International Interaktionslabor

1. gesture and politics

2. sounding design and audible scenographies

3. re-visiting futurism

4. konnecting gestures: interface design with Kinect system

Conference-Workshop in Seoul, Korea

Korean Society of Dance, Sungkyunkwan University Seoul

November 1 - 4, 2012

"Choreographic and Performance Systems"

This audio-visual workshop-lecture investigates analog and digital techniques used for the construction of “bodies in code” – or interactors – in contemporary dance and new media performance designed to take place in computational environments. Examining the context of new dance and installation art, the lecture will briefly review the historical development of video art and the dance and technology movement and social networks of the past decades, with a brief focus on current research conducted by some of the more significant companies/choreographers, before addressing new design concepts which play a significant part for the scenographic and choreographic organization - the "systems" or "dispositifs" - of real-time interactive art and performance.

Looking at the distinctive challenges of stage performances and installations deploying interactional design or interface concepts, the lecture will conclude with some references to the dynamic and relational roles of costumes/accessories, technologies and performance techniques in the choreographic installation UKIYO [Moveable Worlds] (2009-2010), as an example of the sound-motion design research conducted at the London-based DAP-Lab. References will include historical reflections on some of the 20th century design influences for this work, also comparing the Russian and Japanese models influencing the composition (Futurism, Musique Concrète, Kabuki theatre, manga, 60s Cold War technology and fashion, and Deconstruction), before sketching the analog technologies fore-grounded in a performance which largely takes place in a system-environment. Describing the main features of UKIYO, the paper highlights integrated methods for creating kinaesonic choreographies for intermedial art, while also interrogating the role of gesture and transsensorial experience in machining architectures where affective transformation depends on evolution in the machinic system such that both performing bodies or interactors and technological systems are altered.

to be published in Dance Research Journal of Korea

Further notes on design and performance concepts are published on this site.