A few notes from the Designing Design seminar series on electronic arts, organised by Intermedia, held in Oslo, Norway on 20041207:
andrew morrison and synne skjulstad: towards embodied interaction
embodied interaction: creation, communication and sharing of meaning
research through experiment and improvisation, as well as production based research
extending performance (dance and tech, augmented and MR spaces, actions and actors, responsive systems…)
activity theory as a conceptual frame / “mediating artefact”
from digital scenography to embodied interaction (following some of the premises from P. Dourish “where the action is”)
experiments: improvisation with simple technology (video feedback) + squeezing out everything possible
interaction = informal assemblage of steps
engagement with world mediating artefacts (dourish - phenomenological approach, intermedia - more socio-cultural learning and developmental approach)
interaction: mix of action and meaning (physical and symbolic)
utilising media as actors (sparacino et al)
ballectra project: learning design and designing for learning
modular, object-oriented design, working with live and prerecorded media
communication dancers - media designers – changes in media design take much longer than experimenting with a few new dance steps
collaborative inquiry - bringing performance into the curriculum of media studies: adaptive redesign process
costumes as projection screens and for production of sound (experimenting with body as screen-space)
“who is controlling the light” - dancers wanted to be brightly lit, which would kill the projection
research: explaining the design practice through theory and vice versa
Tapet project - using video (mpeg) in responsive environments, so that it encourages expressivity from the participants - moving with an absent performer
Karakuri project: anticipatory interaction, playful use of responsive environments – seeing and learning through movement, environment is generated at points where users' actions happen - activity driven system
Intermedia projects helped to 'release' dancers from cages of technique
goal: physical transportation: spectators as participants in a group (post-structuralist spectatorship)
dichotomy dance/technology (shouldn't exist)
interactive vs non-interactive expressions (sparacino)
interaction happens within the viewer (similar to literature: there is no text without the reader)
extended artistic expression: creative process (making) + theoretical perspective
educational production: learning while producing
applied theoretical perspectives (although people who were non-artistically educated had the lowest voice)
analysis of the process: through media studies, scenography and dance&tech literature
media studies: working with immediacy/hypermediacy (bolter and grusin)
scenography
text based on traditional theatre (mixture of visual and textual information, while in multimediated performance its more visual+visual)
problem with describing visuals in a verbal language)
precognitive experience
intellectual/non intellectual experience
dance and technology
In production projects, theorists became concerned about 'making things work' forgetting the theory in the process
different languages + improvising with media: feedbackloops between theory and practice – sometimes the valuable theoretical perspective comes afterwards
how to analyse authentic experience?
playing with time and timing (media representing past, present, future, using animation/live movement)
do not fiddle with technological systems in live performance - it is confusing for participants
marlon barrios solano: unstable landscapes
associated institutions:
is there really an improvisation in a performative context
dynamic multimedia: RT processing of media - more room for improvisation
cognition (motion as thought) - process body-mind-environment
steim - constructing wearables for dance (low budget)
recognising lineages
dance/choreography - training
design/desire – tension between them (come from theory as well as practice
martha graham - hydraulic theory → psychology (tech already existing in choreographic deployment)
system of rules in generative dance (algorythmic structure - in 70ies)
how can media be improvisational
creative process - needs to have bottom-up architecture (biologically inspired) – distributed control
digital club culture
djs - master improvisers - improv/portable, flexible
bateson, merleau-ponty, j.j. gibson
not just interactivity, but emergent composition
embodied cognition - dynamic, contingent design
improvisation skill - dont dance to what you hear
monica emilie herstad
intuition/methodology
synchronicity – you have to rely a lot on it when designing responsive spaces
synergy of dramaturgical elements - mediated, body oriented, textual
rationalising concept also after the incident
dancers can sometimes be considered (creative) artists; more or different than re-producing a repetetativeness/ or variation of a movement cycle
science and research is always a part of professional dance
a dif. ontology is needed to express what is going on in the whole dance field
references are relevant to be added to the movement repertoire, not only within academic texts, but for instance in an academic/ pedagogical setting, where physical movement exercises are emphasized, it should be referred to precisely, from where and when this movement system/ practical arrangement is found and originated, for instance from theater, or dance sources, etc. It could be mentioned from which style, continent, time period this material relates to.
