Re: [-empyre-] body as code net worked performance

["Adam Nash" <adam@yamanakanash.net>]

Intensely interesting topic, and CIS are one of the very few 'dance' companies
working through the really hard questions.

Is it neccessarily a reduction when a person is represented in virtual space
independently of their bodies, can it not be an expansion or parallel mode?
Does the concept of dance inextricably involve the concept of body, or can a
person's soul/spirit dance?

I always think of virtual environments as independent of the body, but most
people do not, possibly because distance therefore travel therefore body seems
to linger in perceptions of cyberspace. 

What do you think Hellen?

Adam

> In the final scene
> > of that work, the avatar no longer takes on human form but is visible as
> > collection of geometric shapes  altered dynamically( and in real time) by
> > the movement of the performer.
> 
> > The possibilities of relenquishing any direct representation of the body,
> in
> > 3DVR environments  while understanding the potential for creating
> presence,
> > interaction between shared realtime body data generating performers and
> the
> > interaction between other sets of codes,  artificial  intelligence  within
> > that world is something of a paradigm  shift  for live  performing arts.
> 
> yes im wondering how mainstream dance audiences react to this!! most 
> dance i see uses technology and  media  as backdrop rather than as 
> the integral medium of the work itself.  i havent had the pleasure 
> of ever attending one of your performances.. but  im wondering if  
> you only use motion captured data, or  you combine other datasets or 
> sensor or triggered code  with the dancers body to produce visual 
> /audio effects.. ? almost in a " the fly" like monstrous hybridisation?
> 
> its sort of interresting that direct represenation of the body 
> remains a contested issue.. for instance i am quiet happy to see the 
> body in wire frame as its seems quiet normal to me as i work with 3d,
>  but when that sort of effect was used in the matrix it was highly 
> exoticised and eroticised,
> (Like in the penetrating the body and pulling the bullet out scene// 
> ).  or im also comfortable to visualise  the body as a gemome 
> sequence in CAGT code.. or nice protien threads..which some would 
> see as blashphemous repudiation of the essence and soul of 
> humanity..   but im a technophile..
> 
> what about teh technophobes..  im wondering if  there is a moral 
> delima for an audience in all of this.. that it is  somehow wrong to 
> reduce  ( and reduce does have the  negative inference that we are 
> loseing something vital ) - or prehaps  recode - the body into 
> another more abstract state..
> 
> also can the audience in any way influence the dancers body or is 
> that a bit "stellarc" :)
> 
> melinda
> 
> > at this point in time we are researching these relationships.  the
> > technological frontiers being addressed through intelligent and
> responsive
> > programming,  but ultimately with  knowledge that the audience  live in
> situ
> > in physical space to  screens in view of live generating motion capture
> > performer will draw new sensibilities to concepts of choreography, and
> > movement of media between these  spaces.
> >
> > we are interested to here of people thought on body as code, knowing that
> > daily online communications are building up digital representations of the
> > user through collection of their online identities accumulated while they
> do
> > their banking, search the web etc.
> 
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> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
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