Dance Machines

Floating College

2010-03-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

Hauntology

2010-03-23T15:42:00.002-04:00

Hauntology

Kate Kernochan
Teresa Fellion
Larissa Sheldon
Michael Foote

Through what he calls “hauntology,” Derrida examines the spectral or ghostal effects inherent in any sensorial experience or interaction and shows that what appears as present during an observation or an interaction is already contaminated by what is absent, a phenomenon which could be associated with the general functioning of the sign and its iterability. These spectral effects are also problematized through his concept of restance, i.e. the staying capacity of (oral or written) text, a capacity that participates in the presence/absence game. As Derrida (1988) notes in his famous comment on Austin’s (1962/1975) work, any communication is, in a way, a form of telecommunication.
Francois Cooren

There are ghosts in the machine and college.

Radial Courses Prototype

2010-02-17T13:36:00.005-05:00

This past fall Sarah Lawrence College presented Radial Courses, a 1976 masterpiece by Lucinda Childs, post-modern choreographer and Sarah Lawrence College graduate. The NEA grant sponsoring the work supported a parallel effort to analyze and document the dance. Below is a video clip generated by software developed to represent Radial Courses in space and time.

Time Code

2009-11-14T10:17:00.015-05:00

I went through all the music but I'm not finished with my dance yet. Kay

With Kay Ottinger, Aya Sato, Teresa Fellion, Micheal-Charles Foote and Larissa Sheldon.
Code hidden here.

Players Club

2009-04-23T21:00:00.017-04:00

Dance Plan

2009-04-14T21:41:00.006-04:00

music: quistare by circ
with: deedee popper, caity gwin, patrick gallager, jeremy pheiffer, layla guest, peggy gould

Small Studio

2008-12-23T19:41:00.001-05:00

if you're singing by yourself
music by uma floresta
ghosting small studio
deedee popper, caity gwin, patrick gallager, jeremy pheiffer, layla guest, peggy gould and tony schultz

Primer

2008-11-26T22:10:00.007-05:00

Primer (2004) offers additional insight into time-travel, capitalism and schizophrenia. Mathematician and engineer Shane Carruth wrote, shot, directed, produced, edited, composed sound and starred in the film on a shoe-string budget of $7000. The film received critical acclaim and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Utilizing an extremely technical vocabulary and complex plot structure, the film requires multiple viewings to get a handle on. Stick it on your ipodio using this link.

Virtual Physics

2008-11-21T22:33:00.005-05:00

For the past few weeks we have been building physical simulations. They have all been based on the double integrator structure. In the first wave development of Max Colony we elaborate particle simulation in one, two and three dimensions using the scalar, vector and matrix implementations respectively.

We have also been working with real forces measured by accelerometer based game controllers. Here is some homework to keep your mind tight over break. Enjoy.

Podio.

7

2008-10-31T07:31:00.002-04:00

Music by J Underdog, Uma Floresta, Devin Anderson and Brobdingnagian Bards

For full quality version click here.

Pentopticon

2008-10-27T21:44:00.005-04:00

Testing the recording system for wednesday's hermeneutic.

Breadcrumbs

2008-10-03T13:19:00.002-04:00

We can build a map for navigation by dropping breadcrumbs as we wander. When we come across an old breadcrumb we remember where we were when we dropped it and how we got there before. In naming that place we create a mark and an utterance and dig a flag into an unstable landscape.

Evolution of a Crawler

2008-10-01T12:37:00.002-04:00

Time Axis

2008-09-30T11:54:00.003-04:00

This is a utility for graphing numbers over time. The slider changes the scale.

Time Bandit

2008-09-28T19:03:00.012-04:00

Uptown, Otis Houston Jr bends time by performing at extremely low frequency over long durations. An auto-regressive low-pass filter shows his presence in the same low bands inhabited by landscape features such as trees, bridges and roadsigns. Otis' still acts retain a high kinetic energy in the frame of the passing viewer due to their great velocity and his close proximity to the road. As his text indicates, the scattering interactions are complex and worth serious study.

Capital also works as a time machine in multiple ways. First is through propagating past debts into the future through interest and the setting of present prices through speculation and secret knowledge. True believers say the market is the most intelligent predictor of the future. Some think otherwise.Downtown, on Wall St. Otis trys to communicate to foot traffickers. Here the time scale and landscape require different tactics: the voice and higher frequency gestures are used since duration is blocked by the state. Otis has a good understanding of capital since he spends time with bankers moving weight in the financial district. They are big and sloppy he tells me. Though they push a lot around they inevitably leave a mess for others to clean up. Perhaps naïve art is not so naïve.

Timex

2008-09-24T11:43:00.005-04:00

Schizophrenic time travel uses image as a tool. Chris Marker's 1962 French sci-fi classic La jetée elaborates this. The film, consisting almost entirely of still photos, depicts a post-nuclear future in which the protagonist is subject to experiments to displace him in time. Whether the travel is real or imagined remains ambiguous. The goal of his trip is to avert nuclear war and recapture lost love. This is the inspiration of Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys.

Rodowick analyzes this film and other sci-fi cinema using Deleuzian film theory in Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine. Roy Brand's first year studies in Philosophy and Film is using this text. As the year progresses we might find them to be a useful resource in developing these ideas. Can we think of any other texts or films which play with these concepts?

@Book{Rodowick1997,
author = {Rodowick, David Norman},
title = {Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine},
publisher = {MIT},
year = {2004},
address = {Cambridge},
isbn = {0822319705}
}

Martian Time-Slip

2008-09-14T23:06:00.009-04:00

"Mrs Miltch is utilizing music as a method of reaching the autustic children at B-G...the dance,in particular."

"There is a new theory about autism," Dr Glaub said. "From Bergholzlei, in Switzerland... It assumes a derangement in the sense of time in the autistic individual, so that he environment around him is so accelerated that he cannot cope with it, in fact, he is unable to percieve it properly, precisely as we would be if we faced a speeded-up television program, so that objects whizzed by so fast as to be invisible, and sound was a gobbledegook--you know? Just extremely high pitched mishmash. Now this new theory would place the autistic child in a closed chamber, where he faced a screen on which filmed sequences were projected slowed down--so you see? Both sound and video slowed, at last so slow that you and I would not be able to perceive motion or comprehend the sounds as human speech."

A genuinely good looking boy... and such terrific coordination. The way he sprinted about, on the tips of his toes, as if dancing to some unheard music, some tune from inside his own mind whose rhythms kept him enthralled. We are so pedestrian compared to him Steiner thought. Leaden. We creep along like snails, while he dances and leaps, as if gravity does not have the same influence on him as it does on us. Could he be made from some new and different kind of atom?

"Could the schizophrenic be running so fast, compared to us, in time, that he's actually in what to us is the future? Would that account for his precognition?"

@Book{Slip,
author = {Dick, Philip K.},
title = {Martian Time-Slip},
publisher = {Ballatine},
year = {1964},
isbn = {0679761675}
}

Motility

2008-09-14T00:40:00.003-04:00

Trying out mobile bloging from ipod touch. This is Alexa at the joyce. Fun fact.

Our Networked Technobody

2008-09-11T13:20:00.003-04:00

Okay players, you are now inside the blogosphere and that is dope to me. This is a powerful and expressive component of your sprouting technobody. Might I suggest that you take a tour of the dance blogosphere and see what it has to offer.

My flavorite dance-o-blog is quodlibet by Matthew Gough. Described as "contrapuntal texts on dance & performance technologies (dance-tech) etc" quodlibet is beautifully written, thoughtful, visually rich and updated often. Matt Gough is our friend and our dance partner. I have guest written on quodlibet and hopefully we can have Matt over here for a play date.

Another place to get down with some hot dance-o-blog action is great dance with Anna Brady Nuse's move the frame and Doug Fox's kinetic interface. Anna's blog addresses dance on screen while Doug investigates the culture of science and technology with a focus on the body and movement. Anna is a choreographer, filmmaker and dance film curator. Doug is an OG dance blogger, dance enthusiast and spirited advocate of dance online.

The winger is also a prime piece of web real estate run by Kristin Sloan and a crew of co-contributors. Kristin started the winger while she was a member of NYCB. She has since stopped dancing and is now the company's director of new media. I also write for the winger. You can see adds for some of my writing on the southbound side of the FDR near 125th st. Brian Gibbs, founder of tag-sf, is also a frequent contibutor to the site. He is really generous in sharing his work online, posting great dance videos and photography.

