How does it shape relationships when we can’t be together physically? What changes when we speak to each other digitally? These questions have been increasingly raised since the COVID-19 pandemic when digital communication tools were more integrated into our daily lives than ever. Phone calls and voice messages became an integral part of social contacts, and with the establishment of home offices, video calls gradually replaced physical meetings. Zoom in particular seems inseparably linked to the pandemic for many people. Although the software has been on the market since 2013, user numbers increased 20-fold and skyrocketed from 10 million daily users to 200 million during the first lockdown in March 2020. Furthermore, the ubiquity of the software became evident in our everyday language. “To zoom” emerged as the new term for making video calls, replacing “skyping,” and already by April 2020, the term “Zoom Fatigue” was coined to describe the weariness of digital meetings. Still, the fact that we use electronic devices to talk to people far away is, of course, not a novelty. The invention of the telephone in the mid-19th century made it possible to transport voices electronically, allowing for spoken conversations to be conducted at a distance for the first time. After initial scepticism, the telephone spread rapidly and eventually led to 10 million telephones being connected to the network worldwide in 1910. With this global interconnection, conversations were able to bridge entire continents. At the time, the telephone was still a stationary device installed in a specific room, and only the length of the cord determined how mobile the caller was and whether or not they could retreat to the privacy of another space. In the 1970s, however, the device freed itself from its leashes. With the advent of cell phones, people were suddenly able to make phone calls anywhere and anytime. As a result, the cell phone connected spaces in a completely new way that didn’t require the users being in a specific location to make or receive a call. Then, during the 21st century, the internet and private computers emerged and eventually gave way to an additional layer of information: the image! Video calls, initially introduced by Skype in 2006, made it possible to hear and see each other. The visual information made it possible to convey body language for the first time, and to invite others into our homes without their physical presence.

Today, it’s hard to imagine life without telecommunication technology, and, ever since the lockdowns in particular, they’ve undeniably been shaping interpersonal relationships. What’s new since the pandemic, however, is not just their increased use in the private and professional sphere, but also their presence and utilisation in the realm of culture. While formats with a traditional audience setting, such as theatre and concerts, primarily turned to online streaming, workshop formats adopted video conference platforms like Zoom, which offered screen sharing, breakout rooms, collective whiteboards and other interactive features. Interestingly, through their transfer into a digital space, many workshops turned into a framework that wouldn’t require a specific space and sometimes didn’t even use any material at all. Instead, it adjusted to what Zoom and other similar tools were originally designed for: conversation. However, this shift into a format aimed at verbal exchange wasn’t new at all. It rather amplified a trend that has been evident in the history of the workshop format since the 1950s.

In the opening remarks of the online conference “The Workshop: Investigations Into An Artistic-Political Format,” author and theatre scholar Kai van Eikels describes the transformation of the workshop from its beginnings as a physical place to today’s understanding of an “extremely versatile” format. Initially, he states, the term referred to “the workplace of craftsmen and -women,” thus describing a space “where solid objects were being transformed in very predictable ways employing solid tools.” Accordingly, the workshop originally aimed at sharing specific craftsmenship techniques and knowledge. In the 1950s, however, activist and artistic practices increasingly embraced the format and broke away from specific spaces and predetermined goals. Since then, the workshop has been evolving into a ubiquitous format that can be found in a variety of fields. From work-related contexts to teaching, activism, and art, it is now often understood as a framework for discussion and reflection, aimed primarily at existential change. Through the various transformations of the format, van Eikel argues, the workshop’s definition boils down to “some people spending considerable time physically together in one room and attaching a special value to the time, the room, and the physical togetherness.” However, considering digital workshop formats, this definition has further changed, as they must do without a shared physical space, physical contact and often without movement and manual work. As components such as body, space, and object undoubtedly play a different role, it suggests a further condensed definition that shifts the focus to the togetherness of a group and broadens the notions of a shared space and physicality.

AN UNEXPECTED
INTIMACY

Discussions about corporeality in digital spaces have repeatedly pointed to the subject of communication. From the phenomenon of Zoom Fatigue—which is attributed to the lack of facial expressions, body language, or eye contact—to questions about what is conveyed beyond these sensual pieces of information; underneath it all lies the question of what is required to establish the feeling of an interpersonal connection.

While in the fall of 2020, during the second lockdown in Germany, many lamented the continued loss of physical contact, I experienced digital workshops that drew a counter-image to the disembodied digital space. For despite—or perhaps because of—their tendency toward the seemingly immaterial, there were three workshops in particular that created an unexpected intimacy and physicality.

