Documents 

MANIPULATION RESEARCH LABORATORY –
MRL #1, #2 and #3 MRL was a set of three research laboratories in the field of object manipulation and juggling, that were initiated and organised in Stockholm by jugglers Jay Gilligan, Luke Wilson, Ben Richter and Erik Âberg. The idea was born from an urge to push juggling into the next era and to do this by researching – meaning collecting information to see where it would lead. A decision was taken to make a juggling research project, something that was never seen before in any organized or official sense. MRL #1 took place in 2008 with the aim to define the “Rules of Manipulation”. The four jugglers discovered that juggling as an art form lacked an evolved language to talk about abstract concepts inside of its genre. They managed to invent some rules that seemed “true”, but felt that they ended up mostly talking about composition. So, in 2009 they made MRL #2, an exploration on composition for juggling. This time they discovered that composition was dependent on with what it was done – balls, rings, clubs, diabolo, aso. So consequently, in 2010 MRL #3 was organised – this time about “Tricks & Props”. At the end of MRL #2 they had found that juggling was too undefined and undeveloped to keep having specific topics for research sessions. Language and definitions were needed before getting more specific and trying to see where to go next. So when starting MRL #3 they knew it would be the last one.

The MRL project fed 3 tangible commercial offshoot projects: one series of videos building upon ideas from MRL, the creation of a new commercial company manufacturing new juggling prop shapes and selling performances using them, and finally the use of concepts and findings from MRL in creating performances and other research processes. [editor summary]