Archive for Thoughts
April 26, 2010 at 10:41 am · Filed under Events, Theory, Thoughts
Here is a letter from Avi Santo, coordinating editor of In Media Res. Check out the dance and technology theme week that I will be participating in as a curator this week.
Hi all,
Welcome to a special theme week devoted to Dance and Technology.
Please feel free to respond to the contributors’ comments.
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr
This week’s In Media Res line-up:
Monday, April 26, 2010 – Stamatia Portanova (Birkbeck University of London) presents: “Movement-Objects”
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 – Ashley Ferro-Murray (University of California, Berkeley) presents: “Moving Digitally: between sensors and tone”
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 – Erin Manning (Concordia University) presents: “When Tables Dance: Technicity in Motion”
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 – Nora Zuniga Shaw (Ohio State University) presents: “What else, besides the body, might physical thinking look like?”
Thursday, April 29, 2010 – Alanna Thain (McGill University) presents: “All the Single Babies: Adorable/ Automaton?”
Friday, April 30, 2010 – Antonin de Bemels (Independent Artist) presents: “Scrub solo 3: soliloquy”
Please check out these wonderful contributions and offer your thoughts via a comment.
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/imr
ABOUT IN MEDIA RES
In Media Res is dedicated to experimenting with collaborative, multi-modal forms of online scholarship.
Each day, a different scholar will curate a 30-second to 3-minute videoclip/visual image slideshow accompanied by a 300-350-word impressionistic response.
We use the title “curator” because, like a curator in a museum, you are repurposing a media object that already exists and providing context through your commentary, which frames the object in a particular way.
The clip/comment combination are intended to both introduce the curator’s work to the larger community of scholars (as well as non-academics who frequent the site) and, hopefully, encourage feedback/discussion from that community.
Theme weeks are designed to generate a networked conversation between curators. All the posts for that week will thematically overlap and the participating curators each agree to comment on one another’s work.
Our goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst scholars and the public about contemporary approaches to studying media.
In Media Res provides a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media at a pace closer to how we typically experience media.
In Media Res is a publication of MediaCommons. MediaCommons is a strong advocate for the right of media scholars to quote from the materials they analyze, as protected by the principle of “fair use.” If such quotation is necessary to a scholar’s argument, if the quotation serves to support a scholar’s original analysis or pedagogical purpose, and if the quotation does not harm the market value of the original text — but rather, and on the contrary, enhances it — we must defend the scholar’s right to quote from the media texts under study.
For more information, please contact In Media Res’ coordinating editor, Avi Santo at asanto@odu.edu
Best,
Avi Santo
January 31, 2010 at 4:09 pm · Filed under Theory, Thoughts
I have been reading Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy for the first time. No, I can not believe that this is the first time I have read Descartes directly. I have spoken and read about a potential mind/body split via dance scholars and other philosophers since the beginning of my training in dance. Of course, dance studies has regarded such a split as contentious since its beginnings and the concept has long since been discredited.
Working on dance and technology I have come up against the critique that technology gets away from the corporeal focus of dance. I often find myself questioning the importance of the body and corporeality altogether, rather than trying to defend my work with the digital by anthropomorphizing digital media, or by defining the digital in terms of and as corporeal qualities.
Recently, it seems that several scholars are articulating the central importance of the body to dance studies. In the summer 2009 issue of Dance Research Journal, for example, Gay Morris presented the historical trajectory of interdisciplinarity in dance in relation to the interdisciplinary basis of cultural studies. Coming to the conclusion that dance scholars can ground themselves in a focus on the body, Morris suggests that dance scholars can use the common ground of the body to stabilize the field while diversifying its implications. Where does this take us when we think about movement in the digital realm? Must we only work on movement as digitally fragmented space-time when it exists in terms of the body? And, must this body exhibit corporeal qualities? If I work on the movement of digital communication networks as dance practice must I define my experiment in terms of the bodies that are connected via digital communication systems? I ask myself, is dance really always defined by the body? And, although this has historically been a seemingly common ground in dance studies, can the body continue to be that grounding stable entity?