Another place of interest is dance-tech.net aka deep space sector 9. This is a social network run on the ning platform. Social networks are incredibly sticky traps which seduce with a poly-panoptic gaze and one should be careful while navigating them. The network admin is Marlon Barrios. His contempt for physics and calculus makes him an exciting fiend to bump heads with.

Last but not least is Tonya Plank's swanlakesambagirl. Tonya is a prolific writer and reviewer on her blog and for the huffington post. Tonya writes about live dance performance, dance on television aswell as arts, politics and culture. Tonya did amazing first hand coverage of the Sean Bell murder trial. Tonya is also a lawyer and a novelist and a competitive latin dancer.

So check out this ever growing online dance world. Greatdance and the winger have fairly exhaustive blogrolls from which you can find the 100 some odd dance blogs on the internet. Hopefully we can have a few nyc dance bloggers do a panel at a dance meeting sometime this year. Lets encourage Rose Anne Thom to invite some of these folks to talk to our students about this emerging dance space.

Welcome Back

2008-09-02T15:23:00.006-04:00

At the drfi conference 2008 sheila creevy described this blog as part of "new wave" arts research and dance practice. Its good to have a name finally. If you are thinking of studying dance and technology you should take a look around and see how we do. Here are some links to take you back to media with supporting language.
SPACE CADETS
PLAYER PARTICIPATE
ENTROPY
DANCE GRAPH

Artifacts

2008-07-17T16:45:00.002-04:00

Science!

2008-06-05T00:29:00.008-04:00

In the spirit of art, science and media from semiconductor films.

Ideologies

2008-05-28T09:58:00.000-04:00

Artifacts

2008-05-23T08:44:00.014-04:00

photo by Matt Spangler photo by Nicky Digital

Dance Plans

2008-05-18T22:34:00.013-04:00

Reds

2008-05-16T11:34:00.003-04:00

Red Detachment of Women

2008-05-15T08:51:00.004-04:00

In the camp of the Red Army beside the Wanquan River, a newly formed Detachment of Women is being trained. Wu tells the Red Army soldiers the enormity of the Tyrant of the South's crimes. She then ceremoniously receives a rifle and is accepted as a member of the Women's Detachment. With determination, they plan to liberate the those under the oppression of the tyrant.

Red Army

2008-05-14T21:34:00.011-04:00

I am raising a red army for May 20.
21+

THNKHRD

2008-05-05T21:58:00.020-04:00

DNCHRD is an event thrown by LVHRD, part of happycorp-global's family of branding companies. Their respective logos are concatenated below.Their site describes DNCHRD IV as "a dance competition in 6 colors. Six color-coordinated dance crews led by 6 Dance Captains show off their choreography during an interactive rock show."

I have been asked to participate as the red Winger team Dance Captain.

The dance war format is particularly fascinating to me. In the space of dance-culture-technology I crave both a proving ground and a place to create cultural war machines. The lesson here, be careful what you wish for and be clear what you are fighting for.

Some background on the organizing entity LVHRD.

LVHRD's New York chapter opened in October of 2004 to a seed group of 100 diverse individuals. Membership was officially closed in May of 2005. Currently, new members are evaluated on an individual basis involving participation, creative pursuits, and professional diversity. Through this criteria, LVHRD maintains an active and varied network of members.
LVHRD is something of a chimera, part art circle, part drinking club, part secret society and part branding machine. Dewar's is their most visible advertising partner. It supplies alcohol for all of their events and its branding can be seen throughout the LVHRD website, photography and video content.

Events include costumed members of the New York culturati drinking and partaking in competitive silliness like eating the contents of a vending machine or building urban models from cheese. They are fun and exclusive.

an ‘ideological,’ scientific, or artistic movement can be a potential war machine D&G (ATP 422)

For DNCHRD the silliness is the dancing itself. The colors are empty signifiers made to represent nothing of import. It is simply meant to distinguish camps.

I did a video shoot for this project on Sunday in the UNIQLO store. Of all of the other team leaders I seemed to be the only one with a real interest or capacity for dance. The comradery with the other captains was fun and dancing in retail space felt socially transgressive so I got a kick out of it. I got a bit confused when asked to dance with the clothing.I am not sure I know what I am getting into or how I feel about a the confluence of commerce and culture wars. To me red stands for radicalism and an anti-corporate ideology. Red stands for passion and sanguinity. When it comes to spirited beverages red stands for apple cider.

Going to war means fighting for something you believe in, not just doing it for fun. Perhaps I dont know what I am getting into. Perhaps LVHRD doesnt know what they are getting into either. We will see on May 20th. I am looking for a crew. Let me know if you are interested in battling in a dance war.

I am playing your game but I am playing my way. --Otis Houstin Jr aka Black Cherokee

Symmetric Antisymmetric Interpolation

2008-04-29T14:26:00.011-04:00

Given two vectors, v and w, we can linearly combine them to yield their symmetric and their antisymmetric combinations using vector addition and subtraction.
The combination (v+w)/2 is invariant to switching v and w and is therefore termed symmetric. Lets call it s so that s=(v+w)/2. Graphically s can be drawn pointing from the origin to the point midway between the terminal points of vectors v and w. We can think of it as the average vector.

The combination (v-w)/2 reverses sign by switching v and w and is therefore termed antisymmetric . Lets call it a so that a=(v-w)/2. Graphically a can be drawn pointing from the terminal point of s to the terminal point of v. Similarly -a is the vector pointing from the terminal point of s to the terminal point of w. We can think of it as the difference vector.

This is a nifty representation since v=s+a and w=s-a. To interpolate between v and w we need only vary the parameter t from -1 to 1 in the expression s+t*a. Of course there is a max patch that demonstrates this. You must save and reopen this patch to get it to initialize properly.
Happy interpolating! Code in the comments section.

Space Cadets

2008-04-25T22:26:00.005-04:00

Learning to navigate the force fields of deep space takes practice. A kinesthetic and mathematical understanding of an expressive instrument enhances its creative possibilities.

Music: Cops at the Door by Die Kapitalist Pig
Duck: Jon Kinzel
Biplane: Cavin Moore
Moonbug: Sarah Rosner
Cruiser: Meghan McCoy

Rotation

2008-04-24T09:45:00.006-04:00

With vector vectoria Matt brings us from vectors to rotations, another vector quantity. Rotations play part in some of the deeper mysteries of physics. In OpenGL rotations determine the orientation of a graphical object. Here is a 3-D vector toy. The code is in the comments section. The patch has rotations going all over the place. Using a spherical coordinate system makes it possible to generate these rotations in q (theta) and f (phi). In the guts of the patch the orientation of the graphic arrow model is determined by using theta and phi as euler angles.

Vectors

2008-04-22T19:46:00.008-04:00

A vector is a line from a point in space to another point in space. It has both magnitude and direction. Bound vectors begin at the origin and are determined by the location of the terminal point. There are many different ways to represent vectors.Cartesian coordinates present the most straightforward means of representing a vector. In cartesian coordinates vectors can be added and subtracted by adding and subtracting their respective x, y and z coordinates.Physical quantities such as force, acceleration, velocity and displacement are all vector quantities. In the gravity simulator we dealt with all 4 of these in their 2-D vector form. We also are dealing with vectors when extraction accelerometer data from the Wii remote.

Spherical Coordinates

2008-04-22T14:08:00.004-04:00

Spherical coordinates provide another system for describing locations in 3-D. It uses the coordinate r, q (theta) and f (phi). Like polar coordinates it makes use of a radial coordinate. The length of the line joining the point to origin is the coordinate r. This same line subtends an angle q (theta) with the y (up/down) axis. As in the cylindrical system f (phi) determines the angular coordinate in the x-z plane. This is often referred to as the azimuthal coordinate.
Here is a patch that lets you play with 3-D spherical coordinates. The code is in the comments section. Since it uses cartesian coordinates we translate from spherical to cartesian as we send messages to OpenGL.

Here is how spherical and cartesian coordinates are related:

x = r cos(q) cos(f)
z = r cos(q) sin(f)
y = r sin(q)

Cylindrical Coordinates

2008-04-22T11:43:00.008-04:00

Cylindrical coordinates specify a point in 3-D with a mix of polar coordinates and cartesian. Polar coordinates use a distance and angle measure to locate points in 2-D. Cylindrical coordinates use an additional distance measure to locate points in 3-D. For this example r and f are two polar coordinates and y is the third. We can translate from cylindrical to 3-D cartesian coordinates using r and f to determine x and z and using y as it is given.
Here is a patch that lets you play with 3-D cylindrical coordinates. The code is in the comments section. Since it uses cartesian coordinates we translate from cylindrical to cartesian as we send messages to OpenGL.

