Taking its title from the Ancient Greek verb meaning “to mold or shape”, Plassein is a choreographic interpretation of neuroplasticity using performance and moving image to explore reorganization, adaptation, and growth.

Echoing ideas that plasticity enables the brain to be simultaneously formative and formable, the body is proposed as a site of both knowledge production and knowledge exchange. The performers are continually forming new connections and pathways, working together to hold, fold, weave, curve and hinge. Moving with the body, the camera too becomes a performer – tracking movement but also creating it. The exchange between performers and camera creates a new architectural reality which is in a constant state of transformation.

In the age of hyper-productivity, principles of neuroplasticity have been capitalised on with suggestions of how we might ‘rewire’ our brains to become more efficient. Plassein invites an alternative reading that moves away from the unrelenting pressure to produce and consume, with an emphasis instead on learning, growing and exchanging.

Awards 
Honorable Mention in Art of Neuroscience awards
Winner of FORMAT23 Open Call
Shortlisted for Athens Photo Festival 2022

Exhibitons
What Photography Can Be, QUAD Derby. Part of Format International Photography Festival, UK. (2023)
Shaping Data, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Part of Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, DE. (2022)

Press
Der Greif ‘Specials’ - Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie – From Where I Stand

Credits
A film by Alexandra Davenport

Movement Direction: Alexandra Davenport
Film Direction: Federico Barni
Styling: Elizabeth Bradley

Performers
Amelia Tan
Daisy Minto
Dilesh Patel
Jessy Mackay
Patrick Lawrie
Rachel Coleman

Director of Photography: Ailsa Aikoa
Steadicam Operator: Luke Oliver
Focus Puller: Joel Spence

Assistants
Production Assistant: Anna Thompson
Styling Assistant: Roseanna Bradley

Editor: Federico Barni
Colourist: John Lowe
Sound Design: Federico Barni
Titles: Elizabeth Bradley

Shaping Data at Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen
Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie

19.03.22 - 22.05.22

From Where I Stand explores how a more sustainable, inclusive and empowered future might be achieved from various perspectives. The 21st century way of living is severely influenced by the complex interdependency of people, the environment and technological processes. Technology allows us to enhance our bodies, to have immediate access to information and only communicate with like-minded people, and to use the earth's resources for our own needs. Despite these advantages, these developments also lead to a many of disadvantages: Algorithms and filter bubbles influence our beliefs and actions. Not all people have equal access to resources; nature suffers from overexploitation.

Plassein is featured in Davenport’s installation as part of the exhibition ‘Shaping Data’, which is one of six exhbitions featured in the biennale. 

Shaping Data explores how the widespread use of digital technologies affects our physical bodies, frames our opinions, and alters human interactions. We spend lots of our time with our devices sharing often personal data that fuels algorithms. In turn, these algorithmic processes decide what we see and hear. This immediate feedback creates the illusion that we are in control of our own lives and the lives of others.

Installation Images
01 - Miriam Stanke
02, 03, 05 - Alexandra Davenport 
04 - Lys Y Seng

What Photography Can Be at QUAD, Derby UK.
FORMAT23 International Photography Festival

17.03.23 - 02.07.23

For the eleventh edition of FORMAT International Photography Festival, we’re delighted to welcome you back to the city of Derby, following an online hiatus during the Covid-19 pandemic, to celebrate, discover and question What Photography Can Be.

FORMAT OPEN Call presents the work of photographers and artists who have been selected via an International Open Call in. The photographs include diverse themes such as how environmental and climate changes are affecting communities across the world; the realities of how our food production might look in our not so distance future, examinations of new belief-systems inspired by folk law, secret military programs and the appropriation of indigenous spiritual practices.

Installation Images
Courtesy of the Artist