Comment

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 12:08pm

More Room for Comment? Part 6

Glow / Dance Projection / Silent Room

(And please remember that I pointed out having seen "Glow" within a festival context and 10 days of staring down with downcast eyes at the floor projections, and the shapes my own motion was activating and the shapes and curves and blotches that others were trying to catch up with or tease,..... the playful dancefloor of this same "Kapyso" (I wrote about her mythological background elsewhere) was quite cool, hundreds being in the midst of something that was glowing under our feet, even if this tends to make you avoid looking at people, seeing them and their faces or bodies. Downcast eyes -- to become entranced and painfully (?) hynotized , this is something else, and here i wonder what Skoltz_Kolgen are on to, and how their work was experienced, these prisonrooms of visceral under worlds, these surreal rooms that remind me of the work of
Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio.

In Dresden-Hellerau, there was such visceral response, for sure, especially to the performance "Movement A" that was presented a day prior to "Glow," and here too a woman was "electrified" and "dissolved" into the "stroboscopic stutter" --- and thus i wish to refer you to the critical/philosophical discussion published by André Lepecki in the recent issues of TDR (The Drama Review), special sections 51:1 and 51:2 (2006 / 2007), especially also Lepecki's interesting introduction, driven by Deleuze and Foucault, on "Choreography as Apparatus of Capture" (51:2, Summer 2007, 120-23), where he finds a fascinating moment in the great French philosopher Deleuze's writings on madness and discipline, mechanisms or organization, etc. where he points out that "each apparatus has its regimen of light, the way it falls, softens and spreads, distributing the visible and the invisible, generating or eliminating an object which cannot exist without it".


If you want, perhaps a discussion of light as a capturing technology or the camera vision involved here could yield more interesting view points (especially if you get a chance to read Paula Caspão's "Stroboscopic Stutter" in TDR 51:2, 2007, 136-56, in the aforementioned special edition), along with the investigation of empathy relating to what Skoltz_Kolgen claim as a "consensual reality", an irrational nightmare, a visceral painful descent.

we are indeed in eurydikean territories here, and i find Kate's viewpoint most interesting indeed;

>>I think in response to Matt's statement that 'real time tracking is to free the dancers...' may not relate to Kalypso as much as other
softwares or perhaps there is less being fixed in Kalypso. Yes, this material is confined to what happens in the camera lens, but it is not
confined to pre recorded material. Kalypso is almost solely based on the changing of pixels in a live feed scenerio. I've found a big difference
in approaching this as a maker of work. I feel myself moving from a more narrative filmic approach and into what I would describe as expressive. I am concerned less about cinematic conventions which can be triggered
and have moved into a more painterly frame of mind. So maybe we are freeing something, even if it is not the dancer from the camera...>>


Eurydike is silenced, she more or less has no voice of course *(in the myth and the operas), and i tend to see narratives everywhere these days, and enjoy them thoroughly as an exploration of interactive real time composition. May I ask Kate what she means by saying it makes a huge difference for her to know that `'Kalypso is almost solely based on the changing of pixels in a live feed scenerio"?


with regards
Johannes Birringer
London

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 12:01pm

More Room for Comment? Part 5

Glow / Dance Projection / Silent Room

hello all:

a brief follow up to my last post, especially after thankfully receiving more info and review on "Glow" via Matt; in sense i propose to expand on the reflections we started on Glow as a "light show" and as a work within the history of projection aesthetics/cinematic apparatus and motion graphics.

[incidentally, i offered my observations of the work under the impact of the projection apparatus and the movement-images; perhaps it is not possible to separate one's response to the dance or the figure on the floor, and the choreography from that, although it may seem so. but my observations were hardly meant to be evaluative, i have the greatest respect for Chunky Move, Gideon Obarzanek , Kristy Ayre, Sara Black and Frieder Weiss, and it's generally not so easy to offer critical observations to the work of peers, but a good discussion is always welcome, i think.]

i wish to shift perhaps to a different philosophical or critical angle, returning to the question i posed to Hélène about the impact of the motion graphics on her perception and perceptional processes (psychological or neurophysiolgical or somatic aspects here seem pertinent, as the work undoubtedly has a strong affect on audiences, and i also note, reading the reviews and the reference to "pain", that this affect may allow furtther speculation on the semantic and meaning-making levels of such work and of such relationships between the human and machining, between figure and light box. To raise the isssue of empathy, precisely in the context of the interactive Kalypso motion graphics programmed by Frieder Weiss and enacted (would you say 'embodied'? - i think not) by the dancers -- this came to me after spending some time visiting Skoltz_Kolgen's website on their project "Silent Room" - and noting how they describe their work and emphasize "empathy" [incidentally, Chunky Move's promo on their website - see at bottom - angered some choreographers in Europe who had been working with interactive dynamic software interfaces for some years] :