Polar Coordinates

2008-04-21T21:21:00.005-04:00

The polar coordinate system is another way of keeping track of points on the plane. Instead of using Descartes' x and y coordinates to determine the position of a point we use r and q. The polar coordinate system is based on a line drawn from the origin of coordinates to the point. The length of this line is r. The angle between the line and the x-axis is q.
The mathematical relationship between cartesian and polar coordinates goes as follows.

x = r cos(q)
y = r sin(q)

The objects cartopol and poltocar convert between cartesian and polar coordinates. The angle is measured in radians. The code is in the comments section.
Lots of very exciting mathematics surrounds this relationship between polar and cartesian coordiantes by way of exponentials and complex numbers. One such jewel is Euler's formula.

Coordinates in OpenGL

2008-04-21T17:32:00.008-04:00

Here is a patch that lets you play with a 3-D Cartesian coordinate system using OpenGL.
OpenGL uses Cartesian coordinates x, y, z for placement of objects, light source, viewpoint and focus point. The code is in the comments section.

Cartesian Coordinates

2008-04-21T10:58:00.008-04:00

Coordinate systems allow us to refer to points in space using numbers. There are different kinds of coordinate systems and they can have different numbers of dimensions. A very familiar coordinate system is the 2-D Cartesian coordinate system.
In this coordinate system two numbers, x and y, specify a point in a plane. The name Cartesian comes from Descartes who is said to have "invented" the system while laying in bed sick and watching a fly crawl across the tiled ceiling.

The above 2-D Cartesian system can be expanded into a 3-D cartesian if we simply add a third dimension, z. As x determines the left/right position and y determines the up/down position the additional coordinate z determines the back/forth position.

Convolution

2008-04-17T20:45:00.013-04:00

Convolution is one of the jewels of Fourier analysis.
It is the Fourier transform of the multiplication operator and useful in physics and signal processing.The integral equation for using the quantum mechanical propagator K reduces to a convolution if it depends only on relative differences in space and time. K=K(x-x',t-t')Here is a patch using convolution with a drifting time series and a set of different kernel functions. The output time series is the convolution of the input time series and the kernel function. Click on all of the different kernel functions to see how they change the output signal.
We are colonizing a field. Source code in comments section.

Player Participate

2008-04-08T00:35:00.009-04:00

Gondry's film and installation at Deitch Projects, Be Kind Rewind, presents a refreshing view of culture, putting value on process and participation over product and profit. Making computer games out of ourselves, our movement vocabularies and the environments we inhabit, follows this same philosophy.

“I don’t intend nor have the pretension to teach how to make films. Quite the contrary. I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it. Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.”-Michel Gondry

nice moves: Cavin Moore
nice music: Real Nice by Should Have Thought of That

Think Tank

2008-04-07T20:09:00.006-04:00

Discourse is a dance. Sometimes it feels fun, sometimes dangerous. Here is the artifact from friday's think tank. We can learn from the content and form of such improvisations, improving our communications by getting rid of the bad style and keeping the good.

Click To Play

Gravity Fields

2008-03-20T16:57:00.008-04:00

To use the force you must learn the force. Gravity is Newton's force.
Simulation is a great way to learn about gravity. So is dancing.
This is a simple physics engine for simulating a particle in a central force field. The code is in the comments section. Here is an example of what you can do with it.

Action Words

2008-03-04T12:40:00.006-05:00

Austinian theory tells us that words don't simply describe, they can also do. In How To Do Things With Words Austin describes ways in which language is used to perform actions. For example, challenging a fiend to battle must be done explicitly and out in the open. In fact, the challenge only manifests once it has been stated. When it comes to promises, demands, vows and dedications, saying is doing.

Action heros often use performative utterances to power up. Specific language must be used in order for their super powers to manifest. The Wonder Twins must vocally "activate" before they can morph. To awaken the Eye of Thundera and assemble his team, Lion-O must yell "Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats... Ho!".

Similarly Prince Adam does not stroll around as a Master of the Universe. Only by lifting his sword and announcing "By the Power of Grayskull! I have the Power!" does Adam make himself He-Man.

The assembly of Voltron also requires these types of illocutionary acts. As the five heros incorporate their mechanical lions into a single super robot the leader calls out "Form feet and legs! Form arms and torso! And, I'll form the head!"

Here is a collection of performative utterances from the cartoon anthology Force Five. This language is mostly used for activating weaponry. Deciding what kind of cyborg super robot we will become requires a decision of what language we will use to activate our latent potentialities. Come to class on Friday ready to assemble bodies using performative speech acts.

Voltes

2008-03-02T14:27:00.004-05:00

G-Force

2008-02-28T10:35:00.004-05:00

Voltron

2008-02-27T14:06:00.003-05:00

Snow Day

2008-02-22T09:14:00.002-05:00

Its snowing. School is closed. Class is canceled. While you hunker down inside you can peep some dance technology in this interview with Gideon Obarzanek, artistic director of Chunky Move. The video has lots of great performance footage and is well worth a look. Thanks to dance-tech.net for this content. Read a critique of the interview here.

PART ONE

PART TWO

ReGenerating the Field

2008-02-21T15:17:00.004-05:00

Matt Gough is a generous dancer, theorist and researcher. Though he writes with a critical voice he does so with clarity and in the end it benefits us all. Matt has taken particular interest in the snippets of code posted this week on dance machines as they overlap with fundamental mathematical concepts he has been discussing with his class. After inviting me to write a guest post for his blog quodlibet I collected my thoughts on the purpose of these mini math machines. The post is called math skills.

Matt helps us understand that creating the infidel heteroglossia that is dance-tech "requires a synthesis, and re-framing of knowledge from many fields." Since this is a collaborative process, even in our solos we partner and bear each other's weight. Thank you Matt for your generosity in sharing your dancing and thinking.

Oscillation

2008-02-20T09:43:00.001-05:00

Integration is fundamental. We can use it to model differential relationships such as those producing harmonic oscillations.

Respecanize.
max v2;
#N vpatcher 226 181 643 397;
#P origin 4 -4;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P window linecount 1;
#P message 4 21 23 196617 20.;
#P newex 4 69 49 196617 pipe 0. 9;
#N vpatcher 10 59 610 459;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P newex 91 146 48 196617 pack 1 2;
#P newex 129 111 27 196617 int;
#P newex 81 81 58 196617 t i i b;
#P newex 81 54 92 196617 scale -5. 5. 0 128;
#P message 91 170 309 196617 scrollrect 1 0 255 255 -1 0 \, linesegment 253 \$2 254 \$1 255 0 0;
#P inlet 81 34 15 0;
#P outlet 91 202 15 0;
#P connect 1 0 3 0;
#P connect 3 0 4 0;
#P fasten 4 0 6 0 86 134 96 134;
#P connect 6 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 0 0 0;
#P connect 4 2 5 0;
#P fasten 5 0 6 1 134 134 134 134;
#P fasten 4 1 5 1 110 104 151 104;
#P pop;
#P newobj 61 165 55 196617 p draw;
#P user lcd 129 47 273 122 1 0 1 0 0;
#P newex 4 48 52 196617 * -0.001;
#P newex 61 48 27 196617 + 0.;
#P newex 61 69 27 196617 f;
#P newex 61 110 27 196617 + 0.;
#P newex 61 131 27 196617 f;
#P fasten 0 0 4 0 66 157 1 157 1 44 9 44;
#P connect 8 0 4 0;
#P connect 4 0 7 0;
#P fasten 7 0 3 0 9 93 57 93 57 41 66 41;
#P connect 3 0 2 0;
#P connect 2 0 1 0;
#P connect 1 0 0 0;
#P fasten 0 0 6 0 66 157 66 157;
#P fasten 2 0 3 1 66 92 97 92 97 42 83 42;
#P fasten 0 0 1 1 66 157 92 157 92 105 83 105;
#P fasten 6 0 5 0 66 184 118 184 118 42 134 42;
#P pop;

