses taught at the School of Architecture. 3. The myth about Penelope weaving. 4. Rhythmic relations between bodies and machines at CERN, the particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, a place that is important for several of my art projects.   Creative production aims to expand the capacity of the body.  By employing a bridging structure, spaces in-between are activated thus revealing the power and danger in-between. In that production collective processes merge, creating “social and collective machines” and another reality between:   1. bridge/swing/dancer, 2. map/walking/site, 3. war/loom/weaving, 4. theory/detector/bodies.   These rhythmic processes oscillate between representation and the complex forces of daily activities. However, it is not the rhythm itself that activates spaces in-between but, rather, the changing of directions of the rhythm: from moving to be in motion; from walking forward to walking and falling; from weaving cloth to producing time; from doing physics to acting physics. Activating in-between spaces means activating differences and another way of producing knowledge, a well-known strategy in contemporary art: a production of potential realities, in a constant interaction between concepts and spatial transformations.