Answers to these questions become increasingly clear as I read Descartes’ thoughts on the mind/body relationship. Although he presents a split, his argument performs relationships in the mind/body entity, or between mind and body as more complicated than the simplicity to which the “mind/body split” is so often referred. In fact, Descartes argument performs the very movement, fragmentation and multiplicity that digital networks and systems so aptly exhibit. Thinking the mind and the body in various temporal and durational situations, Descartes works through the complications that might perform the fact that there is no split between the mind and the body. In the case of Descartes’ meditations, it seems impossible that a whole field define and ground itself on the “body,” since this subject/object is such an unstable entity.
December 5, 2009 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Artworks, Events, Thoughts
Marc Davis, Chief Scientist and Co-Founder of Invention Arts looks at how digital networks make the invisible visible and the impermanent permanent as we know when peoples whereabouts overlap with devices like an iPhone, for example.
How does this relate to artists such as William Kentridge who look to make the invisible visible in art projects such as Parcours D’atelier: Artist in the Studio? Kentridge uses art products to make the invisible visible. How, then, does his product relate to those social networking processes that we’ve been exploring all day?
Also, as Davis uses game theory to understand the scale of social interaction with his projects that work with geo-tagged photographs etc, I wonder how we can use performance theory as it relates to game theory to understand connections between social media and art pieces that engage similar concepts.
December 2, 2009 at 2:48 am · Filed under Artworks, Events, Thoughts
I just had a skype conversation with Robin Gareus from Citu CiTu research center (Création Interactive Transdisciplinaire Universitaire) Universités Paris 1 and Paris 8. We worked on uploading some of my videos and connecting a live video feed to TAC and were successful at all attempts! This program is wonderful so far. Easy to connect with and easy to upload video for live mixing. Working with technology in my work often makes it incredibly difficult to put quick performances together or painlessly try things out. I think that this tool will be a wonderful rehearsal model to say the least. In addition I am hoping that I can use this tool to demonstrate my process to colleagues in a quick way. Anywhere that I have my computer and internet I will be able to set up a completely interactive performance system. Furthermore, I am energized and excited for the show I have coming up on December 11. I can’t wait to connect with TAC and see what happens.
November 22, 2009 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Events, Thoughts
PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN FROM MY PHONE
After spending a good deal of Friday participation in protests at UC Berkeley I wrote the following letter to contribute to the conversation on viral networks happening on the -empyre- list this month. I wrote this letter soon after Friday’s events without much time for reflection. It has since become clear in comparing stories with friends and reviewing video footage of the event that we can always continue to strengthen networks. Where the networks felt strong on Friday there were other places where those networks were weakened by police brutality and a lack of communication between University Administration, law enforcement officials, faculty, and students. I hope to hold onto my words below and my immediate feelings of strength in community as we continue to think about potential weakness in and between certain networks and how to strengthen forces.
Letter written at 10:30am on Saturday, November 21, 2009:
Good morning from Berkeley,
I wasn’t participating in yesterday’s discussion about viral networks/UC protests because I was standing in the rain with close to 2,000 Berkeley protesters while we waited outside of Wheeler Hall as friends and colleagues occupied the building. So, please forgive me if I am returning to an already closed conversation, but allow me to indulge in a reflection on yesterday’s successful and widespread strike activities.
At Berkeley there are four groups representing different populations of the campus. As far as I know, there are two faculty groups, one graduate student group and one undergraduate group. With representatives from each group serving on all other committees, these four groups are in close communication and have used what is being referred to here as “grassroots” activism to successfully hold a 5,000 person walk-out in September, several events in October and a three day strike this week. Starting from the four groups email is used to communicate with departmental representatives who then communicate with departments. Whether organization is departmental, building wide, or committee based, the word hasn’t stopped there.