Entropy

2008-02-17T20:41:00.004-05:00

Entropy is a measure of how free a system of movement is. If there is a dance in which the dancer may occupy only one state then said dance has zero entropy, there are no surprises. As the number of possible states increases so does the entropy, the number of options increases. The mathematical definition is given below.
H is the entropy
i is the index of states
n is the number of states
p is the probability of inhabiting each state

max v2;
#N vpatcher 468 84 675 539;
#P origin -29 -43;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P message 80 51 23 196617 1 1;
#P message 41 99 31 196617 10 1;
#P message 47 76 23 196617 3 1;
#P message 46 52 23 196617 2 1;
#P flonum 68 400 96 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P message 83 121 52 196617 1 1 1 1 1;
#P message 82 99 43 196617 1 1 1 1;
#P message 79 30 17 196617 1;
#P message 38 121 34 196617 1 2 7;
#P message 81 76 34 196617 1 1 1;
#P newex 68 368 27 196617 f;
#P newex 68 345 27 196617 + 0.;
#P newex 68 291 47 196617 zl iter 1;
#P newex 68 312 94 196617 expr -$f1*ln($f1);
#P hidden newex 0 206 48 196617 loadbang;
#P hidden message 0 226 70 196617 scalarmode 1;
#P newex 68 271 84 196617 vexpr $f1 / $f2;
#P newex 111 229 27 196617 f;
#P newex 111 206 27 196617 + 0.;
#P newex 68 151 70 196617 t l l 0.;
#P newex 77 179 47 196617 zl iter 1;
#P hidden connect 6 0 5 0;
#P fasten 12 0 1 0 43 140 73 140;
#P fasten 19 0 1 0 46 118 73 118;
#P fasten 18 0 1 0 52 95 73 95;
#P fasten 17 0 1 0 51 73 73 73;
#P fasten 15 0 1 0 88 140 73 140;
#P fasten 14 0 1 0 87 118 73 118;
#P fasten 11 0 1 0 86 95 73 95;
#P fasten 20 0 1 0 85 73 73 73;
#P fasten 13 0 1 0 84 49 73 49;
#P connect 1 0 4 0;
#P hidden fasten 5 0 4 0 5 261 73 261;
#P connect 4 0 8 0;
#P connect 8 0 7 0;
#P connect 7 0 9 0;
#P connect 9 0 10 0;
#P connect 10 0 16 0;
#P fasten 1 1 0 0 103 174 82 174;
#P fasten 10 0 9 1 73 393 101 393 101 337 90 337;
#P fasten 1 2 9 1 133 176 167 176 167 337 90 337;
#P fasten 0 0 2 0 82 201 116 201;
#P connect 2 0 3 0;
#P fasten 3 0 2 1 116 254 144 254 144 198 133 198;
#P fasten 1 2 2 1 133 202 133 202;
#P fasten 3 0 4 1 116 266 147 266;
#P pop;

Integration

2008-02-15T23:25:00.009-05:00

Integration is fundamental. Respecanize.

max v2;
#N vpatcher 522 173 728 301;
#P origin 28 0;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P flonum 88 23 42 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P window linecount 1;
#P newex 88 49 35 196617 + 0.;
#P flonum 88 71 42 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P connect 2 0 1 0;
#P connect 1 0 0 0;
#P fasten 0 0 1 1 93 93 131 93 131 44 118 44;
#P pop;

Differentiation

2008-02-15T22:49:00.006-05:00

Differentiation is a fundamental operation. Though its been done before, it remains effective. Learn and use.

max v2;
#N vpatcher 563 104 772 266;
#P window setfont "Sans Serif" 9.;
#P flonum 82 110 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P newex 99 83 27 196617 - 0.;
#P newex 82 51 27 196617 t f f;
#P flonum 82 28 35 9 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 221 221 221 222 222 222 0 0 0;
#P connect 0 0 1 0;
#P fasten 2 0 3 0 104 103 87 103;
#P fasten 1 1 2 0 104 76 104 76 104 76;
#P fasten 1 0 2 1 87 75 121 75;
#P pop;

Shredded

2008-02-08T16:19:00.001-05:00

a conversation with semaphore

Semaphore your enjoyment!

2008-02-08T16:19:00.000-05:00

Here's the video that we made
hope you like it!
love,
Sarah and Meghan

Click To Play

Semaphore

2008-02-02T10:25:00.000-05:00

Puzzling Evidence

2008-01-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

Puzzling Evidence is a scene from David Byrne's 1986 film musical True Stories. Proof that conspiracy theory makes for brilliant performance and a poetic critique of contemporary consumer capitalism.

Lyrics in the comments section.

Children of Men

2008-01-25T19:55:00.000-05:00

This is the video Tony was talking about today in class. Zizek and I are totally on the same wavelength. It is exactly this idea about apocalypse and utopia that I brought up in class. Can this guy turn a phrase or what?

"What I like is that the solution is the boat. It doesnt have roots, its rootless. It floats around. This is for me the meaning of this wonderful metaphor. Boat! The condition of the renewal is to cut your roots."-Zizek

a sign of the Times...

2007-12-29T19:30:00.000-05:00

looks like the New York Times is finally looking into all the online action that's been building around the dance community - here's the link for the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/arts/dance/29danc.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin

Christmas Class

2007-12-21T07:55:00.000-05:00

The last class of the semester will be held in Titsworth Studio starting at 2:00.

Worksheet info...

2007-12-20T18:48:00.001-05:00

courtesy of cavin,
here are the readings for this semester -
let us know if we missed anything!

• The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society by Norbert Wiener
• The Human Touch: Towards a Historical Anthropology and Dream Analysis of Self-Acting Instruments by Allen Feldman
• Critical Moves by Randy Martin
• Interactive Motion Generation from Examples by Okan Arikan and D.A. Forsyth
• Choreography As a Cenotaph: The Memory of Movement by Gabriele Brandstetter
• Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Part 3) by Michel Foucault

Dance Tech!

2007-12-17T11:11:00.001-05:00

She's a Dancing Machine

2007-12-13T15:44:00.000-05:00

Next friday Julie Cruse will be joining us. Julie comes from Ohio State University's Experimental Media and Movement Arts Lab and is the architect of VICKI, Virtual Improvisational Choreographer / Kinetic Instructor. VICKI, or Choreobot, is a dance machine that uses verbal commands to guide its subject through a structured improvisation.

VICKI says:

“Choreobot is designed to challenge a dancer’s movement skills, and asks the dancer to draw upon advanced improvisational interpretation. I am programmed to make dances using theme and variation as prescribed by my creator. I use textbook dance methods, but - I am unpredictable. The dancer will demonstrate as I begin my next new dance.”

Among other things, Matt Gough says "there is a wealth of research waiting to be uncovered in this work" and we will get to be be a part of that.

As I mentioned in class, Julie Cruse has very strong desires about how she would like to progress the field. Currently she sees stagnation in the research. When asked "What is dance technology?" she replied:

When I hear dance and tech, I think - it better not be ANOTHER interactive audio/video environment.

It better not be ANOTHER...

dance contextualized by projected videos
dancer controlled by robotics or sensors
improvisation in real time that composes the score
motion capture in real time translated to animated projections
wearable technologies that do something with sound or video
animated avatars in second life
real time "telematic" improvising

SLC Map

2007-12-05T10:56:00.001-05:00

Jerome Robbins in high tech...

2007-11-27T10:43:00.000-05:00

Hey all,
i thought you might find this interesting - it looks like a really interesting project in terms of how they're shooting it and then publicizing it online. Also, issues of ownership over choreography/artistic ideals? "Modernizing" our past? What do you think?

http://www.opusjazz.com/Watch/Documentary.html

The Reality of the Virtual

2007-11-26T09:26:00.000-05:00

Today everybodys talking about virtual reality but I think frankly virtual reality is a rather miserable idea. It simply means let's reproduce in an artificial digital medium our experience of reality. I think that a much more interesting notion, crucial to understand what goes on today, is the opposite, not virtual reality but the reality of the virtual.
Slavoj Žižek

Rosencrantz

2007-11-22T23:42:00.000-05:00

We are programming automata in secret code.

The Society of Spectacle

2007-11-19T15:53:00.000-05:00

The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation mediated by images.
Guy Debord

text
film

Masters and Slaves

2007-11-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

Another performance technology class blog.
http://mastersandslaves.blogspot.com/

phantom dancers.

