Permanence Through Change: LOOPS/Open Source

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

This project addresses cultural memory as endangered by the computer age — an age that perhaps offers a solution. We take as our representative artifacts the two works entitled Loops: (1) Merce Cunningham’s dance solo for his hands and (2) the digital artwork we derived from that dance.
Though Loops the dance and Loops the artwork take completely different physical forms (human body, digital computer), they provoke similar challenges to preservation. Both are always performed live, never quite repeating from one performance to the next. Thus, neither work can be preserved properly in any fixed form, such as film or videotape. And the complexity of both works defies capture by such traditional forms as notation and flowchart.

Somewhat in parallel with the Variable Media Initiative.

In this project we intend not only to preserve and document the dance and the digital artwork, but also to create “living wills” for the choreography and the software that would allow their perpetuation – and propagation – far into the future.


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[robert wechsler]

indeed. i like this very much... on a few levels...

[Marlon Barrios Solano]

yes,
this is so interesting...also very relevant to the discussion about documentation and memory...

[mpgough]

thanks for linking to this, i'm surprised that people are still making big claims for the fidelity of mocap. my thoughts are here ... http://quodlibet.tumblr.com/post/26272970