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Concourse clock, rush hour - Wellington Railway Station. Cam Fiona Baker
Duet in the Concourse. Cam Fiona Baker
Leaving 1. Cam Fiona Baker
The witness ... Cam Fiona Baker
Followers
'IN THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS'
Abstract Title:
In the Company of Strangers - Negotiating the parameters of Indeterminacy; a study of the Roaming Body and Departure in Urban Spaces
Abstract:
This performance-based project scrutinizes Indeterminacy as a mediating force impinging upon our behaviour and its subsequent impact on the nature and constituency of engagements and dialogue between people in selected urban spaces. Concepts centring on the dynamics of temporality and embodiment in departure are being investigated in both First Life and the Multi User Virtual Environment, Second Life as two locations on the same world surface of the Real.
My research-practice posits the formation of a new Urban Myth: Experienced through the vehicle of the Roaming Body, our meetings and encounters with people frequently manifest as disjunct mis-communiqués and dis-engagements. I am asserting that this is due to the inevitability in our existence of indeterminacy acting as a significant governing factor in the articulation of our relations with others, reinforcing our description as time-based entities traversing the passage of the everyday. I maintain that this is evidenced in us through the occurrence of a continual, pre-emptive state of departure. Indeterminacy implies motion and emerges, as Massumi asserts, through ‘… an unfolding relation to its own nonpresent potential to vary …’. We, as humans, are constantly being drawn away – always either approaching or embracing involuntarily, a state of ‘Leaving’ which co-mingles with and unerringly erodes our efforts to stay engaged with another in the here and now.
In my research/practice, which underpins the concepts in
this masterate, interventionist inscriptions are being used to prompt and interrogate the constituents of encounters and departures in designated public places. Experiential movement frameworks employed are informed by the discipline of Contact Improvisation Dance and Authentic Movement. The working process is being documented using a range of video narrative.
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press, Durham & London, (p.5).
Def: 'The Roaming Body' - the body as entity which can never be fully committed to a set position or location in space and time (Mike Baker Feb 09)
Title image: Dancers - Mike Baker and Sylvie Haisman, Camera - Fiona Baker
In the Company of Strangers - Negotiating the parameters of Indeterminacy; a study of the Roaming Body and Departure in Urban Spaces
Abstract:
This performance-based project scrutinizes Indeterminacy as a mediating force impinging upon our behaviour and its subsequent impact on the nature and constituency of engagements and dialogue between people in selected urban spaces. Concepts centring on the dynamics of temporality and embodiment in departure are being investigated in both First Life and the Multi User Virtual Environment, Second Life as two locations on the same world surface of the Real.
My research-practice posits the formation of a new Urban Myth: Experienced through the vehicle of the Roaming Body, our meetings and encounters with people frequently manifest as disjunct mis-communiqués and dis-engagements. I am asserting that this is due to the inevitability in our existence of indeterminacy acting as a significant governing factor in the articulation of our relations with others, reinforcing our description as time-based entities traversing the passage of the everyday. I maintain that this is evidenced in us through the occurrence of a continual, pre-emptive state of departure. Indeterminacy implies motion and emerges, as Massumi asserts, through ‘… an unfolding relation to its own nonpresent potential to vary …’. We, as humans, are constantly being drawn away – always either approaching or embracing involuntarily, a state of ‘Leaving’ which co-mingles with and unerringly erodes our efforts to stay engaged with another in the here and now.
In my research/practice, which underpins the concepts in
this masterate, interventionist inscriptions are being used to prompt and interrogate the constituents of encounters and departures in designated public places. Experiential movement frameworks employed are informed by the discipline of Contact Improvisation Dance and Authentic Movement. The working process is being documented using a range of video narrative.
Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Duke University Press, Durham & London, (p.5).
Def: 'The Roaming Body' - the body as entity which can never be fully committed to a set position or location in space and time (Mike Baker Feb 09)
Title image: Dancers - Mike Baker and Sylvie Haisman, Camera - Fiona Baker
‘What is the appropriate behaviour for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What`s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?’
Buddha.
Human Givens. vol 14, (3) Human Givens Publishing Ltd, East Sussex, England, UK
Buddha.