2007-11-09T10:36:00.000-05:00

I was really struck by the initial images of Forsythe’s work that were described in the reading. The use of shadow helps to distort the audience’s perception. Only parts of each dancer’s body can be seen. They are never whole. To me it almost seems as if the dancers are not really there at all and the audience is just creating this piece from their own memories. They are assembling flashes of body parts. They are not really certain about this memory which is why they cannot picture the dancer as a whole. They are trying hard to recall but cannot.
Why we are so interested in distorting the images that we see? I think that this ability that we have is incredible; the ability to change people’s perceptions. Easily, we get bored or in some way dissatisfied with the reality that we are given or with the way things are presented. So, what do we do? We mess around with it.

aka interactive tools

2007-11-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Masayuki Akamatsu of IAMAS has made these interface tools for Max freely available.

Items I am looking forward to using.

aka.appleremote ... handles the data of Apple Remote by deactivating Front Row.
aka.bookmotion ... retrieves the SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor) data.
aka.listen ... recognizes human spoken words through microphone input.
aka.speech ... reads aloud text.
aka.wiiremote ... handles Nintendo Wii Remote.
aka.iphone ... send/receive messages using iphone touchscreen interface

I need a wii controller and an iphone.

Blogs about blogs about blogs

2007-11-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

Doug Fox of greatdance.com writes
How Can Dance-Tech Community Embrace the Internet?
on the dance-tech listserve
asking why we are the only dance tech class in the blogosphere

A map of the blogosphere

Graph Dance 1.0 to 2.0

2007-11-05T10:25:00.003-05:00

Above is a video artifact from last year's version of the dance-grapher. Below is a written artifact to elaborate some of the ideas at work. Now that we are building the better/stronger/faster version of this machine it might be worth while to make sure you have wrapped your head around the project.

You should be able to

imagine state-space
understand still poses represent points in state-space
understand movement represents paths in state-space
understand a vocabulary of possible movement represents a surface in state-space
sketch a movement graph and "walk" all of its paths

Dance is a space craft and space is complex. Physics gives us powerful abstract representations of space that can be useful in this navigation. The trick is to exploit dimensionality.

Consider the simple one dimensional system, a bead on a wire. We can use one number to track its position. In a three bead system we would need 3 numbers. The state of this system could be represented by a single point in a 3-D space where the x,y and z coordinates correspond to the position of each bead. By extension the state of a 10 bead system could be represented as a single point in a 10-D space.

Many articulated systems are modeled this way, including proteins, robotic assemblies, and the human body. A human skeleton’s position, orientation and articulation is reasonably approximated by a single point in a 90 dimensional space.

Here is a graph representing the articulation of the leg in a cyclic motion. The 3-D state space is constructed using coordinate axes to mark hip, leg and foot angles.

Idea 1:
At any instant, the physical state of a body can be represented by a point in a high dimensional abstract space. This is a state space.

Muscular, gravitational, structural, environmental and inertial forces accelerate the body through different states. In dancing, the body freely navigates the continuum of states, and over time, carves an extrusion of them. Back in state space, this extrusion maps to a line of connected state points. This line points forward in time; it is directed. This line has no breaks, says Zeno, since moving from one state/point to another means passing through all the states/points in between.

Idea 2:
The changing of a body’s state carves a directed path in state space. Here dancing is a form of path making, a line of flight in space.

We use maps to navigate this space. The study of dance is a kind abstract cartography. Places in space are identified and named. Standing upright is a place and the name of that place is first position. Whenever I come to first position, or move through first position, I use it as a landmark to get my bearings. I know many paths that come to that place and many paths that leave from it. It is well mapped and has many crossings.

Idea 3:
Learning to move is a form of cartography. Identifying places in state space gives us the capacity to know where we are and where we can go. We drop breadcrumbs as we dance, and like Hansel and Gretel, hope to find these crumbs again so that we might make our way through the forest.

We all dance in the same abstract space and collaborate in its mapping. Since no one person can inhabit all parts of this space we expand our understanding of it by reading the maps of others. Dance is a space craft and we navigate it collectively.

Algorithm: Tony Schultz
Dancers: Hadar Ahuvia, Ashley Byler, I’Nasha Crockett, Jessica Long, Erin Reck, Sarah Richison, Sarah Rosner and Lily Susskind.
Music: “Diss Location” by High Alert Status

What's your artifact and why is it an antique?

2007-11-04T22:32:00.000-05:00

In looking at the pictures that sue posted (in particular the body as locus of memory) i was struck by the extents people have gone to find ways to memorize and retain information.

In Emily's improv class we've been working from the organ systems and their corresponding meridians. Again and again I am impressed and surprised by how often the path of a meridian or acupressure points are points or lines that multiple of us have been accessing and massaging nearly all of our lives to deal with very specific issues, all without a direct knowledge of what we were doing. It's amazing!

Compare that (and all these memory retaining techniques) to this idea that one of the greatest steps is human evolution was when we as humans began to write things down so we wouldn't have to remember them so we could in turn think more...and where does it take us? To me, it seems like it provides us with the benefit of having a colossal base of knowledge potentially available to us, with the drawback of a) becoming apathetic to the knowledge that isn't immediately presented to us and, b) becoming somewhat dependent on the ability to store everything we create (ideas, languages, paintings, dances) somewhere else.

So in my mind, that brings us to the present - where we are in some way, thinking too much and creating too much to be contained, and have a need hardwired into our system to put it somewhere else. Making dances with huge amounts of knowledge, material, process - whatever you want to call it (at this point i'm referring to the movement of a piece as the viscera, and any meaning/process/ideas/etc. as subviscera or "subvisc") is a complex process to say the least. However, our ways of containing and preserving dances have not evolved
at the rate that our hardwiring has...which brings us back to this problem of how to truthfully capture dance - what are our artifacts? antiques? notation systems? preservation modules? re-teaching methods? And more importantly, are they 100% exactly what we want them to be for us? Of course not. Let's get started, we have so much work to do!

артефакта, lost in transcription?

2007-11-04T15:47:00.000-05:00

riffing off Rosner
and Tony
Matt Gough writes
http://quodlibet.tumblr.com/post/18339238

about:

preservation
artifact
cartography
writing
choreography

Loci

2007-11-03T22:00:00.000-04:00

Body as Memory Locus Language Architecture
Ramon Lull's Combinatoral Decoder Ring as a Mneumonic Device
Architectural/Mechanical/Linguistic Technology as Memory Device

Memory Space

2007-11-03T17:25:00.000-04:00

Johannes Romberch's Memory Locus Leonardo's Vitruvian Man

Vitruvius' Roman Theatre

Reading Highlights

2007-11-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

Choreography As a Cenotaph: The Memory of Movement by Gabriele Brandstetter

In dissecting a text, or a dance, sometimes it helps to start simply by recalling your favorite fragments. Since blue is my favorite color I will quote using it.

Forsythe's Limb's Theorem is described as "a theatre of the memory of movement"
pg 104

re: Rosner's interest in supplemental material
"The programme booklet is part of this choreographic theorem"
describing the booklet's graphs/graphics/geometries/incisions
"Choreography - as a sketching of paths, as cartography -is 'folded' into these pages."
pg 106

"As well as meaning 'extremity', the word 'limb' (deriving from the Latin limbus = 'hem' or 'edge') also designates the form of the circle and arc in instruments used for measuring and drafting angles."
Cartography - Notation and Memory of Movement
Palace of Knossos, Ariadne, labyrinth, thread, Daedalus, Minotaur
"All memory is spatial."
pg 108

Henri Bergson on image/movement
Domenico de Piacenza on image/movement (memoria and fantasma)
pg 110

mnemonotechnics
quoting Forsythe program "your kinesphere functions as a memory"
pg116

$entence
"The 'transhuman' re-embodiment of the moving body in cyberspace perhaps marks a further station in the instumentalisation process of cultural history, in the development of technologies which Michel de Certeau termed 'the apparatuses of incarnation'."
pg118

"As an everyday activity, walking becomes a patern of choreography as cartography: an act of describing paths of motion and their crossings; nothing less than a mapping"
pg120

Themes
choreography as graph making, map making, cartography
memory is spatial
body as locus for memory
memory involves the image/movement binary
dance and choreography in the mneumonotecnical matrix

Artifacts of Dance

2007-11-02T08:37:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,
In doing the reading, i got especially interested in the discussion of making artifacts of dance.
Since i'm doing a thesis that focuses largely on that, it was (of course) extremly on my mind, but i found the way that it was discussed different from a lot of other things that i'd read.