The fact that the students involved in yesterday’s building occupation were communicating with fellow organizers and activists via email, twitter and facebook seems significant. Of course there are debates regarding whether or not viral networks and online activism have replaced the need for physical protest. It is, after all, easier to sign an online petition (of which there have been many connected to the UC Strikes) than it is steer clear of office resources for three days, or stand in the rain for hours on end. I am sure that we are all well aware of examples supporting both sides of that argument. Still, twitter and facebook updates kept a good deal of protesters mobilized yesterday. Consistent updates from the inside of Wheeler assured a wet crowd that their support was indeed necessary, building occupiers’ view from the top floors of Wheeler Hall were shared through twitter accounts to help students spread evenly around the building to block police movement, and facebook updates alerted crowds immediately when arrests were taking place and how to best continue supporting the occupation efforts.
Just like anything else it seems that they way a viral network is organized and implemented corresponds directly to its efficacy. I think here of artist
Zach Blas’ proposed GRID project. The movement from one GRID to the next produces new GRIDs. It is the movement between networks that produces the change. It seems that in the case of the UC protests the efficacy of the system depends on successful movements between different networks. It is the movements between online networks such as email lists to online petitions, between different physical networks such as departmental meetings to banners hanging outside of buildings, and between online and physical networks such as buildings occupiers to their twitter followers. This is what has felt like the viral aspect of the system.
In solidarity,
Ashley
August 10, 2009 at 4:31 pm · Filed under Artworks, Theory, Thoughts
I’ve been incredibly strict with myself over the past three months about not getting too tech heavy for the piece that I’m working on. Last fall when I was spending all of my time calibrating sensors and insuring that my bluetooth range was strong enough I ended up feeling as though my choreography was suffering. I’m interested in the balance between tech and choreography. On the one hand I suppose my tech is a part of the set. Sometimes I think I should get a designer just like choreographers often work with set designers, lighting designers and sound designers. Why is it that I feel the necessity to produce everything for myself…that I feel as though my creative process would suffer if I were to shift my artistic product by relying on others to program for me? And, again this brings me to how integral process is to my product. My product is process. Somehow nearing the end of the choreographic process and the date of my performance I am once again finding myself diving head first into programming sound interactions. I am pleased with the fact that I have waited…despite the reality that the sound may fall short of what it could have been. The interactions will be fairly simplistic and sound output not as layered and nuanced as I would otherwise like. I was able to focus much more on developing the choreography in its own right thanks to my persistence that I wait until the end of the process to really plow forward with tech. I simply prioritized my choreography. This leads me to question the role that tech has in my choreography though. Do I really need it there on stage? My movements and choreography is implicitly affected by previous experiences that I’ve had working with technology, why is it necessary for my audience to experience a live interaction? I’m still working with a proscenium arena, so the technology is not in this case helping to complicate performance power structures or other binaries. Still, it seems that there is aesthetic quality that comes with using technology and real time interactions that is productive for me. I’m not sure at this point how it is pushing the movement and choreography, although I know that it is. The sound pushes me to perform differently and draws me into the space and time of my performance. I am curious to theorize these thoughts and experiences that I’m having while deep in my creative process. How do my last minute creative decisions based on technology affect my theoretical inquiry? And, am I really staying true to my theoretical interest and opinion throughout my creative process, or do I step away from this perspective in order to all more movement and flexibility in my process?
May 21, 2009 at 11:55 am · Filed under Artworks, Theory, Thoughts
I recently read Patricia Zimmerman and Dale Hudson’s “Cinephilia, Technopilia and Collaborative Remix Zones” published in the latest issue of Screen. Zimmerman and Hudson perform what they call a “radical historiography” to indulge “interventionist pleasures.” This methodology has me thinking about remixing history in dance and what this is.
