The Mind is a Muscle

Video Installation
10 min loop
Photography
Serie of 7
2018

A cycle of different phases in life, physical experiences and moods. The dance is the poetry of body. How do one experience one’s own body – how do one feel it?

The title The Mind is a Muscle is borrowed from a multi-divided performance made by Yvonne Rainer in 1968, where the dance of seven dancers is combined with film and text.

Dancer: Fanny Kivimäki
Light, production and creative assistant: Lovisa Ivenholt Bergqvist
Studio: Vara Koncert hall dance studio

Commission

Levanger Municipality Staup Helsehus Norway 2018
 

The beautiful often bears a nostalgic sorrow

"During the work with the video piece, The Mind is a Muscle, Carolina Jonsson has been inspired by the Swedish professor of Musical Performance Åsa Undander-Scharins who has done research on how our feelings are affected by seeing a robot dancing on screen. The experiment showed that humans can be equally touched by seeing such an artificial impersonation of movements as if one moved oneself physically. This indicates how basic the relation is between what we see and how the body register the impressions. The dance becomes in this example not just something physical that happens in the world. It could also be the actual feeling of moving oneself. This leads me to think of the impressions of falling, often very realistically, that can occur in dreams. Something that acknowledge that the feeling of falling is within the body’s repertoire. This provides the perspective of hope, to see something can create presence and participation." [Excerpt from Catalogue text]

Eivind Hovstad Evjemo

Download text [Norwegan] ➝