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03 — ACCIDENTAL CERTAINTY
03

Accidental
Certainty

Year 2023
Type Studio · Performance
Institution The Cooper Union
Studio Design Studio II
Role Individual Work

This project interrogates the intricate interplay between unconscious body movements and their indelible imprints on daily life. From the rhythm of habitual routines to the choreography of performance, it explores how automatic gestures accumulate into second nature — becoming an intrinsic dimension of embodied experience.

REC · CH.01 00:00:14:08
00:02
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§ 1. Somnambulism

The point of departure is somnambulism: a phenomenon seemingly arising from the dissociation between the brain's inner limbic system and the outer cortex, in which routine gestures persist even in sleep. This inquiry extends outward — into the domestic environment, where automatic movement organizes space, and into music, where instrumental gestures are literally inscribed in the body through repetition, with live rock performance as a primary field of observation.

§ 2. The performance

Accidental Certainty proposes a performance in which seemingly random, automatic body movements reveal the potential to become a distinctive form of expression when aligned with the right pitches and rhythms — or, conversely, to generate productive contradiction when the alignment is deliberately offset. As time signatures and pitches either converge with or resist the distorted sounds of habitual gestures — locking a door, pouring water — the boundary between routine and music dissolves.

§ 3. Nervous system

Figs. A & B below diagram the limbic-cortical relationship at the heart of the inquiry: the twin loops of involuntary and volitional gesture as they pass through, and fail to pass through, the sleeping body.

FIG. A · NERVOUS SYSTEMNervous system diagram
Fig. A   Diagram of the limbic loop, tracing routine gesture through the sleeping cortex.
FIG. B · BRAINBrain diagram
Fig. B   Secondary study, volitional overlay.
FIG. C · FIGURE SEQUENCEFigure sequence
Fig. C   Unfolding of gesture across time.
FIG. D · ROOM PLANRoom plan
Fig. D   Room as instrument.
FIG. E.1Gesture diagram
Fig. E.1   Gesture study.
FIG. E.2Toe gesture
Fig. E.2   Detail — toe.
FIG. E.3Figure sequence
Fig. E.3   Sequence.
FIG. F · PERFORMANCE NOTATIONPerformance notation — figures and music
Fig. F   Performance notation. Time signatures converge with and resist the distorted sounds of habitual gestures.
FIG. G · SKETCHSketch — person at piano
Fig. G   Pencil sketch.
FIG. HSketch — detail
Fig. H   Detail.
FIG. I · NOTATION (R)Red gesture notation
Fig. I   Red-channel gesture notation.
FIG. J · NOTATION (K)Dark gesture diagram
Fig. J   Dark-channel counterpart.
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