Coming together for the third time, now at Performance Space, we have begun to develop small experiments around the conversation between somatic bodywork and the crafting of body-centred technologically mediated or augmented audience experiences. Seeking moments of transformation of the ordinary. It’s not as easy as you might expect. The idea that I had originally conceived was slowly dissected and reformulated as we began to test materials and insert the body. The body as always is the ultimate test. My doctoral thesis had this tenet at its core. Yet I was still surprised at how radically the body (the experience of individual bodies) can affect conceptual understandings or imaginings.

Materialisation of concept for Surging Verticality

Video of Catherine having her movement initiated and supported by the tensioned cloth attached to her heels, after being guided by Maggie through a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement of lifting her heels and arms.

surging-verticality-catherine-001

As an artist what motivates me is a desire to create systems and situations that support us to become more alive to the worlds around and within us, and to be able to experience and engage with this aliveness with a sense of grace, delight and care (even when engaging with processes that may outwardly appear quite abject, humorous  or mundane).

Care is a word I’ve been thinking about a lot lately – and its absence in so much of what we experience in the worlds around us (I get so sad when I see people littering in the street or on trains and busses – dont they care about the spaces they live in – are they so numb to their environment that they couldn’t give a f#%ck?).

We could think of the art experience as an extension of this idea of care (not disimilar to concepts of  ‘conviviality’ or hospitality that circulated around discussion on ‘rellational aestheics’) – coupled perhaps with some flirtation (thinking here about the careful touch of two people dancing) – or the uncontainable  of an experienced enthusiast as they share the source of their joy to a new commer or fellow affcionado (look at THIS! and THAT!). Through this contact we bring something otherwise hidden – out from eachother – and that we together bear witness to for a breif moment that we may or may not call an ‘art’ experience, a lesson, a workshop, a meeting of friends etc.

The question then changes from what we as artists are ‘interested’ in – to what specifically we care about, and how we manifest this care through our actions and foci, through the situations and exchanges we create for other people.

So for me – with this project – I’m trying to articulate how I can extend a caring and enlivening touch to other people (and myself!) through experiences that allow us to become sensitive and aroused by subtle and not so subtle qulaities of touch, movement and proprioception. To this end – I have to temper my habitual impulse towards large intense experience – with the knowledge that its not via extreme, cathartic actions that we learn to refine our capacity for sensitivy and discernment

- but on the contrary -

its only by learning to be still, and attentive to small actions/sensations that we can start to gain a deeper awareness of where we are opperating FROM.

This blog has been written fresh after listening to a wonderful concert presented as part of Liquid Architecture, and in particular – an amzing set by Asmus Tietchens that featured a truely sensual use of dynamic volumes, sounds that caressesed and wove in and our of audibility, with lilting forms that had me swaying on the edge of my seat like a snake charmer’s cobra! The delicacy of this sound was supported by the strength of the sound system (occasional use of deep bass – confidently hinting at its full potential), and the improved listening acoustics (huge curtains drawn around the space at the start of his set). This experience left me deeply touched, and determined to acheive a more considered use of sound and volume dynamics in my forthcomming interactive art show at St. Vincent’s Hospital. To create a situation where to use an analogy – the snail feels safe to venture out of it’s shell – and to extend its ommatophores (eye stalks) out of its head – and into its surrounds (in this instance – a biofeedback system that is an environment that is both inside and outside). To extend this metaphor a little further – one doesn’t get the snail to extend its eye stalks by poking them with your fingers!

Here are some threads that I’ve pulled out from my Bundanon experience, that Ive been turning around in my head over the past week since the workshop.

George and Lizzie enjoying the view from the workshop space at the Bundanon Trust Boyd Education Centre, Riversdale.

ATTENTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURES for an aesthetics of touch, movement and proprioception: having and/or developing the ability to attend to sensations and feelings arising from within their body – ‘knowing how to appreciate’ the significance of what is felt (like appreciating unfamiliar foods and flavors? or music? – needs to develop from social practice?).

