Lesson 1: Find the reactor

    ​Welcome to Week 4: Choreograph a book.
    This week, you will transform the material of Module 1 into a first book object.
    • If Module 1 is your only module, this object can become a complete small book.
    • If you continue with Module 2 and / or Module 3, this object can become Chapter 1, Path 1, or Movement 1 inside a larger book.

    So the object you create this week has to do two things:
    It should be complete enough to stand alone.
    It should be uncomplete enough to continue.

    Today, we begin with the reactor.

    What is a reactor?
    So far, you received prompts as frames. You were not told what to write about. You wrote through direction, fragments, transition, closing, objects, materiality, voice, darkness, space, and audience relation.
    You generated material.
    Many texts.
    Many fragments.
    Many possible beginnings.
    Many possible directions.
    Maybe they seem very different from one another. Maybe they move through different topics, images, voices, objects, moods, or questions. Maybe they do not yet look like one book. Today, the task is to return to the experience and begin to understand what you were circulating around. What kept returning through the writing:
    A word. A force. A question. A mood. A pressure. A place. An emotion. A contradiction. A difficulty. A desire. A relation. A hidden line.
    Something that connects the texts, even if the connection was not visible while you were writing. Something that can make order in the chaos. Something that can choreograph form from the unformed material.
    We will call this the reactor of the book.
    The reactor is not necessarily the topic of the book. It is not necessarily what the book is “about.” It is what activates the material. It is what helps the texts begin to speak to each other. It is the link between fragments that may look separate. It is the force you will build around or with. It is what helps you choose. A reactor does not close the book. It activates it.

    Part 1 — Return to the experience

    Go back to the module.
    Return to what stayed.
    Maybe what stayed is a moment in the forest. Maybe a difficulty. Maybe a text that resisted. Maybe an object. Maybe a sentence. Maybe a voice. Maybe a transition. Maybe a fragment. Maybe a feeling after the performance. Maybe a moment when you felt lost. Maybe a moment when something suddenly became clear.
    Answer these 4 questions:
    Write about one moment, emotion, difficulty, image, exercise, method, object, sentence, or experience that still remains active.
    Think concretely.
    What changed in the way you begin, fragment, continue, transition, end, listen, use objects, work with voice, or trust the material?
    What pushed you further?
    It can be something uncomfortable, difficult, confusing, exciting, irritating, surprising, or clarifying.
    Try to help someone understand what kind of experience this was.

    Part 2 — Choose a first reactor

    Now read your answers again and underline the strongest words. Look for what returns.

    The reactor is rarely the most obvious word. Sometimes the first word is only the entrance.
    For example:
    space, time, identity, memory, care, body, ecology, community, vulnerability, power...
    These words may be important. They may locate a field. But they do not always reveal the reactor. They may be the door. The reactor is often behind the door.

    At the School of Disobedience, we learn to look behind things.
    If you say ecology, ask:
    Why ecology? What exactly becomes unbearable there? Loss? Control? Extinction? Guilt? Extraction? Dependency? The fantasy that something can still be saved? The difficulty of accepting that something has already disappeared?

    If you say body, ask:
    Which body? A body observed from outside? A body disciplined? A body that refuses to perform correctly? A body that wants to disappear? A body trying to become readable to others?

    If you say participation, ask:
    What keeps happening inside that participation? Are you building togetherness? Testing whether togetherness is possible? Controlling the conditions of encounter? Looking for the moment when the collective begins to fall apart?

    These questions are uncomfortable because they interfere with the first explanation. They disturb the language that already sounds correct. They push you closer to what your immediate responses may be protecting or hiding.

    Perhaps you say that your practice concerns ecology, while your works repeatedly organize situations of control.
    Perhaps you describe the work as participatory, while the deeper research concerns solitude.
    Perhaps you believe you are researching care, but what keeps returning is the impossibility of reciprocity.
    Perhaps you speak about freedom, while every project constructs another system of rules.
    Perhaps you use the language of vulnerability, while the work is actually negotiating power.

    Perhaps the work is less heroic, less fashionable, and much more uncomfortable than the first statement you would like to make about it. This does not mean the first word is false. It means it is not enough precise yet.
    Now choose one word or short phrase.
    This will become the reactor of your book or chapter.
    For example:
    • forest
    • confusion
    • return
    • fragmentation
    • not knowing
    • after the performance
    • a body in the dark
    • something unfinished
    • the need to disappear
    • a sentence that keeps returning
    • a voice looking for permission
    • a body that does not trust the path
    • a place that refuses to stay outside
    • the fear of being seen
    • the wish to leave before arriving

    This word does not need to be beautiful.
    It does not need to be abstract.
    It does not need to sound like a title.
    It only needs to be active.

    Part 3 — Look behind the first answer

    Defining a reactor is difficult. It requires attention. It requires distance. It requires serious analytical work. It requires self-knowledge. You need to notice what returns unintentionally. You need to name relationships you did not plan. You need to accept that the force producing the work may be different from the subject you have been using to describe it.

    This does not mean that you need to confess your life. You do not need to expose wounds publicly. You do not need to turn the book into autobiography.

    But very often, at the heart of a reactor, there is something personal. Not personal as confession. Personal as a way of perceiving the world.
    A fear.
    A contradiction.
    A desire you do not completely understand.
    A relationship to authority.
    A need to control.
    A difficulty receiving care.
    A compulsion to repair what cannot be repaired.
    A lifelong negotiation with belonging, visibility, intimacy, violence, dependency, recognition, or abandonment.
    It is often some personal shit...
    Not always. But very, very often.
    And this is why we do not stop at the first answer.
    We look again. And again. And again.
    An artistic career is often described as something that moves forward: more works, more projects, more visibility, more opportunities.
    But a practice also becomes meaningful when it moves backward.
    Analytically.
    Toward what is behind.
    What is behind this topic?
    What is behind this form?
    What is behind this repetition?
    What is behind this attraction?
    What is behind this refusal?
    What is behind this need to make the same situation again?
    More and more steps backward.
    Minus one.
    Minus one again.
    And again.
    Not regression.
    Precision.
    The more you understand what is behind the work, the more clearly you can understand both yourself and your practice. The more clearly you understand the reactor, the more precisely you can take care of it.

    This clarity is something we cultivate at the School of Disobedience.
    For this week, we do not need the final reactor of your whole artistic practice. That may take years. Maybe a lifetime. We need the reactor of this book or chapter. A temporary reactor. But a real one. Something strong enough to guide decisions for the next days.

    Part 4 — Specify the reactor

    If your reactor is care, go one step behind care.
    What kind of care?
    If your reactor is body, go one step behind body.
    Which body, under what pressure?
    If your reactor is memory, go one step behind memory.
    What does memory do here: protect, distort, repeat, accuse, repair, disappear?
    ​    Now specify your reactor. Complete this sentence:
    Write 5–8 lines.
    Try to understand what is really active inside the word you chose.
    ​
    For example:
    My reactor is not only care. It is more precisely the moment when care becomes control. I see it in the way several texts try to protect something, but also in the way they organize the space too tightly. It helps me understand that my material is not simply soft. It is negotiating power inside softness.
    Or:
    My reactor is not only forest. It is more precisely the feeling of moving without seeing the whole path. I see it in the walking, in the fragments, and in the performance in the dark. It helps me understand that the book may not need to explain everything at once.
    Now write your own.

    ​You can use this structure:
    • My reactor is…
    • It is not only…
    • It is more precisely…
    • I found it because…
    • It connects…
    • It may help me decide…

    Today is about naming the force that can hold the work together.