[dance-tech] ?: Fwd: Sensordance, interactive game, webcam dramaturgy #2,

Hello from Tokyo,

Yes, I also suppose that it would be important to map our ideas to some
application or images.

My paper will be published from Techoetic Arts which Roy Ascott edits.

Warmest Regards,
Yukihiko YOSHIDA

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???: dance-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:dance-tech-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] ??? curators -
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??: dance-tech@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
??: [dance-tech] Fwd: Sensordance, interactive game, webcam dramaturgy #2,

hello list,

using [] to indicate quotes from other replies to this thread:

[lp] ludmila pimentel
[jb] Johannes Birringer
[mbs] Marlon Barrios-Solano


[lp] in theoric writing or discussion sometime we need more definition about
some conceptions [/lp]

couldn't agree more, but it's been an ongoing problem ...

[jb] A while back though, and probably still today, we have noticed that
"interactive performance" is unspecific. [/jb]

we lack a critical theory, and a willingness to address that problem.
yes there are books, but they tend to be observational reporting rather than
analytical examination. How do we address technical and conceptual issues
without an  effective framing. Can we really understand the findings of our
experiments if we don't have a good grasp of the underlying principles. We
don't even have a concept of 'good & bad' dance-tech work, more emphasis is
placed of the potential value of the research. Is our recursive designing
the product of trying to make tools rather than performance works.

[mbs]  Of course, I think that we are reaching the moment of "conceptual"
dance and new media. We are aware that  we are moving creatures within ever
changing technologies  with  a strong tendency to couple with them and also
to recognize context / also that we  are extremely good with metaphorical
contexts. [/mbs]

technology has always affected dance praxis, it just seems that in the last
50+ years we have become less adept at reconciling the conceptual with the
practical when exploring new tools. In the absence of concrete craft(s),
alignment with conceptual art validates current praxis. Whilst some of the
work utilising technologies is conceptual, its usually a means of
realisation not instigation. What we want to 'say' is central to how we can
frame the resultant product, its how we identify conceptual perspective.
Knowing what we want to say help you develop your language and lexis. An
imposed language / lexis only permits what is available in the construct.

[jb] Where is the [interactive] system used (on stage? by the trained
performer who is improvising or following a precise cue
structure/choreography/dramaturgy?). The main questions in these different
experiments, might be "who is interacting with whom"?
Performers with other performers using the interface or performers with the
interface or performers with performers within an interface which organises
its output via the actions of the performers? [/jb]

rather than an issue of classification, this addresses the notion of
'transparency' in dance-tech. Surely this is an issue of aesthetics /
critique rather than ontology. If phenomenology of interaction is the
central concern the experimental results (and evaluation) are of greater
interest than the performance work itself.

[jb] I was interested in finding our whether working with open or closed
system changes how we work, or "the work", and the reception of the work
(can an unprepared audience be asked to apply 14 sensors and start
performing, what? interacting with a system?  how? ).[/jb]

then the question is not about sensor choreography but human computer
interaction and engaging with unknown conventions. Can you expect someone
who has never seen a car to be able drive one, if you've never been to a
panto how do you interact? (or know that you should). there is also the much
deeper question of what is 'interactive' (but lets leave that for now).

were are working in dance, post judson everything is choreography; we are
making structures in which movement may occur. its a simple description but
advanced enough to handle any dance praxis. As these structures can be
found, constructed or emergent they are already 'multiplayer'. we also know
that the 'user' is anyone who engages with the system, intentional or not.

dance-tech suffers from a weak framing that undermines any critical
discussion of the praxis. we seem to be struggling to separate the praxis
from the content. defining dance-tech through the tools indicates an
inability to define wht we actually 'do'. differentiation of praxis in a
context that prvialages 'new to you' and post-positivist reserach is near
impossible (or at least that's the common notion).

[jb] Also, in our experiment, there is a closed system and an open system at
the same time.  I am not sure how to think "inter-action"
with such a mixed system, since the performance has a sequential structure
and a huge data base organized in a dramaturgical manner for the performer
to engage and then manipulate [...]. [/jb]

If the system is 'inter-actional' with audience and performer it must be an
open system (subject to outside influence), but also a deterministic system
(sequential structure). The organisation of the database relates only to the
ease with which the performer can manipulate it. Rules and cues do not make
a 'game' as you rightly observe, its another term overused and abused in our
field; games usually have a winner.

[jb] This is experiential design (including the contingencies of the webcam
intrusions and unexpected events that might happen in the remote locations
that are interlinked), and yet it is not experiential design since the
performer on our stage is not "experiencing" the installation for the first
time but has rehearsed with it so that she can learn how to understand what
"prosthetic" roles her avatar-character might have in manipulating, with her
head, shoulders, pelvis, arms, hands, fingers, legs, the various possible
image movements on screen. [/jb]

the experiential is not confined to first time experience (and there is no
'same river'), even a prosthesis can be engaged with experientially (I think
hales has clouded the issue of post-embodiment). No, it may not be pure
'improvisation' but what's wrong with procedural choreography? And no,
conceptual and improvised dance are not contradictory, each is able to
facilitate the other.

Kate articulated that the 2nd generation have a different perspective from
the dance-tech avant garde. growing up with digital and analogue tools does
mean we focus more on what we want to say the the tools themselves. Looking
beyond the tools to their conceptual/applied contexts offer a more fertile
ground for establishing a dance-tech
taxonomy:

http://static.flickr.com/93/236734430_6a32b14858_b.jpg  [65kb]


thoughts, crits, examples and breaking special cases welcome.

best

curators @  transubstantiate

--

The liminal is limited; transubstantiate.
http://transubstantiate.org

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