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.
May 14, 2009 at 5:07 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Today, Stelarc posted some comments to the -empyre- list that speak directly to what I’m currently thinking about. I would like to repost them here. For an archive of the conversation to which Stelarc is responding, visit subtle.net/empyre.
Hi Norah (Stomatia, Ashley, Christina, Alan, Sally Jane, Erin,
Johannes, Tim and Renato)-
Just to say that this posting will not be in sync with the most recent
exchanges. I am staying in a hotel with very expensive internet access
which I can’t afford. And during the day I’m busy programming. Anyway,
this was done last night and being sent morning, Sydney time!
I’m delighted to read the articulate and astute observations made by
all of the participants about critical motion practice which have
accumulated but remained unanswered in my In-box.
As a counterpoint to the ideas that have unfolded in these exchanges,
perhaps the most appropriate contribution I can make is to suggest
something other- the experience of the body as inadequate,
involuntary and augmented. A body immersed in uncertainty, anxiety and
ambivalence. A body that is absent from itself, empty in itself and
exhausted by itself. This has generated ambivalence, uncertainty and
anxiety. The body might be enabled and accelerated, but this only
exposes and amplifies its obsolescence.
In an age of excess, the body needs to cope with mixed realities,
telematic embrace and its chimeric other. It is an age of circulating
flesh, fractal flesh and phantom flesh. It is also a time of
multiplying and outmoded metaphysical assumptions still affirming the
biological status-quo of the body or perpetuating disconcerting
desires of out-of-body experiences. We still speak as if these bodies
possess inner selves. As if speech is an outering from something inner.
Performances such as Fractal Flesh and Ping Body explored remote
actuation of the body wired to a computer sequenced muscle stimulation
system. In Fractal Flesh people in other places prompt the body to
move. In Ping Body mapping the reverberating ping signal, measured in
milliseconds is mapped to the body’s musculature. The body moves as a
crude barometer of internet activity. The body is seen as a split
body. Voltage-in, to jerk the left arm and leg up and down and voltage-
out, to actuate a mechanical third hand. The body moves, but not
through space. Its task envelope is defined by its limb motion but the
internet constructs it as an alternate and extended operational system.
Movatar was an inverse motion-capture system where an avatar, imbued
with genetic algorithms, whose behavior varies during the performance,
actuated the two arms using a pneumatically powered upper body
exoskeleton. The body becomes a prosthesis enabling the motion of an
avatar in the real world. The body becomes both a possessed and
performing body, simultaneously actuated and improvising. The body not
as a single agency, but also a host for an artificial entity.
The performances were done in a posture of indifference. Indifference
as opposed to expectation. Actions without anticipation. Moments
without memory. Indifference to allow an unfolding of the performance
in its own time, with its own rhythm. Ashley’s space for the in-
between not only connects but opens up. It’s also a pause that allows
for reflexion, infection and interpretation. Perhaps this is a fatal
moment and a moment of collapse. Its what happens when there is a
slippage between the intention and the action. A singularity in
programming a robot occurs at a moment when, because of multiple
possibilities, the robot can’t choose which one to execute. What
happens when a dancer stops but then can’t start?
Best wishes-
Stelarc
May 5, 2009 at 11:18 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Although perhaps against blogging etiquette, I will re-post portions of my conversation on -empyre- to my blog this month. I hope that this entices some of you to join as the discussion is already proving to be incredibly interesting. Here are some thoughts of mine on digital mishap and physical stillness. See my last post for a link to sign-up to join in the discusion.
Hello all,
Ricardo, I am incredibly interested in the ideal of an “aesthetics of
failure” and agree that this pertains specifically to Lepecki’s
situation of dance and politics. I am hesitant, though, to associate
stillness as failure for the same reasons that Stamatia is resistant
to associate technical cut with mishap. If we associate stillness with
failure we equate stillness with a body that does not move. If I stand
still my body is still moving, both on the inside and on the outside.
Micro-movements become more apparent as my body awareness begins to
increase. I was in an Alexander technique workshop this past weekend
and we were discussing this very concept. So, I feel that in the way
dance often employs stillness the still does not result in the
non-moving. What is particularly interesting here is that I have
become more aware of this fact through my work with sensors. I have to
calibrate the sensors and their thresholds in order to act
appropriately with my movements because they perceive my
micro-movements much more accurately or specifically than my audience
would. The slightest twitch of a finger and subsequent shift of
tendons and veins in my wrist could send a sensor like an
accelerometer located on top of those tendons and veins into a great
deal of reception. Lepecki discusses the “betrayal of the bind between
dance and movement” as one that dance watchers including critics
perceive. Perhaps we can use a sensor to illustrate the moving affect
in stillness. I think, though, that this also disrupts the political
intention behind adding perceived body stillness to the dance
performance. It is here that we can locate your failure of politics
and an aesthetics of failure. By employing technologies in
choreography I think that we truly can move between failures of
politics as affect and clean techno gestures as effect within an
“aesthetics of failure.” I agree with Stamatia entirely that the
technical cut is an affect, but am still interested in how we work
with engineers who could consider our affect a purely technical
mishap. The clean techno gesture is effective, but in its gaps the
artist finds her affect. The artist can also find affect in
intentional cut, though, that I would associate with a cinematic cut.
