Global
Artistic Collaboration: Connecting City Rhythms
Framing
My
research project investigates the complexities of mapping the rhythms of
communities within cities, as interpreted and represented through art
contributed by global collaborating artists, in / on my body, while navigating
a complex electronic environment.
A
similar practitioner working with complexities and technology is installation
artist, Wesley Goatley and his partner Jolina Voss. They built, Ground Resistance, in 2016 for the
Milton Keynes International Festival. “This installation is part soundscape,
part data map, and part flightpath, pulling together much of the technology
created and still used in the area today” (Motherboard,
2016).
However, while he is mapping the data of a city, the participating artists in
my project will be mapping the movement of people in their communities,
essentially finding the city’s rhythm. His installation could easily be a
response to the task that I am sharing in the Facebook Group for collaboration.
Another similar practitioner is artist, Stanza, also from the United
Kingdom. He has a project called, Soundcities,
that started in 1995 (Stanza, 2000). It has evolved into a website that
maps the sounds of cities. Anyone can upload sounds from their city making it a
collaborative and interactive project.
Similar to Goatley and Stanza, I am looking at mapping information.
However, I am mapping the information in specific parts of my body, depending
on what country the artists are from. While Goatley is mapping digital data of
a city and Stanza is mapping the sounds of the cities, I mapped artists’
interpretations to an artistic research task which asks them to observe the
movement of the people in a community and to create a score from the people’s
movement in that space.
What
This summer semester, I
had three movement explorations and two artistic research tasks set for the
artists in the Global Artistic Collaboration
Facebook group, previously the Controlling
Chaos group.
The first artistic
research task for the Global Artistic
Collaboration Facebook group related to chaotic movement. The Chaotic Movement unit had five steps:
As you can see, I carefully reconstructed activities for my participants
to experience a fast tracked version of what I had gone through to find my own
chaotic movement. They were given things to watch and play, before they were
given the research task.
Their second task was more open to interpretation. Unit Two, named City Rhythms, has participants choosing
a community that they are in right now that is important to them. Next, they
had to create a score from the movement of the people in that community. My
original idea for this came from the community of surfers at Jacksonville Beach
that I have been observing over the summer. As I sat in the water, watching the
movement of the surfers, I was reminded of Ana’s Body Politics and her unit on
social choreography.
I had three movement explorations of my own. In the first, I watched the
videos from my participants and allowed their movement to imprint on my own.
For the second one, I mapped out the world on my body, made a recording of
continents / countries and attempted to isolate just those parts as the speed
of the recording got faster. I also tried using a friend as an external speed
control for my own movements: when Chris was standing I had to go super-fast
and when he was sitting I had to go super slow. My third movement exploration
had me finding the rhythm from my participants city rhythm tasks and placing
the rhythm in the country of origin in my body.
How
From the Global Artistic Research
Facebook group’s Unit One: Chaotic
Movement, It was interesting to notice the similarities between each of the
dancer’s videos. Although similarities were not shared across the board, there
was the emphasis on fingers, as well as the use of small spaces. The focus on
fingers could have been from my suggestion of drawing the pathway of the
pinball with your finger. I also start my own pinball movement with my finger
and let it work its way in. Whether that was my influence or a commonality and
easy entry point for most people, I can only conjecture.
My correlating movement task was to take information from their movement
and imprint it on my own. I took the idea of small spaces, like the pinball
being put back in its box, and rebounded around the staircase.
My second movement exploration started moving me towards becoming more
specific with my tasks. Elements of my idea were becoming clearer to me as they
evolved. I now looked at my body and mapped out the areas of the world. I
started with Canada in my chest and shoulders and moved down to arms and belly
as the United States. I mapped out the front and turned around and used my back
starting with Russia in my head and right shoulder. Bigger countries got their
own space, while smaller ones were places as continents. I created a sound
track with my voice, calling out each of the mapped areas. I started with
thirty seconds between each, then twenty, then ten seconds. This gave me time
to memorize and try isolate each location. For my week end presentation of this
task I moved to five seconds and added Chris as my speed control for my
isolated movements. The idea for speed
control came from one of Juri’s tasks where we went had to move slower than
slow and quicker than quick while getting up and going down with no hands.
From the Global Artistic Research
Facebook group’s Unit Two: City Rhythms, participants
had a looser task that gave them more freedom for interpretation. However, this
time, my own use of their contributions was more specific. I was specifically
taking the rhythm of their movement and placing it in one location in my body.
Alia created a score of the movement of her children in her home, as to
her, this was her community at this moment in time, being away from her home in
Chicago. She drew the movement as well as, moved in the space where the
movement is taken.
Jenny provided a longer sample of work which explored multiple
communities, as she has moved many times in her life. As she is creating this
on a visit back to her parent’s home in Jakarta, I can see that she is reliving
some memories and creating a narrative to express the differences between
living in Jakarta and living in the United States.