intuition - jung (flight into mysticism) – through individuation
dancers are also somehow dramaturgical elements
dancers and media = scenography
post-digitalism - media and dancers - equal partners - not fetishising it
age - strange in dance
dance - respect and communication, political engagement to a certain extend, for instance art with a feministic approach
art - space to ask questions
dance - more a state of body than the movement (i dont like to move without reason) - dance of energies / ambient dance (body weather)
dancers - aesthetic beings
contemporary state of ideas - so poor
dance body - free of dogma, free of consciousness, ego, - on the other side, the dance scene can to some degree be an arena for leaders with a very dominant practice/ way of being (often posed in a dogmatic way), where authoritative forces enjoys to pose power statement, excused by the process of making a “perfected” dance expression
even the dance field, like in (dance) academia, is an arena where the male leader (choreographer/ artistic administrative/ scholar) is favored, to a certain extent, not necessarily/ primarily the skilled capacity foremost
performance - prescribed performance based on the media; collective unconsciousness/individual consciousness
process - energy continues goes on beyond the performance space
according to artificial intelligence norms, only what exist is what can be presented. (I was quoting T. R. Gruber. Toward principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing. Presented at the Padua workshop on Formal Ontology, March 1993, to appear in an edited collection by Nicola Guarino: “For AI systems, what “exists” is that which can be represented”)
intuition as a tool and process in polishing the art expression that comes during and after/ post methodology
dont experiment in all different directions - stick to the path and be selective
per roar thorsnes: slippery land in between
extended meaning of technology
choreography - structured movement in space of the stage
movement, music and spatial arrangement
audience perception changes based on tech they use in their everyday life
dynamics, time, live situations, mediation
new media situation changes the training and perception of dance
actualises choreography as artistic tool - cross fertilisation of tech and dance in the present context
performance with low tech apearance
audience can make a choice - 5 different endings
no performance should come out identical
concept, context, bodily insight, mediation - searching for new strategies
3 main areas
composition and movements
mediation and tech strategies
conceptual and contextual focus
anatomy of grief without making social pornography (dancer, remote controlled wheelchair, projection)
study of death as practical reality
gretchen schiller
dancer, dance ethnographer → dance and media, learning not only to dance, but also edit video (take it through the bodily sensibility), making sense (meaning/sensuality)
rêve - réveiller (dream / awakening)
finding ways to materialise the liminal space
movement based interactive installations - spect-actor (augusto buell) – street theatre (doing it and stepping out)
theoretically - body-medium (not separate from environment - Laban - kinesphere comes from Feuillet - ballet – problematic
body -medium kinesfield - dialogical relationship between body and environment
body - medium is not a space but a dynamic
locus of attention is on the movement through bodies
marrey / muybridge
metakinesis - john martin – relationship audience - dancer - viscerally/internally sensing whats going on
dance - not as representation, but rendering presence
public - wild card
stability / instability (we're trying to be bipedal)
using resources that we have and undermining them
choreomedia laboratory
shifting ground
interaction - shift of weight - becoming aware of weight shifts
working with oppositions - more difficult to navigate
entertrained (entertained + trained)
skin and environment mixed in an undulatory way
sense of 'i am present, but im travelling'
trajets
breaking the screen to create a sense of 3dimensionality
21 screens that can turn - screens repel you or pull you in – encouraging people to walk – place of minimalism – stripping movement down
choreography - the whole organisation of the space - amplifying certain type of experience – amplifying the notion of the kinesfield
how do we create a moving space
you come in and get different challenges and difficulties to get deeper into the interaction
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