If I were chose a movement to return to it would be Judson. How can we reengage avant-garde activism in today’s digital culture? Trajal Harrell seems to do just this drawing not only on Judson, but also on voguing and European tanztheater. In his most recent “Quartet for the End of Time.” He takes what has happened and pushes it forward, remixing and opening potentiality in critical movement practice.
This remixing is not a repetition, and appropriately so. Can movement be repeated? No. When I wave my hand in the air I perform the same choreographed action (a wave of the hand) multiple times, the movement that I perform morphs with time based on variables such as body fatigue or rhythm. Rather than perform an exact repetition of my movement, I loop the choreography. When I loop choreographed movement it is not repeated, but layered. The movement is the same, but calling my movement a loop as opposed to a repetition shifts a perception that enables progression within and beyond repetition. It seems that the historiographic remix enables movement loops.
May 4, 2009 at 9:14 am · Filed under Events, Thoughts
I am just returning from a weekend at UCLA for the 2009 Dance Under Construction conference. This year’s theme was The Politics of Choreography, Choreographing Politics. This graduate student conference has been moving from UC campus to UC campus for the past eleven years drawing graduate students focusing on any aspect of dance practice to share their research and engage in conversation. As MFA and PhD students in performance studies and dance converge for one weekend it is astounding the different scholarship that seems to hearken similar questions. Whether dancing, performing a workshop, or embodying a traditional academic lecture, budding academics recount different dances from concert dance, performance art and social dance to everyday movement as dancing. The state of this conference stands as exciting proof that current graduate students are able to get their degrees in dance as a rigorous academic field. I have begun to question, though, what this means. As someone who is in school with non-dancers I am consistently questioned and challenged as to my notion of movement, the body, ephemerality, virtuosity, sincerity and more. Scholarship in other fields that parse these concepts directly, or indirectly are what inspire my dance interventions and choreographic engagements. Once I enter a dance context, though, it seems that we often feel more comfortable using these terms in a contemporary dance context without considering not only scholarship on these topics outside of our field, but a long tradition of dance history that his dissected and deconstructed these and similar concepts. By no means am I suggesting that by existing within a dance only context we become less self-critical. I was pushed and inspired in many other ways this weekend as I grew to question my academic stance on performing lectures and ideas, or whether or not talking about dance in terms of capital and commodity is beneficial. Experiencing my own micro-choreographies and macro-politics in relation to technology has inspired me to question the long lasting effect of my research. How is what I am doing NOT merely a trend? William Kentridge often asks this question as he uses technologies that he feels make a long-lasting political statement as opposed to those that merely play with our instantaneous desires for digi-trends. So, the dance conference experience was inspiring and challenging. I only hope that we continue working both inside and outside of this community. Susan Foster reminded the audience at the keynote panel how the interdisciplinary status of this conference was so unique. I hope that in our academic inquiry we continue to embrace the interdisciplinary nature of our field by working outside of it, even as dance as a discipline continues to grow.
April 19, 2009 at 9:21 am · Filed under Thoughts
How do we write about a performance that we have never seen? I wish I could travel to see each and every performance that I am interested in and that pertains to my research. Clearly this is not possible. That doesn’t mean, though, that those performances that I did not get a chance to see did not exist. Sure, I could very easily research the performances that I was not able to see: watch video documentations, consider the performance venue, talk with the artist, consider production photographs, talk with the dancers, understand any technological components, watch the content of any projections, look at the program, read press releases and reviews, watch documentation of any pre/post-show programing…the list continues. Do these considerations really, though replace what it is to experience a performance live? I think not. And, when I am judging the efficacy of using digital media in interesting ways I am often considering the way that media elements effect the tone in a theater and the perception of a viewing. Just reading a description of a performance is simply no the same thing as watching it. Or is it? Perhaps by considering everything about a performance except for my own experience I am producing a less biased account of what happened. Sure, this account is much less personally phenomenological. I am able to take a more neutral stance, however, on a digital effect.
Just some food for thought.
Next entries »