Human Givens. vol 14, (3) Human Givens Publishing Ltd, East Sussex, England, UK
Blog Archive: New discussion topics related to the above abstract:
About Me
- Wild Swimming Heart
- Nelson, South Island, New Zealand
- Please check my blog and profile ... you will also find images of my work on flickr.com, under: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nomads_hat/ and my videos under RolloKohime at YouTube
Links List / Please find more images at the bottom of this post
- -empyre- soft-skinned space
- alansondheim.org
- AlienNation Co
- dance-tech.net
- danssansjoux.org
- Dr Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the late Twentieth Century, in Simian, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991
- Dr Donna Haraway, When Species Meet, University of Minnesota Press, 2008
- Henri Bergson, Mark Hansen, (bodies in code), microflicks, dad.project, leftluggage, davidandjacob, slightly.net, hyperchoreography, throwdisposeablechoreography, Contact Quarterly, Text and Performance Quarterly, Liminalities, skellis.net, Body Space Image, Jumpcut, Brian Massumi, Marc Augé, T`ai Chi Ch`uan, Body Space and Technology Journal, Slightlymoving, Proximity, Saatchi-gallery.co.uk, Len Lye, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer
- Michel Serres, The Parasite, University of Minnesota Press, 2007
- Scott Draves.com
- Second Life.com
- subtletechnologies - Alan Sondheim
- touchcompass.org.nz
- Turbulence.org
- YouTube (people and blogs - strangers), Discourse off the Walls - Authored Indeterminacies, Peter Lorre,
In the Company of Strangers
Concourse clock, rush hour - Wellington Railway Station. Cam Fiona Baker
ICS. Red Station Dance
ICS. Todd Cochrane and Grant Corbishley streaming our dance from the station onto the Net
Duet in the Concourse. Cam Fiona Baker
In the Company of Strangers
Leaving 1. Cam Fiona Baker
A Murder of Crows - Crowd Composition in the SL Station
In the Company of Strangers
The witness ... Cam Fiona Baker
6 comments:
I selected this image for its coverage of in-life dance movement, the sense of scale differences between the avatars(characters) and the props with which I am working and to highlight the contrast between Real and Second Life when working with simulacra in an imperfect interface: In world, I have ambient sounds playing, of train hiss, people talking and the echoing sounds of walking, muted traffic noise. These are provided by almost invisible sound balls placed on the floor. I work through proximity so that the sounds change when you leave one area and move on to the next. Obviously, none of this is audible on my blog - at this stage. I will endeavour to provide a sample that can be activated here.
for me this glimpse of 2nd life makes the strangers strange-er even than they were... & adds more echo to the space of the hall
Thanks for the post Sylvie. I agree with your comments and my intention here is to try to create a shifting montage of feeling and half-noticed movement. I have a way to go yet but it is a start. It is definitely a process of evolving possibilities. With fragments of sound now added to the space, the acoustical signature is subtly establishing itself.
The presence of avatars dancing in the space is difficult to capture in stills - indeed, harder I believe than in Real Life due to the very linear visual properties of the avatars. It is more difficult for the eye to accomodate because the movement blurs, when they occur, are still quite tightly defined. The character still looks cartoon-like.
I have been researching for some time now in SL and still it seems that a semblance of Contact Dance qualities in the movement modes is as yet, too demanding to manage and of course, any movement needs to be scripted and then looped so improvisation is still out there, waiting to happen. I contracted an SL design/animator to make me a rolling animation and this was too difficult 6 months ago. However, with 14 million plus people in SL now, the possibilities are endless and these issues may be able to be addressed at any time. Meanwhile I plan to go ahead with the 'Experimental dance' animation that Fiona and I are using, which is closer to a contemporary framework than most other dance animations which tend toward waltz, erotic, jazz, etc ... middle ground movement. I am switching to a faster server next week and this should make my control of movement and camera in SL much better, so I may be able to develop compensatory camera work for the lack in the actual movement of the avatars.
This still of the work you're doing with second life fascinates me. The contrast between the 'so called' 'real' imagery in 'mirror image' like reflections on the walls, in contrast to the surreal quality of the avatars in second life intrigued me. Between this and the changes in scale of the 'photographic style' reflected imagery compared with the scale of the virtual characters, in this 'non space' or shall I say the virtual 'non space' creates a whole different way of thinking around the 'non space' subject. Although it's a work in progress I love what you are doing so far.
Hi leelee, (that sounds like a Second Life name...) Thanks for your response! Yes, I am continually endeavouring to offset, juxtapose, mirror and reflect the presence of the real and so-called virtual. When I bring in my Real Life videos I am hoping that the subtle alignments and tensions which currently exist in quite a passive way will be stimulated further. We shall see - I welcome your comments after this has been recorded. My aim is to film in Second Life, the in-life projection of my Real Life footage and then to bring that back into Real Life, so I can post that on this blog. That way people do not need to be in-life (although it is better to be) to attain a certain sense of the dynamic I am attempting to achieve. I will be moving the various components and elements of my station compositions around continually so look out for more posts with this in mind. This work is very much an ongoing enquiry - there may never be a fixed resolution compositionally. In the same way, if Real Life is a simulacrum of Second Life (rather than the expected reversal) then my work in the real station will surely echo this non-static, ' ... non-present potential to vary ...' Massumi B. 2002. Parables for the Virtual - Movement, Affect, Sensation, Duke University Press, Durham and London
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