With my newly drawn interest in performance and bodywork, as well as questions around vulnerability and subjectivity, I had signed up for three workshops that revolved around questions of intimacy and exchange. All events had originally been planned on-site, but had to switch to a digital format at the last minute. So I participated from my room, logged in via Zoom, looking at the now-familiar grid of faces instead of meeting with the workshop group in a physical space. During the workshops, I kept wondering: What would this have felt like had it been an analogue workshop? And surprisingly, this was followed by the question: Would it have worked just as well?

The workshops “Between Us,” “Being in Crises Together,” and “Listen to Me All Around You” were translated into a digital format in ways that didn’t appear as a pale copy of “real life.” Instead, they created an attention and awareness that was able to bridge the physical distance and even make use of its technological conditions. By reinterpreting acts of speaking and listening, they expanded and appropriated the limits of digital spaces.

The performative dialogue format “Between Us” by Roni Katz blurred the boundaries between question and answer, between talking about the self and the other. Its digital translation surprised with how intimate a Zoom conversation can become and how physical a performance workshop can be without physical movement. The workshop “Being in Crises Together” by the Feminist Health Care Research Group used the format of a meditative self-inquiry and various conversation formats. It demonstrated how breakout rooms and the safety of one’s own space could provide an environment to access one’s emotionality. Both formats were held in November 2020 as part of the series “How Do We Care” that addressed the politicisation of bodies and alternative concepts of caregiving. The programme, conceived by Mira Hirtz and Anja Casser, was initially planned for the premises of the Badischer Kunstverein but was eventually hosted on Zoom. The workshop “Listen To Me All Around You” by Francisca Khamis Giacoman and Tina Reden explored the realm of oral history and memory through different formats, such as a written performance, letter-writing, reading sessions, listening to music together, and telephone conversations. In the various settings, the workshop demonstrated how diverse listening could be, especially in the remote format, and addressed what speaking and listening actually mean. The workshop was hosted in April 2021 and originally planned to take place at The Garage in Basel, but then was transferred to Zoom, online documents, and phone calls. It was part of *!labs!*, a workshop series aimed at developing hands-on approaches to discuss societal issues within design practice and was organised by the platform Depatriarchise Design.

In addition to the focus on acts of listening and speaking and their translation into digital spaces, the three workshops also share an interest in subjects around intimacy, relationships, identity, and corporeality. These interests stem not least from the individual practices of Roni Katz, Julia Bonn, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Tina Reden, who share a feminist and body-related approach. All four individuals work in performance, choreography, bodywork, or art while subjects such as language, narration, and communication are a central part of their practice.

To talk about their experiences in translating their formats into the digital, I met individually with the four hosts in spring 2021. They shared what difficulties they encountered in the process, and what surprises they experienced. We dived into the conditions of digital spaces: they’re intertwined with analogue space, how we move and encounter ourselves in them, and how they shape our attention. Furthermore, acts of speaking and listening were illuminated in many ways: what kind of attention it takes to establish a connection between two people, what listening means exactly, and how it changes under digital conditions.

While speaking about “the digital,” it quickly became apparent that there isn’t just one digital space. Technical conditions, as well as social conventions and connotations, shape those spaces differently, resulting in a variety of spaces with different limits and possibilities. As we spoke about the apparent dichotomy of analogue and digital, online and offline, on-screen and in person, we seemed to agree on what we mean when we make these distinctions. At the same time, however, we also found these terms to appear quite contradictory. After all, isn’t the digital still physical? And don’t we somehow still meet in person when we see each other on-screen? It became clear that the so-called analogue and digital are always intertwined, that we are always in both spaces simultaneously, and that accordingly, the digital is always hybrid. So how do we deal with this entanglement? In some instances, we need separation; in others, we need to blur the boundaries. What matters is the attention we pay to ourselves and the analogue space, as well as to the other person and the shared digital space.

What turned out to lie underneath these questions was awareness. In order to engage with other people in a mindful way and to move in hybrid spaces without being exhausted, we have to be attentive to ourselves, be open, and learn to listen to each other. If we are sensitive to our emotions, needs, and bodily sensations, if we listen to the signals of others, and if we are aware of all the spaces we are situated in simultaneously, we can feel a connection and create resonance. Then, we can not only engage in hybrid encounters sustainably, but also move through them consciously, understand their effects on our bodies and our relationships, appropriate their frameworks, and shape them in a self-determined way.