The Children
Child Movement
The content of the piece, what is actually being shown by the video, is a group of children playing in a constantly evolving forest. This content is at the same time responsible for communicating an idea. The figures representing the children in the video are moving in a random and joyful way. In fact, it becomes quite easy for us to see and appreciate the beauty of their movement, what Kaiser calls “a grace not of mastery, but quite the opposite, of still learning to move”. (Playground) Which means this is not the type of movement beauty we are used to see, like in a carefully planned and executed choreography. Instead this is the beauty of young and free movement itself.
We are able to see such movement in its essence because of the way in which it is portrayed. As you might have noticed the children in the video are just black sketchy shadows instead of real images of adorable kids. This is how movement gets isolated from the concept of a child as whole, by removing his body and replacing it with nothing more than a shadow. This shadow signifies its presence but it only communicates in a direct way the concept of its movement.
“You’d see beyond any doubt that the soul of their movement is beautiful unto itself” (Kaiser, Playground)
So it is actually child movement being portrayed by those shadows and not children. It’s mimesis that allows Open Ended Group to detach the movement from the body and thus present to us its idealized version. When the viewer is inside that Forest he doesn’t see adorable children and partly contemplates their movement as something extra that adds up to what they are. Instead he sees that movement by itself in its most pure and idealized form which makes him realize at the same time about some aspects that he would otherwise miss. When he’s experiencing this he realizes how beautiful it is by itself but he also senses the emotions behind that spontaneous and free movement, thus evoking a sensation of wildness in him. It’s after being in direct contact with this pure and ideal mimetic concept of child movement and with the emotions behind it that the viewer goes back to his own childhood and experiences the emotions and a wild impulse once again.
The content of the piece, what is actually being shown by the video, is a group of children playing in a constantly evolving forest. This content is at the same time responsible for communicating an idea. The figures representing the children in the video are moving in a random and joyful way. In fact, it becomes quite easy for us to see and appreciate the beauty of their movement, what Kaiser calls “a grace not of mastery, but quite the opposite, of still learning to move”. (Playground) Which means this is not the type of movement beauty we are used to see, like in a carefully planned and executed choreography. Instead this is the beauty of young and free movement itself.
We are able to see such movement in its essence because of the way in which it is portrayed. As you might have noticed the children in the video are just black sketchy shadows instead of real images of adorable kids. This is how movement gets isolated from the concept of a child as whole, by removing his body and replacing it with nothing more than a shadow. This shadow signifies its presence but it only communicates in a direct way the concept of its movement.
“You’d see beyond any doubt that the soul of their movement is beautiful unto itself” (Kaiser, Playground)
So it is actually child movement being portrayed by those shadows and not children. It’s mimesis that allows Open Ended Group to detach the movement from the body and thus present to us its idealized version. When the viewer is inside that Forest he doesn’t see adorable children and partly contemplates their movement as something extra that adds up to what they are. Instead he sees that movement by itself in its most pure and idealized form which makes him realize at the same time about some aspects that he would otherwise miss. When he’s experiencing this he realizes how beautiful it is by itself but he also senses the emotions behind that spontaneous and free movement, thus evoking a sensation of wildness in him. It’s after being in direct contact with this pure and ideal mimetic concept of child movement and with the emotions behind it that the viewer goes back to his own childhood and experiences the emotions and a wild impulse once again.
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