From my experimentation about my level and specificity of control as a live video artist, I started to develop and organise a vocabulary of interaction between physical and imago presence. I use the software Modul8, which is designed for VJing or real-time visual performance, and with it, I can control parameters such as:
- Speed: a range between slow and fast, forward, backwards, loop.
- Scale: a range between small to big and specifically in the X, Y and Z parameters.
- Rotation: in the X, Y and Z axis.
- Colour: add or remove red, green and blue
- Image parameters: Saturation, Lightness, Contrast, Luma Key (remove background), add Noise and Blur.
- Movement: move all over the projection area by hand.
- Auto-move: horizontally, vertically, diagonally. Speed and size adjustable.
- Auto-scale: small to big and in the X, Y and Z parameters
- Auto-colour: add red, green and/or blue
- Auto-rotate: in the X, Y and Z axis. Speed adjustable.
- Transform: matrix (multiply the image), patch (lines or dots), particles (multiplies the image and creates movement with gravity)
- Trace: create a trace when there is movement in the image.
1. Imago and physical presences
As I moved from video-dance to create a stage performance involving live video projection, I started to wonder what new dramaturgical elements emerge in this dialogue. In other words, what happens when the fire and the shadow dance together?
I am going to start to unravel this question by addressing the fields involved. Dance and video have in common that are arts of motion, of movement. Both choreography and cinematography -to refer to the bigger fields- use movement as a way to compose and to express, but they address a different kind of presence. The present body in a live situation is fundamental to dance, as it is as well space and time. On the other hand, Cinema is an art of light that brings images from the past to a present that is mediated. Basically, a film is a sequence of pre-recorded pictures that create the illusion of movement. This means that the images projected are never from the present moment, yet, Cinema has been widely used not only to document the past but also as a way to create fictions, to present something that has its origins in imagination. Therefore, to address to this type of presence I will use the term imago presence. Imago is the Latin word for image and in its definition, there are the words echo, ghost, phantom and appearance(Mahoney, 2002-2019).
Like this, I point the first tension between these two types of presences, in terms of the time they address to. The dancer on stage referring to what I can call a state of presence, and the videos projected referring to what I call an imago presence. Following this conception, there are several artists that use video projection on stage dance as a way to make visible another kind of realm. One remarkable example is the work developed by Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer, New York based choreographers and dancers that have developed what they call Video Partnering since 2001. In an interview about their integration of live performance and video technology, Bridgman said “the video images become metaphors for our thoughts, dreams and alter-egos. There's a certain mythological sense that they take on that has been very exciting for us as we've been exploring that.” (Pena, 2019)
In the stage work WolFlow I created as part of this project, this tension is exposed in the last scene when the three live dancers stand in front on the back white wall looking directly at the audience. A projection of themselves appears on them, and in the video, they start running forward. Every time more women with different ages and looks, join this virtual running. For me, this moment, created by live and imago presence, becomes a potent feminine image. There are other women who have run before us and there are others who have to continue running afterwards to gain more rights and freedom for our gender.
Video (1 min, 44 secs): Example of the tension between the state of presence and the imago presence. Extract from the work WolFloW by Laisvie 2019
Reading what Bridgman and Packer say about their work, I understood something important for my own practice. In their web page, they state that it is fundamental for them to retain the physical immediacy of dance and live performance so they use the video projections as a way “to expand the choreographic intent. The technology offers a broadened artistic palette and allows the possibility of moving beyond the physical boundaries of performance” (Bridgman & Packer, n.a.) In my case, I started with the idea of creating a non-hierarchical relationship between dance and video projection with the intent to overcome the scenographic aspect that projection on dance might have. Nevertheless, in practice, I was giving more time to develop dance materials for the stage. This led me to have few moments in the piece where projection was used. So, thanks to watching Bridgman and Packers’ work I realise that the non-hierarchical relationship was achieved by putting dance in the middle, as a common element and this implies the creation of dance materials both for the stage and for the camera. That is why I asked my peers of the Masters, in a short creative laboratory, to experiment around the idea of creating a mixed presence. The first improvisation exercise we did was about creating a state of presence by looking straight at the audience while entering the space, being there for a moment, observing, then saying 3 things about your inner wolf (improvised) and then going to the all fours position, to do one simple wolf-like action. During the second day, the objective was to repeat that state of presence but involving some mediated elements trough video projection. The relationships that were constructed are the following: juxtaposition, a contrast in action or size and enhancement.