Specifically, the idea that writing about a dance (or any other kind of translation/preservation) is a second type of "choreography" struck me as interesting, if not a little problematic. For me, it brought up issues of ballance between the original work and the preserving element. Should the element be invisible? Another work of art in it's own right? What is more helpful and "truthful" to the dance that's being preserved. And then, what's the best way to preserve dance? writing? video? motion capture? everything is problematic and there is clearly no right answer.

Anyways, that's just what jumped out at me.
How do all of you go about preserving your work? What seems most truthful to you?

food for thought

2007-11-02T07:40:00.000-04:00

If we've been initiated into self-surveillance, can we ever really get out of that system/"the panopticon" . . . ?? What other behaviors do we automatically participate in once we are trained to practice self-surveillance? (the surveillance of others? comparisions of self to others or others to others? obedience to authority?)

Another question:

We talked about groups such as myspace and facebook and the illusion of being in the surveillance tower of one's own panopticon - that illusion of control, in a sense. Or that real control?

Well, those particular online communities have certain steps that you can take to ensure that only people you allow to look at you can see you and surveille your activity. What if someone is watching your online activity without your permission? How is this different from hidden cameras, phone taps, or someone following you around? How is it the same?

Thanks!

Constant Surveillance?

2007-10-25T20:57:00.000-04:00

After our discussion last class I was left wondering if we are ever not being watched.
Are we under constant surveillance? I don’t mean to sound paranoid but I think there is always some sort of surveillance going on, whether it be from an outside source or internal. With this constant surveillance then comes constant judgment; from others but mostly from ourselves. The harshest judgments often come from within. So then in regards to the structure of the “panopticon” if we are watching ourselves would the tower be located within the cell itself? Or is the cell in the tower? We are simultaneously in the tower and in the cell? I think that it is difficult to make a distinction between the watcher and the one being watched. It is difficult to assign one role because we are constantly functioning under both. We cannot escape being watched because we are in the end watching ourselves, probably more than any one else is watching us to begin with.

Kunst und Wunderkammer

2007-10-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

1655 Museum Wormianum

cabinet of curiosities
aka
art (kunst) and (und) wonder (wonder) cabinet (kammer)

Anatomy Theatre

2007-10-25T10:53:00.000-04:00

Leiden Anatomy Theatre circa 1610

The City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella

2007-10-25T10:20:00.001-04:00

It is divided into seven rings... the higher and lower walls of the city to be adorned with the finest pictures, and to have all the sciences painted upon them in an admirable manner.
1602 The City of the Sun

Memory Theatre of Guillo Camillo

2007-10-25T10:01:00.001-04:00

They say that this man has constructed a certain amphitheatre, a work of wonderful skill, into which whoever is admitted as a spectator will be able to discourse on any subject no less fluently than Cicero...The work is of wood,marked with many images, and full of little boxes; there are various orders and grades in it. He gives a place to each individual figure and ornament.
1532 letter from Vigilus to Erasmus

Insect-icon

2007-10-23T19:30:00.000-04:00

Hi there, everyone. So I saw this exhibit by Huang Yong Ping when I was living in Vancouver, BC last year. His work deals a lot with power & dynamics, within people, society, cultures etc... It just struck me that this particular work is quite the representation of the panopticon, primarily in structure, but also because it contains live insects that are aware they are being observed, but not of the meaning/consequences/idea of the observation... because, you know, they're insects! There was a huge controversy over this showing - the Humane Society was concerned re. its ethical validity, if correct care being taken of the insects, etc. These images should give an idea of what it looked like:

Image:
Huang Yong Ping, Theater of the World, from Theater of the World--Bridge Is Theater of the World an insect zoo? A test site where various species of the natural world devour one another? A space for observing the activity of “insects”? An architectural form as a closed system? A cross between a panopticon and the shamanistic practice of keeping insects? A metaphor for the conflicts among different peoples and cultures? Or, rather, a modern representation of the ancient Chinese character gu¹? —HYP

1. Composed of three insects superimposed upon a plate, the character gu means vicious things or evil spells.

Also: Huang’s Theater of the World (1993) takes one of its clear references from Bentham’s panopticon, its radial arrangement of cells strikingly resembling Bentham’s description. (See also BESTIARY, GU, and XUANWU.) There is, however, no central observation tower. The main space [where the observer stands], in fact, more closely resembles that of a coliseum or an amphitheater. The activation of the work—living animals and insects left to a gladiatorial relationship of slay or die—indeed resembles the theater of spectacle of a Roman or Neoclassical kind rather than the disciplinary institutions of modern society. One possible closer representation may be Coup d’oeil du Théâtre de Besançon by French Neoclassical architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux (1804). Thus, Huang’s own panopticon may very well be an inverse of Foucault’s contention of the modernity of our social experience: “We are much less Greeks than we believe. We are neither in the amphitheatre, nor on the stage, but in the panoptic machine, invested by its effects of power, which we bring to ourselves since we are part of its mechanism...Huang sees the expansive, simultaneously modern and antimodern potential of this metaphor when he reads his own work as “a cross between a panopticon and the shamanistic practice of keeping insects.” ” (See http://visualarts.walkerart.org/oracles/details.wac?id=2229&title=Lexicon for further references to Panopticon, Foucault, etc).

The power (and pitfalls) of watching/mirrors...

2007-10-23T11:52:00.000-04:00

Hey guys,
Rose Anne passed this on to me, but i thought you might find it interesting.

http://www.charactermotion.com/gallery/index.html

It's a motion-capture based form of choreography technology (similar to the "Life Forms" program that Merce uses) but really designed from a ballet standpoint.

If you go to the website, you can download a 20-day free trial of it, which is pretty cool. As i was playing around with it, it struck me as a really interesting extension of part of the reading for this week.

Randy Martin spoke to the dancers relationship with the mirror a great deal, noting that "the culture of the mirror" (162) dictates a progressive evolution through the class, where the dancers at first is very dependent on the mirror and wedded to the process of self-correcting via mimesis. However, as Martin notes, through the class the dancer must separate themselves more and more from the mirror if they truly want to move, or as he says, "when [movement is] generalized from the mirror to appear anywhere, what allows dancers to 'attack' the movement, in the sense of moving as if they already had the authority or approval of correctness that they sought." (162)

This idea of having to progress from the visual to the visceral to find the authority over the movement struck me again when playing with my demo of the dance forms program. To me (and this is of course me as a dancer who is more used to classes without mirrors than with, and doesn't use the mirror at all to choreograph) it felt that the attempt to set movement visually on a form (form especially - because the program doesn't ascribe to the reality of what bodies can and can't do, it lacks humanness) was somehow missing the point. For a ballet, fine. To play around with, fine. But for making modern choreography? My modern choreography?
The word that I kept coming up with was lie. While i can see the value of a program like this, especially for aging choreographers such as Merce, it just felt so wrong for my body and my mind.

Again, that returned me to Randy Martin's analysis of the mirror-based class structure, and left me wanting his analysis on non-mirror classes. Personally, I feel that class devoid of mirrors allows the mind to accept that all of the class is "the dancing part" and continually reminds me to disassemble the hierarchies of what is "dance" and what is "technique", but I would love to get an outside view on it.

2007-10-19T17:07:00.000-04:00

We talked a lot in class today about panoptic structures, but we only touched on how these affect performer and viewer.

As a performer, I know I am being watched (or at least there is that potential.) Usually, I can only see a few audience members, if any, but I know they are there watching. In that sense, it must be like being in a cell in the panopticon, albeit with a difference of intention. I am performing because I choose to, the prisoner or patient or pupil does not have a choice.

I think for the most part, the audience is happy when they are invisible; it is comfortable to observe without being noticed. I equate this to the popular past time of people-watching. I feel perfectly at ease staring at interesting people until they stare back. As an audience member, my invisibility has been a comfort; I could yawn, roll my eyes, fall asleep, smile, laugh, cry and keep these actions more or less to myself. Even when I have been asked to participate in the performance by reading, waving, or closing my eyes, I do not feel highly visible because of the structure of the stage.

Panopticism

2007-10-15T09:05:00.000-04:00

Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon is pictured here. The plan consists of a ring of cells built around a central tower from which all the cells can be seen. Foucault writes, "They are like so many small cages, so many small theaters, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible." Visibility, as Meghan noted in class, makes one take responsibility for their own subjection.

He who is subjected to the field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play simultaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. Discipline and Punish 202

This assembly is a dance technology. On April 28th and 29th 2007 Martha Williams directed and performed in a dance installation entitled Stacked, converting an out of business clothing store into a surveillance menagerie. Each dancer took residence in one of a dozen changing rooms which they themed and designed the interiors of. In the main room camera feeds from each room were composed and projected so that all of the dances could be seen at once.

