Context
Nikki Heywood, Performance
[kon-tekst]: 1375-1425; late Middle English < Latin contextus a joining together, scheme, structure, equivalent to ‘contex’ (ere) to join by weaving (con- con- + texere to plait, weave) + -tus suffix of v. action; cf. text (online dictionary.com)
In terms of the ‘real’ in the field of archaeology – where findings are discoverable and presentable - context is tangible. A trench is called a context, in the sense that it is a milieu, a geographical, geological surrounding event that supports meaning. At an archaeological site one can stand literally knee-deep in context.
When an archaeologist moves an excavated object, or more often, a fragment of an object from its trench of origin, all effort is made to keep the object intact and to examine it in relation to its surrounding site, along with other proximal finds from the same trench. Later, when the object is displayed or archived, accompanied by relevant background information, the material detail of context is essential to any understanding of the cultural and historical significance of the artefact.
In one model of practice-based research a type of embodied sifting, sorting examination can take place, akin to the sorting, cleaning and classifying of finds at a dig. This provisional archaeological model can become a sense-making framework, for example: excavating past practices of training and performance-making delineates a contextual trench; sorting shards of related history and theory in tandem with somatic studio process, followed by the act of writing up the finds; classifying objects of personal memory, perception and experience in relation to an assemblage of critical writings that are found located in other layers of what is presumed to be, a common matrix.
I would posit that what the artist often does is to play with this idea of context, to consciously disrupt it, to put unlike objects, images, ideas, gestures things that don’t belong, together. Hence a performance or an art work can become its own type of context making.
(Abridged from creative doctorate Heywood N. Undoing Discomfort: being real, becoming other in an embodied performance practice)