Shift/Work: [STATIC] Speculations, Neil Mulholland + Norman Hogg

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At Knot Project Space and in relation to their exhibition þan-þan, the Confraternity of Neoflagellants (Norman Hogg and Neil Mulholland) conducted a performance of Shift/Work Speculations, a score-scroll originally composed at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to be performed at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale Biennale, India (March 2017), and since performed in Kristiansand (Norway), Malmö (Sweden), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Calgary (Canada).

SPECULATION is a ‘gesture that interrupts’ (Biesta 2017, 36); an ‘irritation’ (Ascott 2003, 145); ‘a corruption, a rupture of information’ […] ‘static, a parasite?’ (Serres and Schehr 2007: 3) The speculative parasite is one that stimulates paragogic play, materialising Shift/Workers’ learning expectations. In performing each other’s Speculations Shift/Workshops, Shift/Workers gain a metacognitive understanding of the speculative processes and challenges of artistic learning.

SCROLL-SCORE To blackbox facilitation, Confraternity of Neoflagellants will scaffold play with a scroll-score, a minimal set of prompts that sets the parameters within which Shift/Workshop design is communally performed. Confraternity of Neoflagellants will be using a set of Speculations Playing Cards as parasites for interference, gestation, regurgitation and problem creation. Speculative materials, probes and props will be drawn directly from the þan-þan exhibition.

EXEMPLA The Kochi-Muziris scroll-score, cards and three ESW-scores are published as an OER so that they can easily be recalibrated and run by any group of Shift/Workers. The Ottawa performance – Shift/Work: [STATIC] Speculations – will constitute a S/W-CoN conglomerate exempla of the scroll-score.

PREPARATION It’s very important not to prepare for this mashup workshop as the element of surprise is central to how it stimulates speculative play. The workshop is ‘flipped’ – Neil will provide access to materials that expand up on Shift/Work and paragogics once the workshop has finished.

Shift/Work

Founded in 2010 by Neil Mulholland and Dan Brown in Edinburgh, Scotland, Shift/Work (www.shiftwork.org.uk) supports the active peer production of Open Education Resources (OER) for artists. An iterative practice continually re-performed like a musical score, Shift/Work solicits autopoetic and generative workshop compositions. Shift/Work is a performative paragogics (Corneli 2011) wherein peers compose and play-test Shift/Workshops for one another. Shift/Workers practise a multilateral approach to workshop composition. Groups of paragogues compose a score to be performed by their peers. Composers then switch roles to become players, performing workshop scores composed by their peers. This generates a metacognitive feedback loop that enables the group as a whole to identify, observe, experience and recalibrate their own artistic learning. At SAW on November 9th 2019, the Confraternity of Neoflagellants (Norman Hogg and Neil Mulholland) will conduct a performance of Shift/Work Speculations, a score-scroll originally composed at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop to be performed at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale Biennale, India (March 2017). It has since been performed in Kristiansand (Norway), Malmö (Sweden), Edinburgh (Scotland) and Calgary (Canada).


Related Programming


Exhibition: þan-þan, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants. Oct. 19 – Nov. 16, 2019.

Performance: *219 Condemnations, Alive!, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants. Nov. 6, 2019. Knot Project Space.


Performance: *219 Heretical Marginalia, Alive!, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants. Nov. 7, 2019. Knot Project Space.


Publication: þan-þan, The Confraternity of Neoflagellants, Punctum Books. Fall 2020.