The geometry of the panoptic (one seeing many) inverts that of spectacle (many seeing one). For example, compare the structure of the Panopticon to that of the Globe Theater.
Lets investigate how architectures of performance and surveillance resonate against each other.

In each system:

what travels/flows from the center to the periphery?
what travels/flows from the periphery to the center?
how does visibilty/invisibility effect each of these flows?

In general:

identify a contemporary structure or phenomenon with panoptic features
find another way to structurally or functionally invert the panopticon
find another way to structurally or functionally invert the theater/arena

Remember to be thoughtful in your response. You never know who is watching our blog.

Motion Active Recording

2007-10-02T20:09:00.000-04:00

Here is a clean version of the patch we worked on together. This machine records when their is motion and stops when there is no movement. It captures only the changes. This is an effective surveillance technology. In the comments section you will find the code.

Copy the code into the computer's "Clipboard" like you were going to copy and paste the text.

Open up MMJ and goto File:New_from_Clipboard

There's your patch. Press "esc" for full screen. Play with it.

Record a dance.

Use jit.submatrix or jit.scissors or jit.split just upstream of "motion_detector" in order to make only part of the screen motion sensitive.

Record a dance with your mutated system.

The Slip

2007-10-02T09:41:00.000-04:00

Locating dance within Foucault's framework of docility is both difficult and provocative. In attempting to pin dance to this trellis it becomes apparent that dance is slippery and cannot be easily categorized. It is clear however that discipline and dance are deeply entangled. Natasha spots this in the body of the soldier.

These men of the 17th-late 18th centuries were molded into figures with upright postures, programmed steps and structured attitudes; compare to ballet, especially, where all of these are instructed from an early age. Even the goals are similar - achieving honour and respect (of movement), grace, alertness, agility and strength. The quote on pg. 136: "A body that is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved", is applicable to any dance class or performance, even improvisational. We are constantly subjecting our bodies to our aspirations and limitations, using the body and our knowledge to further its abilities for the task at hand, transforming it (whether in attitude or structure) to execute movements and improving it for the short-term goals and the long-term benefits.

Foucault opens his section on docile bodies with a reading of Montgommery's 1636 military manual La Milice francaise. It's description of the dancerly pikeman, who 'will have have to march in step in order to have as much grace and gravity as possible' resonates with Thoinot Arbeau's dance manual Orchesographie. Written less than 50 years earlier, it had illustrated the strong linkages between choreography in the court and on the battlefield.

Thinking that making a dancer is just another instance of creating a docile subject (be it a soldier, factory worker, school child, or mental patient) can be uncomfortable to say the least. Janet points out how subtle power mechanisms can operate to form the subject.

For example the idea of coercion - that the power structure is being so fully and well imposed because of the fact that it's being slipped in the back door, so to speak. "Small acts of cunning endowed with a great power of diffusion, subtle arrangements, apparently innocent, but profoundly suspicious," (p. 139). It's not being beaten into people, it's "proper" execution is being rewarded. It is being made convenient. I think that these ideas have a very great relationship to the more "open" versions of modern and contemporary dance technique. Even when we are not working from highly stylized and codified techniques, we are still being instructed by a teacher, being ordered into levels, being auditioned for placement and so on. Therefore if we are properly disciplined in WHATEVER is the "proper" kind of "technique" (even if that is merely a general body awareness?), we are being subject to a certain power structure based on WHO decided what is "proper".

We are inside a discipline machine with all of the spatial and temporal markers Foucault describes. This class demonstrates that. A component of the dance {1,2}/3 or graduate study in the department of dance at Sarah Lawrence College. The class is physically located in a distinct place within a time table. The time and space within the class is also divided and in doing so controls the physical activities of the participant bodies. Some stand, some sit, some on the floor, some on chairs, some speak, some erase, some write and some read. We move inside the computer for a spell. Then there is time and space designated for dancing. Our bodies and activities are seem well placed within space, time and the structure of the academy.

But, Sarah Rosner pushes back with a contrarian maneuver.

I think the thing that hit me most about the idea of discipline via the control of movements is how much i DIDN'T feel like it applied to my experience of dance.

And Sarah Richison voices related discontent, but finds in it a contradiction.

say you revolt. are no longer docile. escape from prison. you find some way to do some other dance. so you move off and do your own thing and someone follows you. someone wants to do your dance. are you then the new discipline? yes. you have manipulated their body, right.

For those of you who were looking for straight answers I fear that we have none. Instead we are left with a set of contradictions and a general understanding that dance is slippery, at times obedient and located, at other times disobedient and dislocated.

Here are one, two, three, four dances, two made inside the institution and two made outside. Dissect them with regards to this contradiction between dance's discipline and disruption.

Creativity & Education

2007-09-28T17:20:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone! Just wanted to post this, if you have any time for weekend viewing. It's a fantastic speech on education and creativity... it's about 20 mins long but definitely worth watching. In keeping with our interests in dance, creativity, education, and even discipline!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

Enjoy, and have a great weekend:)
N.

mildly organized thoughts

2007-09-27T23:03:00.001-04:00

I found myself relating very much to the article as a dancer. In contrast to Sarah Rosner, I have spent much of my dance career taking ballet, jazz and classic modern dance techniques. I was very much reminded of ballet, but I was also reminded very much of classic modern dance techniques! Consider a Graham class: it is not enough just to contract and release. One must cup the hands just so, tilt the head just so, as was the case in many of the directions for activities in the reading.

Also, I was reading information on Laban (as many of us were) for Rose Anne at the same time. The specificity in Laban's work could be used to the same end! And consider how much more disciplined dancing bodies could become if we all worked from highly specific notations!

Despite the obvious links to classical technique, I found certain other ideas even more interesting to consider. For example the idea of coercion - that the power structure is being so fully and well imposed because of the fact that it's being slipped in the back door, so to speak. "Small acts of cunning endowed with a great power of diffusion, subtle arrangements, apparently innocent, but profoundly suspicious," (p. 139). It's not being beaten into people, it's "proper" execution is being rewarded. It is being made convenient. I think that these ideas have a very great relationship to the more "open" versions of modern and contemporary dance technique. Even when we are not working from highly stylized and codified techniques, we are still being instructed by a teacher, being ordered into levels, being auditioned for placement and so on. Therefore if we are properly disciplined in WHATEVER is the "proper" kind of "technique" (even if that is merely a general body awareness?), we are being subject to a certain power structure based on WHO decided what is "proper".

Also, Foucault talked about scenarios in which individuals were more fully controlled when their superiors created living arrangements for them to remain grouped together and within the confines of the institution. This is most perfectly exemplified in colleges and universities. It is also exemplefied in the traditional arrangements of dance festivals. You travel to the festival, and you live and work with dancers, in the place where the dancing happens, for as long as you remain at the festival. This can also happen when a company tours - wherever they go, their bookings are together. You are never separated from your fellow dancers. Or the choreographer.

Which brings me to my most troubling point. How does one act as a choreographer and not play into this power dynamic? Regardless of what technique or style one is working in, choreographers tend to want specificity from their dancers. I know I do. But attention to detail is, according to Foucault, one of the greatest arenas for control. In an article I read this summer, Anne Bogart wrote, "Art is violent. To be decisive is Violent. . . . To place a chair at a particular angle on the stage destroys every other possible choice, every other option." Choreographer Stephanie Skura wrote in "The Politics of Method": "Dance is political not only because of its subject matter but because of the way dances are made, how they are structured, and what they show about people relating to each other." She goes on to discuss the manner in which dances are traditionally made: an idea, often even including movement/steps, comes from the choreographer, who then sets it on the dancers. So the dancers are doing her/his idea, and often even her/his steps. She questions, I believe rightly so, how a dance with liberal subject matter and ideas can be made with a conservative use of bodies - how a dance can be "about" not exploiting individuals, when all the dancers line up and move in unison or careful canon in traditionalist spatial design.

There are other ways to think about dance and power relationships, however. As Sarah Rosner pointed out, more and more dancers ARE being asked to be part of the creative process, to improvise, etc. Even the idea in modern dance that anyone who can dance can make dances is infinitely more democratic (in its true sense) than ballet traditionally has been.

