[Interactive Music] Week #1 – My Manifesto

See this week’s assignment here. 

Play is the overarching concern of my life and artistic practice. I take Play very seriously––so much so in fact that I feel the need to capitalize it.

Play refers to the action as well as the feeling: the action of Playing and the feeling of Playfulness. While there are a variety of ways the word play is used in English––play an instrument, play a game, perform a play––the concept can applied to any medium. A few of my favorites include but are not limited to: soccer, swimming, social dance, improv (think Upright Citizens Brigade), improv (think jazz), activist interventions and direct actions, memes.

Play can be solitary, Play can be a dialogue, and Play can be collective. It’s in our bodies as well as in the way we approach a new challenge. Through Play we learn. We make discoveries––about ourselves and the world around us. Play opens up space for new knowledge, both practically and ontologically. Through Play we bond with each other. Through those bonds we open up political and social realities that might not have otherwise been available. Play is tool for survival and keeps alive modes of being that might otherwise be trampled or forgotten.

Through the diligent practice of Play we make the invisible, visible––the distant, intimate––the impossible, possible.