i cite from Skoltz_Kolgen :
>>
Skoltz_Kolgen originally conceived “Silent Room” as an installation because it reveals the artists’ intent to place the audience within the work – to engage us as participants not merely observers. We are asked to interact, to become attached and implicit, and to enter into the Silent Room rather than observe from a safe, detached distance. We are asked to pass through the doors of perception and over the threshold of the unconscious onto another world that is extemporaneously intertwined with materiality. These journeys through interior landscapes, where borders between the ephemeral and actual are blurred, carry us across the river of consensual reality and into the underworld where Psyche’s monsters slumber and Ego’s fallen angels take flight. There is no exquisite corps to dissect with disembodied intellect because the heart and soul demand visceral understanding that can be gained only through experience. Without empathy, there can be no art, and without empathy there can be only illustrated theory, a cold accrual of ideas that deny the irrationality of the senses and the subjectivity of emotions and, ultimately, life itself. We enter the Silent Room through empathy, through the visceral corporeality of emotions, through the portal of our own body.
[http://www.skoltzkolgen.com/]
>>
Now, you may have also visited the link to the video, and seen the video, and you will have seen Glow perhaps.

(tbc)

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 10:32am

Reply arriving from Hélène:

Media Arts and Dance on behalf of Helene Lesterlin Sent: Wed 2/27/2008 11:39 PM
To: MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

Subject: Re: Silent Room / Projection


Sure, I'll try. I saw Silent Room last May so It was a while ago but...

I saw it in a very large hangar-like space as part of the Elektra
Festival in Montreal. It was packed - I was amazed that so many
people were coming to a screening like this (experimental video).
The five screens were set up side by side, spanning a wide space,
higher than eye level so we all sat and looked up. From what I
gathered, software reorganized the clips and stills. The content: 16
rooms, where different situations and people are filmed and
photographed, stage-like, poetic, subtle colors, and totally luscious
images. The situations the people were is were odd, off kilter,
emotional, sad - eg an old couple sitting in a white room, on an old
bed, with a thin piece of muslin connecting their heads, looped, as
they faced away from each other, sitting on opposite sides of the
bed. Some scenes were solos. It seems like natural movement, but
somehow very stylized too. And the mixture of still images with
video, and all different qualities of image, worked very well to get
your eye to jump and stay engaged the whole time - it never leveled
out for me. Stayed surprising and compelling. I was only
disappointed with the sound, which seemed to be more of the post-
techno-electronica family, it didn't seem to fit, made it feel like
they were going for something hip when what they had was something
startlingly original. I would not say it was the Dumb Type aesthetic
- at least not this piece - it did not have the slick, ironic, cute
(as in kawaii) quality that I associate with Dumb Type.

So anyway, it was not an installation view - it was a multiple screen
projection against one wall with a large seated audience. I wonder
what the other iterations feel like, when it is more intimate.

I am sorry to say I have been very busy of late and haven't followed
the thread on GLOW. Maybe I'll look back on it now - I am bringing
GLOW to EMPAC next spring, with presentations and an installation by
Frieder.

Hello to all!

Helene

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 10:28am

Now it's getting entangled, as Hélène responded to my initial question/reply, and i had also posted some of these thoughts on the "dance-screen" maillist (MEDIA-ARTS-AND-DANCE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK) administered by Simon Fildes, the list where Hélène's first note on "Silent Room" appeared on 2/25/2008 . On the "dance - screen" mailist, no debate or response ha been forthcoming.
Responses did arrive on the dance tech maillist, Kate first, then Matt, and Marlon, and now it appears i am asked to post back and forth between maillist and website. This is a bit cumbersome, and i may not have the time. I prefer to hve extended discussions on the maillist. To join our maillist, please go to
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/dance-tech

Johannes

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 10:18am

Marlon writes to the dance-tech maillist:

Hello people,
 this Marlon.
 this is great that this  interview is generating  and interesting discussion.
Just one thing.
Please post the threads also in the comments on the video.
http://www.dance-tech.net/video/video/show?id=1462368:Video:10472
Johannes and Kate have done it.
Can you do that matt?
It is just to present a direct response to the material.
be well,
 Marlon

Comment by Johannes Birringer on February 28, 2008 at 10:16am

(more room for comment 4 / as posted on dance-tech maillist)

Silent Room / Projection


thanks, Hélène, for drawing attention to
Skoltz Kolgen and "Silent Room"  

see also:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/silent-room-perfo-01/3391963347

for a view of this work,
strangely shot as if in a room full of people, can;t make it out whether those are real or not.