There is definitely power that a dancer gains by having a "disciplined" body. The greater a dancers awareness of her own body in space and time is, the greater her own capabilities to make decisions with it are. Even in a class or a traditional choreographic setting can be seen this way. If a dancer has training in multiple forms and styles, is versatile, then she can choose to portray a choreographer or teacher's directions in any of those ways. For example, in any given combination, I have the power to control whether my foot is pointed flexed, winged, sickled, relaxed, or in constant motion. The teacher or choreographer can present me with directions and images, but ultimately, I have enough control over my own body to make a choice about the status of my foot. I can choose to disobey.

This calls to mind Teaching Conference. Rose Anne has been describing the teaching of creative movement to young children as a process of guiding them to their own movement and their own creativity (as opposed to giving them steps). Similarly, I overheard Barbara talking to one of the ballet 3 students, telling her that her goal is to lead the students to the place where they can be asking the questions of technique for themselves, and she doesn't point out the questions, but rather just helps guide them to the answer that works for them. Emily has said similar things to me. Sarah Lawrence, I find, is an interesting institution in that it guides you through self discovery. Yet it is a long standing institution. I'm not sure how I reconcile these ideas yet.

I feel as though I'm starting to ramble, so I'll just say one more thing:

I am frightened by how docile we have become as a people. Granted, we no longer sit "just so" at our desks. But generations of training and docility have effectively bred rebellion and dissention out of us, I fear. (I'm sure this also has to do with the disappointments of past rebellions and revolutions - such as the deaths of JFK, Dr. King, and RFK in such short succession during the '60s). We are so docile that we are apathetic. We don't know how many of our rights are being usurped in this time of war, and we don't care to find out. I think that being part of the internet generation affects our apathy as well. We post a bulletin on facebook or myspace instead of going to a rally. I am sure that books could be written on the correlations between apathy and the under-active, undersocialized bodies of our current age.

I think that's it for now.

Thought this might be interesting

2007-09-27T13:18:00.000-04:00

Hey guys -

I found it on free NYC, and it looks pretty cool.
Have you heard anything about this Tony?
Post of the reading to follow (soon, i promise!)
- Sarah A.O.

Interference Opening

Date: Thursday, September 27th - Nov. 10th
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Eyebeam (540 West 21st St)
Cost: Free

"Eyebeam is pleased to present Interference, the second in a series of three group shows commemorating the organization's unique role in supporting artists experimenting with, and critically examining, the impact of new technologies in creative endeavor. The show will feature eleven artists and collectives whose projects tackle the ever-shifting boundaries between public and private space and consider the ways in which these limits are understood, utilized and represented. Employing a diverse array of media and strategies including data visualization, performance, community engagement and intervention, the artists address issues of autonomy and access, in some cases becoming actors within the very environments they describe." The opening reception will be followed by a live VJ performance as collective montage by Angie Eng, Benton-C Bainbridge and Caspar Stracke. All Ages

Docility and Dancenicity

2007-09-26T14:10:00.000-04:00

So here are some of my thoughts on the first part of the assignment: Relating dance to Foucault's "Docile Bodies". I was intending it to be short, but somehow I predict that shall not actually happen!
I initially did not think it would be easy to compare an article on discipline and punishment with dance... how would the writing give me material to work with in regards to an ART form? However, as I started reading phrases and words began to jump (jete?) out at me: "grace", "power over the active body", "art over the human body", "details", "distribution in space". These are just a few of the many I actually underlined. If you were reading those words out of the context of the article, what subject matter would automatically come to your mind?
I found the section regarding the making of the soldier's body to be very applicable to how we work with our bodies as dancers. These men of the 17th-late 18th centuries were molded into figures with upright postures, programmed steps and structured attitudes; compare to ballet, especially, where all of these are instructed from an early age. Even the goals are similar - achieving honour and respect (of movement), grace, alertness, agility and strength. The quote on pg. 136: "A body that is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved", is applicable to any dance class or performance, even improvisational. We are constantly subjecting our bodies to our aspirations and limitations, using the body and our knowledge to further its abilities for the task at hand, transforming it (whether in attitude or structure) to execute movements and improving it for the short-term goals and the long-term benefits.
Foucoult discusses discipline as domination. Although I cannot make any perfectly tangible connections here, I did think that his notes regarding obtaining effects of utility through the elegance of discipline (pg. 137) inspired a similarity to be reached between this and the use of discipline to attain the aesthetic rewards that dance has to offer. Dancers and choreographers
can work themselves to the bone to discover the most fleetingly beautiful line, moment of contact or significant gesture, but that feeling of having utilised our body and accomplished this makes every second of frustration and pain worth having lived through.
To move into choreography for a bit, the development of discipline reminded me of the development of modern dance. They both originated in scattered locations, were prone to imitation (e.g. Ruth St. Denis imitating dances of various exotic cultures), were distinguished from each other by their applications (Anna Pavlova creating ballet's accessibility throughout the world, the disparity between Martha Graham's use of breath versus Doris Humphrey's), and both adopted their own methodologies (Cunningham/Limon/Balanchine technique). Dance, also, was "adopted in response to particular needs" (pg. 138) - Isadora Duncan's need to create simple dance as expression; Graham's need to develop a representation of modern/current America through dance, while using it to deal with the advent of world wars.
Towards the end of the article, Foucoult describes how activity was controlled. In ''The temporal elaboration of the act'', there is a description of requisite steps for marching troops of the mid-eighteenth century. The detail of the measurements, time and movements involved is astounding. It is comparable to any advanced ballet class or staging of a work such as Humphrey's ''The Shakers''. It can even be applied outside the art of dance - for example, to playing one of Rachmaninov's Piano Concertos. It is that level of exactitude, required to provide the quality and expression desired.
It is possible to draw comparisons to dance through mentions of distribution in space and/or relation to other objects in space (pgs. 141 & 164), especially as far as creating and observing choreography is concerned. An aspect of rhythm can be inferred from the discussion - "the place [the body] occupies, the interval it covers, the regularity, the good order according to which it operates its movements". Instead of reading that the body can become part of a machine, we can think of it as part of an impressive piece of group choreography, whether in unison or not (this especially resonates for me after watching 'Water Study' & 'Chronicles' today in Dance History class!)
Discipline, in no matter what context, provides humanity with a framework... a structure, if you will. It institutes foundations and principles which can be utilised to gain knowledge. This can be applied to any aspect of life, whether as one that exhibits these qualities or does not. It was especially poignant to read this on a level where dance could be discovered within the words. I just find that I am refreshed to think that fortunately, dance today has many aspects which use discipline in a less invasive fashion. Modern techniques exist that are based on natural states of breath and emotion. Ballet companies finally are learning to prioritise the health of their dancers. Therefore, while discipline of the techniques can still be retained, the discipline of the humanity and art involved is constantly being redefined.
In a coda of a conclusion, one last little thought from pg. 141 that made me chuckle: "Napolean did not discover the world; but we know that he set out to organise it". And what better prominent dance figure does that portrait of a major historical disciplinary figure bring to mind, than the man who decided to codify and organise dance... Rudolf Laban!

-- Natasha:)

Simple Timing

2007-09-23T15:52:00.001-04:00

Here are two simple timing mechanisms. Build both of them and explain what they do. The code for these is in the comments section of this post.

Which do you think is better (more computationally efficient) ? Build a simple mechanism using two "line" objects to have a number go from 0.0 to 2.0 in 5.5 seconds and then back from 2.0 to 0.0 in 2.0 seconds.

Read the help patch for "line" to start you on your way.

Dance is a Discipline

2007-09-22T08:32:00.000-04:00

Here are pictures left out of the English edition of Foucault's Discipline and Punish. You can see them all HERE.

Okay smarty pants, a few questions:
What does Foucault's section on docile bodies have to do with dance?
What does it have to do with technology?
What does it have to do with pedagogy?
What does it have to do with power and politics?
What kind of power does our dance technique give us?

Extra credit:
Find Arbeau's 1589 dance manual online.
Post some of its pictures and use some language to put it in the context Foucault's docile bodies.

Welcome

2007-09-21T12:34:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody. This is where we are going to conduct out of class discussion. Everyone should check their email to get the invitation to the blog. Follow the link in the email to open your own blogger account. Then you will be able to contribute to this conversation.

You should also open up an account at Blip.tv. There is a link in the sidebar.

Here is a picture of a dancing bear. Get the movie by option-clicking the image. Or you can follow the link and save it from the Quicktime menu.

Now check out the comments section below to see some more action.