Krystina used her place of work as
her community. She used the equipment at the gym to create movement and the
sounds from the equipment and her movement produced an easy rhythm to
interpret.
My third movement exploration was to
take the rhythms from these videos and place them in one specific area in my
body. I played each video and moved that one area of my body as I saw their
movement. I found a simple pattern of their rhythm from part of their video and
repeated the movement until it was easy to do without thinking.
Why
What worked, what did not? What did I learn and why were these research
activities useful? From the Global
Artistic Research Facebook group’s Unit One: Chaotic Movement,
I like how the Facebook Group allows for interaction and I want to try to make
more useful comments. I do point out the similarities and connections to other
dancers. I do thank them for their participation. I would like to remember to
slow down, (as one tends to rush through Social Media) and remind myself that I
am trying to use this platform to guide choreographic content. I must look
critically at what they have done and give a suggestion if what I am seeing is
off task. This reminds me of Juri’s tasks in the summer, he was constantly
reminding us to be rigid with the task. Do not break the rules of the game,
even when it hurts, that is when you are going to get what you have been
working for. Why give up right before you get it? Or, at least this is how I
interpreted Juri’s tasks.
From
the commonality of the fingers, I also learned, that by giving too much
information about how to do the tasks, I skew their interpretations. I now know
that I need to give clear suggestions for interpretation but not a direct path
to the end goal.
From
my movement exploration one where I took the pinball back to the box, in the
staircase, I was not specific with what I was taking from the dancer’s
movements from the start. I took what something from what I found was similar
from two of the contributions: fingers / small space. I just picked something
that jumped out, instead of having a set specific task from the start. This
exploration taught me to know what I was looking for ahead of time.
I
also learned that I could not move as chaotically as I usually could when
rebounding between the walls and stairs. I also had to be cautious as not to
hurt myself rebounding off hard surfaces, which restricts the freedom and adds
a layer of control to something that you want to be chaotic.
From
movement exploration two, mapping and isolating movements in my body, I found
it was difficult move the back areas. I also found it restricting standing in
one spot and really looked forward to hearing South America, the one continent
on which I could move both feet. Also, when one body part moves there are
reverberations in other body parts. It is impossible to completely isolate one
part of the body as everything is connected. This is a notable point with the
world as well. We have drawn these borders, I have created this areas on my
body, but it is all one world and I am all one body.
During
movement exploration three, where I was finding the rhythm and placing it one
specific part of my body, I noticed that I use my breath when moving and
sometimes breathing noises. I also use my face a lot. I had to control my
breathing and facial expressions so as not to move the muscles in my head. I
tried to keep my face calm and still.
The
audience was to play a role in my piece to show our connection. However, I
found that the audience did not understand the rules and stayed in one spot. As
I changed to the different countries rhythm, they were intended to move to keep
in relation to me. So, when I was the United States, there should have been a
big group right in my space. Then, when I was Indonesia, they would have really
had to travel to move away from me. I was really looking forward to seeing this
movement of the audience and was disappointed it did not work. However, I could
not stop or move my face or talk, because I was in the game of isolating and
mapping rhythms. This is important, because I now know that my rules for the
audience were too complicated. I had thought, that since we all played the game
in Fabio’s class, that the rules would be clear. I now know, that depending on
audience interaction and having complicated rules for their participation, is
not a good idea.
The
audience did move their arms when the live projection came on with the dot
effect. This tells me that people like to interact with their own image with
effects on it. This is an interesting idea to look into further audience
engagement. (Perhaps working with the X Box Kinect?)
The
dot effect on the live video was controlled by sound. If the sound in the room
is loud, the dots get larger. This was meant to show the rhythm of the
community that we had created in the audience. As I have not seen the video
from the performance yet, I am not sure if this worked or not. However, I
predict, that since the audience did not move, the sound of the live
performance might not have changed enough to show a rhythm with the dots.
As I
move forward with my research project, I hope to have more participants
representing different art genres and from many more locations in the world. I
would like to try incorporating movements from more than one participant at a
time, giving me the opportunity to move two locations of my body at the same
time or even make it more like a conversation between the artists and my
movements.
I
would also like to improve the parameters of my task to make it more specific,
but still give many options for interpretation. Global
Artistic Research members must choose part of their city and watch the
people. How do they move? Where are the tensions in their bodies? When do they
relax? What speed do they travel? Where are the moments of stillness and for
how long? What gestures do they use? What and who do they encounter? Which
pathways do they travel and what makes them change direction? How many people
travel together? How many are alone? How long are they in that part of the city
or is it constantly new people? From their watching, they will create a score
from one or more of the above awarenesses. This score must be clear to
interpret when they share their work with the Facebook Group.
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