[-empyre-] Starting the Fourth Week: Chris Funkhauser, Sally Silvers and Bruce Andrews

Thu Nov 24 02:42:31 AEDT 2016

Sally,

I love, & long for collaboration, & have written at least briefly about the
need for it in multimedia work. As it turns out, with the exception of the
band I'm in & some work I have done in recent years with my wife (a visual
artist), I do end up doing a lot of collaborations with myself, not to
mention SOFTWARE (challenging+gratifying). I was lucky to be formally
trained as musician, photographer, & poet (in that order) & then get
interested in programming just as the Web was about to arrive.

BUT, the code opera *Shy nag* (2012-2015) was a glorious collaboration with
another writer/musician/programmer (Sonny Rae Tempest), a Director (Louis
Wells), and numerous actors. Painstaking work, finding ways to use the
hex(adecimal) code from one .jpg to spawn libretto, musical score, visual
atmosphere/animation. I loved every bit of it. & though the student
reviewers hated it, the production was a total success as far as everyone
involved was concerned. Read all about it, if you want, via
https://web.njit.edu/~funkhous/2015/Shy-nag/shy-nag-info.html. I also wrote
a piece about its most recent production in the latest issue of *hyperrhiz *
(http://hyperrhiz.io/hyperrhiz14/featured-works/09-funkhouser-shy-nag.html)

A few years ago I worked with an Iranian filmmaker, Alireza Khatami, on a
couple of projects, & also briefly with a wonderful Paris-based sound
artist named Daniela Franco. Collaborative performances still happen from
time to time, usually with musicians (most recently last Feb. with David
Rothenberg at Berl's) Here's hoping future opportunities arise!

On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Sally Silvers <silversdance at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Thank you, Murat for your statement(s) and invitation to join this forum
> this week
>
> I really appreciate what you said about my dancing/moving.  Few people,
> including many professional writers about my work in the dance world, have
> called attention to my movement vocabulary or pointed out "the rehash" of a
> lot of other experimenters.   My goal from the beginning was to shed
> codified dance vocabulary that was 'learned' on my body and try to find
> something outside the dance world and outside my own preconditioned habits
> as a way to move.  To give into reality while experimenting maximally.
> Just like with language, often the first impulse on the part of the
> viewer/reader is to want to take for granted or to expect standardized
> vocabulary and  'look beyond or through" the way the body is moving to the
> so-called 'real' meaning of the piece.  I have always felt that dance has
> to deal with movement first and foremost, as its first meaning. The
> layering of other meanings then or simultaneously partners with that base.
>
> Also funnily, I noticed typos in all our names: Funkhauser/Funkhouser,
> Andrew/Andrews, Silver's/Silvers'.  But I'm sure I would have made a
> mistake in Murat's name as well. (I almost just wrote Marat).
>
> So I wrote a statement and Bruce and I combined forces so I'm going to
> paste Bruce's and mine here together and then Bruce will get on board with
> his own responses.
>
> I look forward to acquainting myself with Chris's work.  The mix of
> words/poetry/sound/music sounds like collaborating with yourself in a
> really appealing way. I would be curious if you (Chris) have combined your
> own work with people working in different genres or other types of media.
>
>
>
>
> I'm interested in [& would love to converse about}:
>
> how writers would want 'new work' presented online, or what modes of work
> operate
>
> best in that environment;
>
> & how you would want older (archived) work [& surrounding materials]
> presented.
>
> How can the web function as a *Platform* for the new & for the archivable.
>
> What are the advantages, opportunities, risks, drawbacks.
>
> With 'meaning', what contextual information can be provided — equivalents
> of scene-
>
> setting, background, footnotes, forewords;
>
> or of hypertextual links on individual works, phrases, words; or of extra
> stuff:
>
> equivalent of a photo exhibit or slideshow, a Q & A/oral history, an
> artist's statement, results of online search, data analysis or data mining,
> comparison with other texts or other versions or drafts [as in a 'genetic'
> version of a text].
>
> In a dance equivalent, this might involve links to rehearsal material,
> source material, multiple performances, notes, photos, drawings, audio or
> visual materials — of the kind you might see in a museum exhibit]
>
>
>
> Thinking also of Lev Manovich's argument in *Language of New Media* about
> the 'data base'
>
> as a model — opposed to the more passive 'following' of a narrative, with
> search & analysis
>
> & active user controls in the foreground.
>

SOFT CINEMA is great!

In the audio world, check out Jhave Johnston's MUPS (Mash up Penn Sound),
for a great example of this type of work:
http://glia.ca/2012/mups/

> As artists, what can we do with tech & what has tech done to us.
>
>
>
> *
>
> Thanks to Murat for inviting us.
>
> We're both eager to participate in this, to hear from subscribers on this
> site —
>
> especially working textually and/or in performance, confronted with this
> 21st Century
>
> phenom.
>
>
>
> If, for instance, they've been interested or have wanted to experiment
> with movement
>
> & writing together:  what could they imagine they wanted to see in a
> digital presentation.
>
>
>
> A matter of translation:
>
> how to present performance online — how to make the body into data, or
> into virtual
>
> reality;
>
> how to present multi-media collaborations online;
>
> how to create an interactive possibility — even with 'concordances' of
> parts of texts or
>
> of choreographic pieces.
>
>
>
> Send your favorite movement video (YouTube or etc.) . . .
>
> Send your favorite multimedia use of text . . .
>

waiting for Bruce to chime in before saying anything else!

>
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 7:28 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> But, Michael, are ordinary and imperfect the same thing?
>>
>
to me, imperfect(ion) is the norm, so I guess in some ways that's ordinary,
but it can be (or lead to) extraordinary. funny example: Last week my wife
& I went to a film down in Wappingers Falls, discount theatre. The ticket
booth said go to #8, the ticket says theatre 8, so we go there & somehow
ended up being at the wrong film.  the movie we saw wasn't monumental but
it was literary & I was glad to see it. imperfection led to happy accident
(love is dead in us if we forget the amulet of quick surprise, to
paraphrase Creeley)
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