Dancing Inspace

Last week You Be the Voyeur finally came to Edinburgh with a performance in the International Film Festival. Working with dancer Jen Farmer, the piece was shown at Inspace as part of an Upgrade! event which looked at work that explored fashion and technology.

Previous performances have taken place in small constricted spaces (from transit vans to cubby holes!) where light from small torches held by the audience generated sound from the performers clothing. At Inspace the situation was rather different, with pristine white walls and a reflective white floor the space is a veritable temple to digital art, but its size made the intimacy of previous performances difficult to replicate.

One option was just to use the opportunity to demonstrate the work in a straight forward talk, but I’ve always felt that talking about a performance can never be compared to actually experiencing it. It’s all very well telling people how to embed a synthesizer in a hidden inseam pocket but that doesn’t tell you what the sweat of the dancer smells like when she brushes past you whilst torch light flickers in your eyes. So instead I tried to use the restrictions of the space to create an experience which demonstrated the possibilities of the work whilst staying true to the concept.

Whilst a large space allows for a bigger audience it quickly became apparent that torch beams would get lost in the gloom and anyone who was not standing right at the front would lose the immediacy of cause and effect when their torch hits the dress. Instead we created pools of white light projected onto the floor, into which the marvelous Jen moved. This allowed the audience to still see how light effected sound and therefore motion and create a different but still intriguing lighting scenario.

I’ve posted some photos of the rehearsal with Jen testing the light to see what shapes and movements work best and you can also see me lurking the background. There should be some video and pictures of the final performance soon! In the meantime a big thank you to everyone involved in the event, particularly Mark Daniels from New Media Scotland, and Kirsten Geekie from Edinburgh International Film Festival. It’s so fantastic to have people like Mark and Kirsten who have the courage to bring new work to audiences.

Up and Coming

Right now I am getting ready to bring a performance You be the Voyeur to Edinburgh this Summer.  It’s scheduled to take place at Inspace as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on the 23 June.  Today I am looking at how the piece needs to be modified to fit a different space and audience.  In the meantime here  is a video of our last performance which I finally found the time to edit. More information coming soon…!

Adventures in a land of Digital Natives

Last week dancer Anna Gander and I made the journey up to Dundee for the second performance of You be the Voyeur at Digital Natives. For this I created a new version of the piece which came much closer to creating the electronic peep-show I had originally envisaged.

This time we showed it in a small enclosed space (at the Hannah Maclure Centre) into which the audience could wander in and out. Again we worked with the room testing its limitations with the dancer’s movements bouncing off the walls, ceiling and floor.

You be the Voyeur is a self generating piece of work which lives or dies by audience interaction.  The sound cannot be generated without more than one audience member present to shine a light on the dancer. This work is truly interactive: you literally create and are part of what is played out.

Luckily the audience at Digital Natives was a combination of adventurous and highly engaged individuals.  The atmosphere was electric and as Anna moved, and the jagged sounds reverberated in the space, it felt as though every surface was being coated with 0s and 1s.  The air was sticky with binary interplay.

The resulting performance was both intense and enjoyable. My favourite moment was when I overheard someone say to their friends “this feels really wrong” before getting really involved in interacting with the dancer.

Another bonus was that several members of the audience were very tech-literate. Lots of people came to speak to me afterwards and I had some really interesting conversations about the project, how it worked and where it could go next.

I took lots of video which I will be posting in the next few days but here are some pictures to give you an idea.  Finally a big thank you to Anna Gander, who was amazing throughout the whole process and whose movement was inspired, and to Clare Brennan who expertly organized the whole event.

You be the voyeur

This month saw the first staging of ‘You be the voyeur’, an interactive performance piece which combines dance with wearable technology. It was premiered at NEoN Festival in Dundee.

The performance takes place in a small dark space – in this case the back of a Ford Transit van. Each person is given a torch to find their own way in the darkness. When their beams of light discover a figure in the shadows the interaction of light on her dress creates synthesised sound. What follows is an improvised piece where movement, audience interaction and generative sound work together to create a one off performance. We were only able to video one of the rehearsals but this gives some idea of the experience.

Now I am looking at ways to developing this project further with future performances in the new year. The dress is a functioning prototype which was made for less than £40. I’ll add some pictures and information on how exactly it came together in a later post. Now that I know the concept works I plan to modify the dress to give a cleaner aesthetic.

‘You be the voyeur’ wouldn’t have come together without lots of help: Clare Monte the dancer was amazing at working with my ideas and new technology to create some fantastic results; Yann Seznec created the synths and gave me some invaluable technical guidance; Noiseclub for filming the work and moral support on the night; and finally thank you to Donna Holford-Lovell and Clare Brennan at NEoN who were very supportive and gave me the space to show the piece.

What I am working on…

For the last few weeks I have been working on a new project called ‘You be the Voyeur’.  The idea is simple (in theory)  to create a dress which responds to light and generates sound to be used in an improvised dance performance.  Here is a picture of the dress before any of the sensors, speakers, amps etc. have been sewn in. Its come along way since this picture was taken - I’ll post up more details when I have a chance to take some more pictures.