2. What is the field?
While I was developing my artistic practice, I was also looking for literature that could help me to contextualise it. I discovered different relevant fields and terms: Multimedia performance (Klich & Scheer 2012), Digital dance (Dixon, 2007, Gündüz, 2012) and Intermedia theatre (Higgins, 2001). It was difficult to find a clear distinction between them to choose the appropriate one for this project. Therefore, I took the opportunity of the second sharing phase I did, to ask the multimedia artist Santiago Echeverry (Colombia/USA)about this distinction.
Echeverry clarified that Multimedia means to integrate multiple time and space controlling tools. For instance, when light is being used to create a particular space for dance using a controller that could be manual, analogue (mixers) or digital and that works in relation to sound. Intermedia, for Echeverry, goes a step beyond, because is about the interconnection of media that involves digital media or digital controllers. In this sense, multimedia can be done without computers or without any kind of digital data but intermedia requires digital controllers and computers. Digital dance for Santiago might not require live performers for example, so it involves a post-human approach to dance where technology takes a more important role. Zeynep Gündüz dives into this in her PhD Thesis where she defines digital dance as a broad field and in relation to the history of the use of technology in dance:
The 1960s mark the slow entry of computers in the art form of dance, while the 1990s designate the acceleration in the convergence of computer and dance practice on an international scale. Indeed, the increase in the amount of experiments with dance and digital technologies in the mid-1990s was so significant that it created the need for a term to distinguish those dance practices that fundamentally rely on the integration of computer technology for its realization. Scholar and practitioner of this burgeoning sub-field of dance practice, Sarah Rubidge (2004) argues that despite the lack of a univocal practice, ‘digital dance’ seems to be a commonly recognized term amongst practitioners and theorists to designate dance practices that rely primarily on digital media with regard to the creation and presentation of their aesthetics and content. (Gündüz, 2012, p. 17)
Gündüz also explains that within this field there are several types of practices that imply different digital technologies, aesthetics and styles. For example, Telematics which involves telecommunication software to connect dancers in different physical locations, the use of motion-capture to create animated characters using the information of the movement of a physical dancer, project holographic images that creates the illusion of three-dimensionality, and real-time technology that uses motion-tracking sensors and software to generate interaction between physical dancers and projections or sounds.
Within these possibilities, it is important to clarify the approach of this project. The presence of the video projection does not come from developing software technology of motion tracking that interacts with the dancers or the audience. Instead, I have been recording footage (not images generated by computers) and the images are from bodies in motion. The treatment I have done to the footage is to eliminate the background and the frame of light which implies a transformation of the characteristic rectangular space of video. These imago characters are projected on the physical bodies on stage and not on a traditional screen. Like this, I focused on the notion of the body as a landscape, a shared territory for dance and projection. In the same manner, the choreographic concepts involved in the project are “more sensitive to notions of space and duration; qualities originating from lighting”. (Mafe-Keane, 2013, p 135.) That is why the dance that happens live is usually framed with rectangles or circles made of plain light from the projector. This means that there is an extrapolation in terms of space. The space for video becomes the space for dance and the space for dance becomes the space for video.
Also, I manipulate the projections in real time, instead of creating codes for the computer to control them. It can be said then, that the approach to interactivity has an organic aspect to it that allows me as a video artist, to have a performative level. This means that I can understand the projections as an extension of my dancing body. This does not mean that I project images about me, but that I control the parameters of the projections in real time. For example, the motion tracking is done by hand, and therefore the movement of my fingers on the computer or on the midi controller, is also part of the choreography and I need to rehearse as much as the physical dancers.
These characteristics bring the inquiry closer to cinema than to computer science and therefore the field of Expanded Cinema becomes relevant where the traditional boundaries of cinema are pushed by involving performative aspects, opening film into real space and time (Petersen, 2016) and questioning the conventions of how to experience a film, among others. (Tade, n.d.)
Even more, I am interested in mixing live with mediated elements to create tension between the different types of presences. That is why there is also an investigation around sound which includes both live spoken words and pre-recorded words. Therefore, the use of video as scenery, decor or dynamic background is not part of this investigation, but the interest is on the kinetic interplay between dance and cinema from a broader perspective. This relates to the work of the artist Roberts Blossom who, in the 60’s was “combining live and filmed dance pieces” developing what he called Filmstage (Dixon, 2007. p.89).
From these experiments and readings, my next step was to develop my own pallet of possibilities which I call a vocabulary and that you can find on this page.
Following the analysis about presence, there is another interesting possibility that emerges in the dialogue regarding materiality and space. As I said before, projection is an art of light and therefore, light needs a surface to complete its presence, a physical material to reflect the images on. In this sense, the body of the performer can also become a projection surface, a shared territory for dance and projection.
Video (1 min, 4 secs): Body as a shared territory for dance and projection. Process of WolFloW 2019.