This is something Catherine emphasized at the beginning and end of the Bundanon workshop, and through her ‘Distinct Body’ workshops – without this ability to listen and unfold insight from the sensation of our breath, skeleton, muscles and skin, how much can we more can hope to achieve?

We need an experiential vocabulary for thinking through the body, a vocabulary of tactile, proprioceptive and kineasthetic experiences and reflections, that can enable us to move from sylables, to words, from words to sentences, and from sentences to stories. This, like any other language, is something developed over time, with other people.

EXPERIENTIAL NARRATIVES – Dramaturgical Aesthetics of Interaction, Aesthetics of Participation. A focus beyond the technical aspects of the artwork, towards structure of the situation as a whole (location, entry-points, social context and conditions, etc.), and the development of the participant’s experience within it (how it starts, develops and comes to an end).

RELATIONAL SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURES: Human-Human Interactions that explore proximal modalities as their primary modality (touch, smell, taste, temperature, movement, proprioception). ‘Live Art’ intimate performance forms: one-to-one engagements between a host and their guest. Taking full advantage of the incredible emotional intelligence and multi-modal sensitivity that we humans posses (in contrast to our machines). To what extent is my own fixation on exhibiting computer-based interactions a product of a tradition fixated on the so-called autonomy of the art object? Autonomy from what …other humans?
[Note to self:why do I feel obliged to exhibit my work as a stand alone experience - without someone there to guide people into the work, to listen  to their stories, to bear witness (and to value) their experience in the work?]

Maggie invited us to explore various forms of hand-to-hand contact incorporating skeletal sensation and contact

THE ART EXPERIENCE AS INVITATION, art making and curating as a form of hosting, induction, hospitality (hospice?). In connection with Making Strange – offering participants some support along their journey – a base from which explore, or temporary shelter and resting point along the way. [this brings to mind pilgrim cultures: wayside shrines, wells, cairns, storm-shelters etc. I wonder what their contemporary equivalents might be?]

SOMAESTHETIC GYMNASIUM: a place for cultivating somaesthetic abilities/sensitivities – consisting of semi-structured body-focused experiences, that stimulate the visitors capacity for somaesthetic pleasure, beauty and critical reflection.

‘INTELLIGENT’ BODY-FOCUSED INTERACTIVE ARTWORKS – Body-focused interactions that acknowledge, and are sensitive to the emotional dimensions of our physicality: the capacity for movement and touch to facilitate strong emotional recall, release, insight, inspiration etc. Maggie mentioned the idea of interactive art makers process as being one of ‘growing the computer’s neurology’, I think this is a powerful concept – to understand and expand on the computerised interactive systems ability to be in the world – to hold a representation of its environment, and its behavioyr within this environment – regardless of how simple this may be. [The memory of of our brain-mapping workshop comes to mind, with Lizzie's reflection that the maps she drew of her brain, could equally be a map of the world…].

SENSUAL TACTILE AND KINAESTHETIC PLEASURE AND BEAUTY IN HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION
“any use of a new tools and technologies involves new uses (and postures and habits) of the body, which means new possibilities of somatic strains, discomforts, and disabilities resulting from inefficient body use that cultivation of somatic self-consciousness could help  us to reveal, remedy or avoid.” – Shusterman, 2008, p. 13

Lizzie’s note: “What about the somatic pleasures and enjoyment that these technologies might also support?”

George testing a Wii controlled sound design - tracking slow movements

Artworks that depend on specific qualities of human action – tuned in such a way as to draw you into moving, standing, behaviong in unfamiliar and/ort enjoyable ways (in contrast to interfaces that draw you into familiar but painful and frumpy ways of being – i.e. laptops and bad mice).
[Can I imagine an inteactive art experience that was FUNDAMENTALLY, a pleasure and a joy to experience?]

After accepting/imagining this possibility, we  can go on to consider what kind of pleasure that such works might offer (obviously, there are many kinds of pleasure), and the philosophical and ethical ends (no matter how fragile or fleeting the gesture) to which these pleasures might be directed.

