Thesis Supervisor: 
Dr.Doreen Mende

Independent reviewer: Nora Sternfeld

Thesis:The Gap In The Image

June 2012

ABSTRACT

This thesis explores on the one hand my interest in collective, physical movements that goes beyond a totalitarian collective. On the other hand it is an investigation on how to represent an event in to another
medium. How to represent an event without trying to reproduce it or pin down the meaning of this moment?

The starting point for this research has been a project I did one year ago in Leipzig, Germany , called TURN! In this project I created - in collaboration with choreographer Heike Hennig- a choreography with a
big group of volunteers on a stadium field. I wanted to investigate the possibilities for synchronised, collective movement in a space that is loaded with the history of mass- movement parades during the socialist
GDR, but throughout the last 25 years has become an arena for contemporary links between sports and commerce.

I wanted to explore possibilities for contemporary collective movements that transgress both commercial and ideological use. My premise is the belief that individualism is a norm, and a totality, in western society. This individualism needs to be questioned just as much as the norms and totalities within state - socialism needed to be questioned.

The filmed documentation that was shot during this performance in collaboration with film director Daniel G. Schwarz didn't provide an easy solution to show a definite outcome of this project afterwards. This project had been organised with the purpose of creating a representable image out of it from the beginning. Despite storyboards and detailed planning, the material would never convey a clear message afterwards. It turned out that the intentions of TURN! were never completely defined to start with and that absolute answers could not be given.

This thesis takes you along the process of my frustration about this incapability in creating a clear document, eventually coming to realise that the lack of definition and finalisation shows exa ctly those gaps and ruptures that open up the documentation. The instable meaning of this document might actually show the potential of the collective, beyond a clearly defined, all encompassing commercial and ideological purposes.

The second layer in this thesis is the exploration in the different meanings the word 'collective' can have. I try to go into the different manifestations, functions and possibilities of 'collectives', which
eventually helps me to think of a collectivity beyond totalitarianism and what the image of a collective like this could be.

Author: Anna Hoetjes