Puzzling Evidence

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

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...

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

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

Worksheet info...

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!

She's a Dancing Machine

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

Jerome Robbins in high tech...

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

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