Side Effect: Potential Tensions in the Creative Process of a Videodance

Abstract

This text presents a theoretical perspective on a practical project that integrates approaches from creative fields engaged with serendipity. The artwork developed here draws on Rosalind Krauss's concept of the Expanded Field (1979), and on postmodern artistic expressions inspired by the Theory of the Dérive — as discussed by Guy Debord (1958), Santiago Navarro (2011), and Francesco Careri (2013) — which expand the body's creative possibilities. In response to these provocations, artist Julia Soares developed a videodance piece based on Chance Operations by Merce Cunningham and John Cage, and in Rudolf Laban’s movement studies. In this process, a game emerged between chance, object, and expression, establishing tensions between the body and the domestic scene, originating from the act of collecting blister packs of a medication. By questioning its side effects, the artist produces a poetic tortion that transforms the repetitive gesture into expression, revealing the creative potential of the ordinary.