The display/projection apparatus however is captivating, immediately one thinks of the Dumb Type aesthetic , and  also the Japanese artists' frame speed /noise and heavy metal approach.

i wonder if you could  tell us  more about the content, or your perceptional experience being inside the room/installation,  and what you (given the apparatus, the constant splitting into 5 parallel or simultaneously moving twitching screen images, and its "up" - projection) make of the choice for 5-channel projection and how this affects our viewing of the elements you mentioned. -- as it seems you were affected by the content of the images you thought you saw?  what could you see? how did you create a narrative or a sense of the work for yourself?  I think your feedback might interest others who are joining the discussion on GLOW and floor projection/down projection, and the relations of choreohraphy to interactive graphics and what Marlon called "digital expressionism"


Johannes Birringer

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
 Subject:        Skoltz_Kolgen

I saw the video work of skoltz_kolgen in Montreal and thought their
work also had a very strong element of choreography, movement,
humanness, tenderness, staging, theatricality... I saw the five
channel video work entitled "Silent Room".  Beautiful!

If you get a chance to see their work, do it.

http://www.skoltzkolgen.com/

There is some video on the site.

Hélène Lesterlin
Curator, EMPAC
empac.rpi.edu

***************************************************************************

 From:    Kate Sicchio   Sent:   Tue 2/26/2008 5:24 PM
 To:     dance-tech@freelists.org

 Subject:        [dance-tech] Re: Glow / dance projection


I have not seen Glow 'in real time', or even the entire piece via
documentation, but I know a little about it through working with Frieder
Weiss and my own work with his Kalypso software.

I do have some question for those who have seen it... Johannes described
feeling uninvolved choreographically. Are you loosing the dancer in the
performance because of the consistantly changing responsive projection?
I wonder what would happen if there was one constant responsive
environment for the entire piece? What would the differences be as viewers?

The floor projections to me represent an exploration of how we are
trying to remove the divide we have commonly come to know in dance
performance that utilizes video projection - and that is the space
between the dancer(s) and the screen. As Johannes points out, we are
looking to explore a fusion here and we should question whether or not
we have bridged that gap any.

Also I find the birds eye view becoming more a part of my world (or
maybe I am just more aware?). Just this morning I was looking up on
google maps a satelite image of the journey I was about to undertake...

I think in response to Matt's statement that 'real time tracking is to
free the dancers...' may not relate to Kalypso as much as other
softwares or perhaps there is less being fixed in Kalypso. Yes, this
material is confined to what happens in the camera lens, but it is not
confined to pre recorded material. Kalypso is almost solely based on the
changing of pixels in a live feed scenerio. I've found a big difference
in approaching this as a maker of work. I feel myself moving from a more
narrative filmic approach and into what I would describe as expressive.
I am concerned less about cinematic conventions which can be triggered
and have moved into a more painterly frame of mind.  So maybe we are
freeing something, ev

Comment by mpgough on February 27, 2008 at 7:05pm

excerpts and links to reviews on glow:

jennifer dunning
new york times
http://tinyurl.com/ytz698

There are moments when Ms. Ayre just moves, without inciting light patterns, as when she seems to be softly jerking away from a cloud of gnats. She cries out occasionally, most unnervingly in a guttural, choking voice. Her pauses suggest a physical and spiritual exhaustion.


[glow] does not reveal any larger theme. The creature played by Ms. Ayre, who alternates in the role with Sara Black, does not seem to be affected by her half-hour in this eerie though frequently handsome world. In that sense “Glow” is a light show, though a provocative one.


international herald tibune
http://tinyurl.com/2psyvg

There's a mood throughout the work that gives the sense that humans are not involved. The projections are void of any humanlike qualities except for screeches from Black as she struggles through crippling movements and vague attempts to sound out words while moving from one side of the stage to the other.

But a magical moment reminds us of humanity when Black makes snow angels on the surprisingly flat surface. The light leaves dark traces of where her arms and legs scrape the surface.


david barbour
light and sound america
http://tinyurl.com/2qbfzv

In Glow, a dancer contorts herself into any number of bizarre positions on top of a video screen placed on the floor. She interacts with a motion-tracking device that triggers the video projector above. The result is a series of stunning juxtapositions of the human body with starkly abstract, black-and-white images.

At times, the dancer's body is outlined in a white border, as you might see at a crime scene. Later, she is seen against a series of abstract line patterns. And then there are the unsettling black forms, whose appearance combines with Luke Smiles' sound cues to disturbing effect.

chris boyd
the morning after
http://tinyurl.com/33lj4l

A few times, I was reminded of early works by Alwin Nikolais. Nikolais would have smiled his famous smile to see the imaginary elastics that Limosani pushed at and stretched like something out of Tensile Involvement (1953) or the imaginary shroud, as in Water Studies (1964).

Described like this, the lighting sounds like a series of stunning, but inessential effects. Incidental effects. But, no. Like all of Obarzanek’s recent theatre works, Glow continually aims higher than it has to. While I am uncertain what the dramatic agenda of Glow is -- it might be about depression, grief or some other kind of anguish -- I have no doubt that there are great conceptual depths here. Likewise, I feel sure that the choreography would stand up to the scrutiny of plain white light.

