HOW-NESS

A summary: Gansterer, N., Cocker, E., Greil, M. “How-ness” in Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line, 2017

when-ness where-ness how-ness

How can refer to the way in which something is done: by what means, in what conditions, to what extent. How indicates the unfolding of a process. Process, according to Henk Borgdorff, can be etymologically linked to the notion of going forward by yielding, by leaving behind.

In some cases how is generated by training: there is one desired way of doing things. In other cases how emerges through self-discovery; it is idiosyncratic.

To some extent the how-to apporoach illustrates the seperate successive stages of a given process. How about processes that are based on not-knowing, contingency, chance, intuition?

In these cases, according to Borgdorff, “Research is more like exploration than following a firm path.” We ask “how-else?” and play and explore in “however” way. Howness is not goal-oriented, it is the “journey travelled”. “Howness needs space”, where it can make detours away from a preset path, and then lead to Whatness and Whyness. “The sharing of how can involve the undoing … of one’s habitual ways of doing things … [and can activate] a known-yet-not knowledge.” A no-how instead of know-how.

How-ness can support a dynamic model of research, where figures emerge, that are not yet fully known to the researchers. Attention is steered towards the “how of the now… now…now… now… now… (—-> Practices of Attention).” On the other hand the what-ness and the why-ness of a figure’s form can eventually be “static”.

How-ness can also investigate “the state or condition of a person, object or thing”, the space between one affective state and another, one human and another, one action/choice and another.