Anette Schaefer wrote:
> - Looking at performers and live artists using new media technologies I
> think it can be said that the majority of them is actually using mainstream
> media like video - the usage of which some have clearly done masterfully an=
> d
> innovatively as such. This might possibly change over the next few years
> with the advent of locative media. But at the moment it is very hard to fin=
> d
> projects which manage to find a balance between the performance aspect and
> the use of cutting edge technology =AD usually one compromises the other (in
> my opinion).
-----
A long and thoughtful post, but I just want to respond to this specific
point because of something my partner and collaborator (Sue Hawksley) said
the other day.
We are developing a new project using the Gypsy motion capture rig. This is
like a complicated exoskeleton that maps all physical motion and radio's it
to a computer. It seriously encumbers the wearer and makes certain types of
movement difficult (full limb extension, for example) or impossible (rolling
around on the floor). Sue is a dancer/choreographer with substantial
experience of unencumbered interactive systems as well as visual motion
capture systems. This was however her first time in this type of exoskeleton
system.
As a dancer who comes out of the release/post-modern dance scene (having
worked with Trisha Brown and such-like) she responded to the constraints the
technology placed on her as a compositional element (much as Cunningham has
regularly used arbitrary constraining systems to create movement). For Sue
the manner in which the technology compromised her was the most artistically
exciting aspect of the session. She has now started to work out how to use
these constraints to create the dance systems she will employ to generate a
new piece. She will also use those constraints to choreograph movement where
the exoskeleton will not be worn, resulting in dance movement on the
unencumbered body that is conditioned by encumbrance.
The point here is that the ways in which new technologies and techniques can
function to compromise creative intention should not necessarily be seen as
a negative. Such compromise can lead to positive outcomes if the artist(s)
involved are able to respond to the constraints creatively and interpret
them into a working process that eventuates in a positive outcome. It could
be argued that all artists, no matter what media they employ, old or new,
are constantly involved in a creative dialectic with the constraining
characteristics of their media and that without that tension between the
possible and the desirable little of interest would emerge.
In this context the "newness" of a media can often offer the artist extra
challenges to feed this tension and thus result in work that is highly
successful.
Best
Simon
Simon Biggs
[log in to unmask]
http://www.littlepig.org.uk/
Professor, Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
http://www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/
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