«glow» page
chunky move website
http://tinyurl.com/339k6u

In Glow, light and moving graphics are not pre-rendered video playback but rather images constantly generated by various algorithms responding to movement. In most conventional works employing projection lighting, the dancer’s position and timing have to be completely fixed to the space and timeline of the video playback. [...] In Glow, the machine sees the performer and responds to their actions, unlocking them from a relationship of restriction and tedium.

Comment by mpgough on February 27, 2008 at 6:57pm

hi, these are some quotes from gideon (in the videos) ... just for information. they are not in the order they were spoken.

«i was wondering whether it 's possible for the video projector to understand where the dancer is. [...] i [had] in the past been using pre rendered video [...] i met frieder in monaco and we began talking and i began to understand a little bit about his software tracking systems. and [i] realized that it was possible to actually achieve what i wanted to do without pre rendered video, and to free the dancer, both in time and space.»

«[glow began] not really as a complete work, it was a series of sophisticated exercises with these relationships, algorithmic relationships and movement.»

«its partly chance and partly compositional that it became a work, but initially it was never intended to be a work, it was more of a research thing for me to work with freider [weiß].»

«[glow] tends to capture the imagination of people / audiences who are not really aware of multi media work, even audiences who would not necessarily even goto dance.»

«we use [the projections] as a visual metaphor of what may be going on inside, both visually and kinetically. it can reinforce and amplify kintetic movement and also have this visualization of what may be within. its almost turning the body inside out.»

«i chose elements that i felt were meaningful, that i could create some element of expression [with,] beyond just the visual effect»

«the dancer is mostly lying down so she kinda floats in the frame rather than having a bottom and a top […]»

«[i wanted] to free the body in the frame, it was an easy thing to lay the frame on the floor so that the body is free to move around.»

«[i] wanted to work with video projection mostly as a form of lighting and actually using it from the top looking down»

i gave some context to this text here: http://quodlibet.tumblr.com/post/26339824 and also on the dance tech list.

Comment by Las.Post on February 27, 2008 at 10:46am

(I think as a member of this social network, we have to do a collaborative paper with this intersting discution)
Me parece muy interesante la discusión, respecto de la idea de expresionismo digital, tiendo a pensar que la idea de expresionismo también tendría una base interesante para discutir, no sólo lo digital desde lo cual podemos rodear un campo de ideas más complejo, sino también desde la idea de expresión y sobretodo desde la tradición misma de la danza, que ya es problemático en si mismo. Creo que de ser expresionismo, tendría que verse a razón de un neo expresionismo, y por expresionismo entiendo trabajos cercanos a lo que hizo Mary Wigman, y por neo expresionismo podriamos identificar a Dore Hoyer o inclusive a la Pina Bausch de Café Muller, entonces desde esta perspeciva creo que ya el concepto mismo de expresionismo tiene que ser analizado, creo que Johannes da algunas claves, pero no aún en una nueva perspectiva del concepto, sino en armar la estructura que lo comprendería para la obra que se esta discutiendo, "Glow".
eso por ahora
saludos

Comment by Sicchio on February 26, 2008 at 2:39pm

Hi.

This is as posted to the dance-tech list..

I have not seen Glow 'in real time', or even the entire piece via
documentation, but I know a little about it through working with Frieder
Weiss and my own work with his Kalypso software.

I do have some question for those who have seen it... Johannes described
feeling uninvolved choreographically. Are you loosing the dancer in the
performance because of the consistantly changing responsive projection?
I wonder what would happen if there was one constant responsive
environment for the entire piece? What would the differences be as viewers?

The floor projections to me represent an exploration of how we are
trying to remove the divide we have commonly come to know in dance
performance that utilizes video projection - and that is the space
between the dancer(s) and the screen. As Johannes points out, we are
looking to explore a fusion here and we should question whether or not
we have bridged that gap any.

Also I find the birds eye view becoming more a part of my world (or
maybe I am just more aware?). Just this morning I was looking up on
google maps a satelite image of the journey I was about to undertake...

I think in response to Matt's statement that 'real time tracking is to
free the dancers...' may not relate to Kalypso as much as other
softwares or perhaps there is less being fixed in Kalypso. Yes, this
material is confined to what happens in the camera lens, but it is not
confined to pre recorded material. Kalypso is almost solely based on the
changing of pixels in a live feed scenerio. I've found a big difference
in approaching this as a maker of work. I feel myself moving from a more
narrative filmic approach and into what I would describe as expressive.
I am concerned less about cinematic conventions which can be triggered
and have moved into a more painterly frame of mind. So maybe we are
freeing something, even if it is not the dancer from the camera...

Kind Regards
Kate

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