Following a thread, from string figures though algorithms.
James R. Murphy, a math teacher at LaGuardia, New York, regarded mathematics as the most powerful and manipulable abstract language available to humans. To acquaint students who don't "like" math with abstract and systematical thinking, he put a piece of string in their hands and taught them to make string figures. How to spell the fight follows a thread that has been running through our fingers from centuries past till the present day, morphing from the tangible string figures that join our hands in childhood to the more elusive computational algorithms that engage our fingers today. Following this line of inquiry through various twists and turns, a conversation about collective agency emerges with the aim of rethinking current paradigms of cognition, education, and power.
"Hold a loop of string in your right hand and then place it behind and around your left thumb and little finger. Repeat the above step with the right hand. This is the starting position. Now bring your right middle finger to scoop up the string from your left palm and pull it back. With your left middle finger, scoop the string from your right palm and pull it back. This is called Opening A, the most common base figure."
Natascha Sadr Haghighian (born 1963 in Teheran) is an important voice of contemporary art. In her
work she unfolds the poetic, imaginary and critical potential of art. She
stands for an artistic position that not only analyses or comments on
aesthetic and scientific concepts and social or political
conditions, but actively changes them. Within each working process the
artist develops a new understanding of her role and a new approach.
She primarily creates works in the fields of installation and performance,
text and sound. As an
individual or collective artistic position, she frequently allows her
practice to flow into political, social processes. She addresses the
activist aspect of artistic work and reassesses the conditions and spaces
for aesthetic research and artistic action. Disconnecting the artist from
representative roles or political instrumentalisation has always been an
integral part of Natascha Sadr Haghighian's artistic practice. As early as
2004, the artist initiated the CV exchange platform bioswop.net, where
concepts such as identity, representation, facts and self are renegotiated
and the fetish of the "artist's biography" is undermined. For
her participation at the German pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale, she
intentionally misspelled her name as "Natascha Süder Happelmann".