The first performance will be in Dundee on Saturday 13th November 2010 as part of NEoN Digital Arts Festival if your in the neighbourhood come along and say hello!

Mixed Grille – Photos and Thank yous

A big thanks to everyone who came along on to Mixed Grille at Whitespace on Friday night.   We all had a great time and really enjoyed the oportunity to show off our work to such an enthusiastic audience.  For me the best part was meeting everyone who came along  and spending lots of time discussing art, sound and performance with you all.  And the good news is that I’m already beginning to work on the next installment.

There were lots of photographs taken on the night and here are the first few pictures to wet your appetite:

A brave audience enjoying some Exercise Magic!! by Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo.

Mike from Noise Club making sweet sounds out of a cup of tea.

More pictures and video’s to follow!

Mixed Grille

Myself and a group of spirited individuals will be doing some experimental sound performances on this Friday, 4th June, at Whitespace in Dundee.  It’s a chance for all those who missed previous performances of Exercise Magic!! and the new and improved Lumierophone to check them out, as well as enjoying work by Sean Williams and Noise Club.

  

 

Mixed Grille – 4th June 7pm White Space, University of Abertay Join us for a steaming hot greasy plate of experimental sound cooked up just for you. Packed full of calories and oozing with cholesterol this event is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure. Feast on performances and installations by Yann Seznec, Kristina Johansen, and Sean Williams followed by a generous helping of Noise Club. This is a meal not to be missed. 

What’s on the menu? 

Lumièrophone - Named after pioneers of cinema Auguste and Louis Lumière, the Lumièrophone is a screen which uses light to instantly create a generative soundtrack, functioning as a robotic foley system and exploring the relationship between motion, sound, and light. 

Exercise Magic!! - A performance based on “Real Results With Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard”, an aerobics video from the mid nineties. Yann Seznec will wear a custom-made outfit and exercise along with Beverley and friends…but who is controlling whom? Yann’s movements will disintegrate, remix, and re-invent the video in real-time, all whilst he’s getting fit and enjoying it too! 

The (Sound Of Music)’ – Sean Williams will present this subtle sonic picture of the unique listening history embodied in a vinyl recording of the famous musical soundtrack. 

Noise Club at Work - Noise Club will work to produce sound at their work stations. Throughout the performance we may have meetings or tea breaks. We will dress appropriately for the office environment. We will improvise using home-made regalia and other instrumentation. 

Excercise Magic!!

Following on from my previous posts last week here is a video of the first performance of Exercise Magic!! at the CCA in Glasgow on Thursday night.  As you can see the specially made costume looks great and works well.  

Exercise Magic!! is a performance by Yann Seznec based on “Real Results With Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard”, an aerobics video from the mid nineties. Yann wore a custom made outfit designed both to enable the performer to manipulate the video using wii-motes as sensors (attached with custom wii arm-straps) as well as creating the sense of character needed for the performance (with shop brought sportswear).  I was really pleased with how the costume looked and integrated into the overall performance.  Hopefully there will a chance to show it again so more people can see it.

Desperately Seeking Sportswear

The costume for Exercise Magic!! didn’t just require custom made wii straps it also needed some good old fashioned aerobics gear.  Here is a still from “Real Results with Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard” which shows you the inspiration behind the look.

The video is from the mid 90s and my first thought was to try second hand and vintage clothing shops to find something to recreate the look.  Unfortunately it was only after an epic two days of searching  that it occured to me that lycra degrades fairly quickly (especially if its been worn frequently to the gym) which is why you don’t see any second hand.  So it was back to the shops to see if I could find anything new with a retro feel.  In the end I choose Nike Dri-fit stretch shorts in black with a blue stripe detail combined with a white vest top from Marks & Spenser (kindly lent by Michael (apparently only cost 10p in a sale 5 years ago)).

You can see the finished outfit at Cryptic Nights: SuckerBallz! at the CCA in Glasgow tonight at 8pm. Or check back here later to see photos and video of the finished piece.

Constructing Magic

Here’s a sneak preview of something I have been working on for the last few weeks. 

This is a picture of one of the ‘arm straps’ which will hold wii-motes as part of a costume for a performance called Exercise Magic!! by Yann Seznec.  The wii-motes will be used as an efficient and cheap way of harvesting data from the performer so that they can control sound and visuals with their movements.

Exercise Magic!! is a performance based on “Real Results With Coronation Street’s Beverley Callard”, an aerobics video from the mid nineties. Yann will wear the custom made outfit and exercise along with Beverley and friends…but who is controlling whom? Yann’s movements will disintegrate, remix, and re-invent the video in real time, all whilst he’s getting fit and enjoying it too!

You can see the finished work (and outfit of course!) at Cryptic Nights: SuckerBallz! at the CCA in Glasgow on 5 March at 8pm. I’ll be adding more pictures and information as the outfit takes shape and hopefully some photos and video of the finished piece.