I often program a cut into my technology to initiate an affective
presence. In this sense the affect does not rest on mishap at all and
we again move between affect and effect, gap and seamlessness,
movement and stillness. I am very interested in the in between here.
As we move we supposed move through or between points of perceived
stillness. When I dance with sensors and projections I am moving in
the in-between sensor, computer, projection and audience. In Dance
Forms we move between the different grids and boxes that Stamatia
brings up. The in-between provides affect for both physical and
digital affect. A perceived gap in technology, or a perceived
stillness in the body when it isn’t really still after all.
I am curious where this in-between fits theoretically, especially in
terms of D&G’s ideas of the machinic and body without organs.
Ashley
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 4, 2009 at 2:17 pm · Filed under Events, Link, Theory
I will be leading this week’s New Media Working Group! Check out the invite/description below and share your thoughts! Join us if you’re in the area.
The New Media Working Group will hold its next meeting on Thursday, April 9, from 2:30-3:30 pm in the Berkeley Center for New Media Commons (340 Moffit). Please join us to discuss Brian Massumi’s latest book, Parables for the Virtual, where he considers virtuality as it relates to movement. Paying particular attention to “The Bleed: Where Body Meets Image” and Massumi’s description of virtual affect in relation to Ronald Reagan’s account of watching himself move on television, we will discuss virtualities of movement.
Copies of the reading are available at
http://nmwg.notlong.com/
March 15, 2009 at 2:59 pm · Filed under Events
I’ve been looking at William Kentridge’s work a lot lately and had the opportunity to see an exhibit of his work at SFMoma yesterday. I was blown away by how intricately he treads the line between over stimulation and a delicate and subtle emotionality. His multi-media oeuvre also tends to include a great deal of choreography. Although the exhibition blurb coined Kentridge as someone who looks at painting, drawing, film etc, they didn’t notice the implicit gesture toward choreography that accompanies his work. I found both historical reference and robotic work. This is aside from the plethora of projections that are necessary to convey Kentridge’s message about South African politics and more.
Hopefully more on this to come as I will see him speak this afternoon and tomorrow!
March 9, 2009 at 3:24 am · Filed under Events, Link
I just found the “dtwmain” posts on YouTube. Thank goodness for Dance Theater Workshop and their embrace of the Internet as a positive force in the contemporary dance community. Check out their amazing archive of performance and conversation…
…some of my personal favorites:
MAP ME by Charlotte Vanden Eynde & Kurt Vandendriessche at Dance Theater Workshop. Fall 2007.
Stephen Greco in conversation with Trajal Harrell prior to Quartet for the End of Time at Dance Theater Workshop. Fall 2008.
March 4, 2009 at 6:47 pm · Filed under Theory, Uncategorized
Technologically, when we digitally loop materials and we program loops into our network we complicate the possibility for what Gilles Deleuze calls the “following present,” or repetition, which is where he locates the virtual. In the case of Deleuze, the virtual characterizes a very physical presence, repetition. This virtual presence as a physical quality as opposed to digital reality is one that philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone uses to philosophize dance in her book, Phenomenology of Dance.
Lest we forget that although these considerations of the body and the real in media driven movement and looping are repetitions of well-articulated theories on the body and the real, our experiences of Deleuzian repetitions in everyday action are nonetheless confused and complicated with the introduction of “new” media and digital presence. For this reason I’m interested in how my research on digital environments are pre-established concepts in a new context. I will, therefore, ground much of my research in a historical situation of dance experience in relation to the body and the everyday with the hope of locating a new articulation of these terms; or perhaps new terms altogether.
There is space in dance scholarship to move through experiences in relation to digital limitation and/or distraction and phenomenological experience. The digital is no longer so “new” and technologies have forever mechanized movement practice. So, rather than forget previously articulated ideas, I hope to consider contemporary technologies and dance performance in relation to a historical theoretical perspective.
Photographs courtesy of Daniel Bruggemeyer