The Symmetry Project

by Jess Curtis and Maria F. Scaroni, 2007/2011
The Symmetry Project is a journey through perception. Two naked bodies interact through a highly structured improvisational score, that of moving symmetrically, relative to themselves or to each other. Situated in a constricted site, a space of temporary habits, the two bodies tune and adjust their frequency, reformulating the perception of the self and of the other. Limbs entangle and intertwine creating an inter-corporeal kaleidoscope of flesh. A kind of über-intimacy develops, going far beyond sexuality into a kind of communal biology, a symbiotic sensory field. Blending, merging, and then again differentiating, the two become “unfinished entities”—as Pierre Bourdieau refers to the body— improvising new habits, “perceiving the possible.” Exploring and manipulating, this sensorium reveals the body’s awkwardness, its monstrosity, its potential failure and finiteness at the same time that it creates space for the possibility of the unknown, the wondrous, the ecstatic, the infinite. Through this process we force the dislocation of our physical investigations from a traditional dance/theatrical context into a variety of presentational contexts, including photo and video media, “live art” performance installations in galleries, on the Internet/Web, public sites and both gallery and public space contexts, thereby reframing the work and affording viewers the possibility to see the body, and its metaphorical possibilities, through different filters, with different types of attention, expectation and association.

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