What is fiction pimping?
The term fiction pimping refers to a fictionalization of a given situation, thereby tailoring a story, a myth, a ritual for a specific site or concept. While fiction pimping, we manifest and thereby point to the dormant images, stories and parallel universe, which we consider to be latent in all situations; be that a conference, a political meeting, a debate, a factory, a nightclub or on the street. This movement thereby strengthens our ability and the ability of our collaborators, to make the invisible visible, to manifest that which dwells in the parallel worlds, what is unseen but felt by some, reminding people of what they already know, but may have forgotten.
“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.” — Virginia Woolf
The understanding of fiction pimping is much better derived from experience, but to try and present you with a taste of the concept, you could imagine yourself stepping into a given space, while doing so this would be like stepping into a movie, the fiction would surround you and you would be meeting a new universe, interacting with different characters who all inhabit this space.
Fiction pimping, though, does not thereby necessarily involve creating a hermetically sealed fictional space, instead it can be an intention to create an intense bodily experience of an atmospheric change in time and space, and the most important part of the body to fiction pimp, thus becomes the mind.
When we choose to use fiction as an artistic tool and expression, we do it knowing the power and potential a fictional space holds. Our manifestations and use of fiction is very much inspired by the formation of the ritual as structured by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep (1909) with its pre-liminal (separation), liminal (transition) and post-liminal (reincorporation) phase. Thus e.g. Level Kitchen of The Crack served the double function of preparing the visitors for the separation with everyday life in the pre-liminal phase and reincorporating them in the post-liminal phase. As part of the post-liminal phase interviews with visitors was carried out, allowing the experience in the liminal (transitory) phase to integrate into everyday life, by verbalizing and reflecting upon how the somatic teachings can serve as something constant in the everyday life and not just as a quick fix.
With a background as performers in SIGNA and Club de la Faye, we have been in the process of refining and exploring this potent method for many years now.