Tracing my outline in Catherine Truman

The map I drew of my outline and skeleton in Catherine's workshop

SUSPENDING OUTCOMES-ORIENTED RESEARCH PROCESSES, IN FAVOR OF GENUINE, OPEN MINDED ENQUIRY. Drawings made by feeling, paths made by walking. I’m still a little shocked to see how fixated I was on making a ‘correct’ drawing, going to extraordinary lengths to physically trace the outline of my own body, when Catherine’s instructions, were quite clearly to ‘draw an outline of our body, based on our felt experience’ …some more homework to do in this area!

-

We rose early in the morning to avoid the heat of the midday sun and travelled back to Bundanon to continue the Situated Body workshop. Equipped with cameras, water bottles, sunscreen and hats I invited Maggie and Biz to join me into the unknown and explore the location I was previously drawn too on the Cedar trail. Having surveyed the location we decided to continue walking further along the path to see what lay beyond. As we continued to walk we could feel the heat and humidity begin to rise uncomfortably against our bodies. Not far up the track we were joined by large noisy horse flies. As we travelled further we came across a part of the trail shrouded by Lantana bushes (considered a noxious weed in Australia).

Our motivation levels to continue on the trail began to reach limits. The heat, humidity, flies, insects and noxious weeds compounded our sense of alienation in the landscape. At this point my body felt compressed and small in these unwelcoming surroundings and we all felt the urge to quickly leave. I had a sensation of invading a territory that was intimidating and trying to keep us out. This was similar to my first experience when the Kangaroos encroached on my location in the previous session. Essentially I was in a space where my body’s senses were telling me I didn’t belong.

As we hastily retreated (once again) a small curled leaf suspended from a tree caught my eye. The leaf appeared to delicately float in mid air just to the side of the path. The leaf was in fact a spider’s nest suspended in air by a single thread of cobweb. In what was a spontaneous and improvised act of movement I decided to attempt to balance the leaf on the tip of my nose, using my entire body to crouch below. This simple playful act focused my entire attention. My body was activated in space and I was suddenly captivated by the action. I sensed my attention was focused on my body as I tried to balance the leaf. Rather than my body being pushed away from the landscape I felt completely engaged in the moment. My body felt presence had increased.

I invited Maggie and Biz to play with the leaf. Soon the oppressive heat and buzzing insects receded into the background as we took turns crouching and balancing. Our focus, attention and play had activated our presence in the landscape. Our bodies had proclaimed being in a space, albeit fleeting and temporal. This magical moment amplified when the spider crawled out of its nest to see what we were doing. These simple bodily interactions encouraged us to play more when I encouraged Maggie (who was initially cautious to partake) to find another location to interact with. More playful actions ensued between us, and within the landscape.

This brief experience on the Cedar trail made me think about the qualities of the felt sensations, and acts performed, when engaging with our demonstration projects earlier in the week. An invitation to engage, attention, focus and play came to the fore in both of these experiences and throughout the workshop.

Leaf Balance - Jonathan

Leaf Balance - Maggie

Leaf Balance - Biz

untitled - maggie, biz, jonathan

Our afternoon, in my experience, was about MAKING REAL OF SENSING TECHNOLOGY. I was aware of the extent of preparation undertaken by each maker. Each one intently busy, doing, setting up, and I felt touched by this. We gathered around to learn about and interact with each design. Somaya’s ‘gloved’ accelerometers, George’s Wii stick, Lian’s transforming fabric creations and Jonathan’s proximity sensor light display evoked and augmented evolving choreographies. To my surprise my personal experience in each case was embodying, deeply satisfying and aesthetic. In context the conditions relied on invitation. We were invited by the makers to relate through felt experience to interactive designs. We were part of their not knowing and their wish to discover more about themselves, their own imagination and research. I experienced the fusion of the maker and participant through interaction. ‘Astro’ means, as in stars, ‘in composition’. ‘Astronomic’ refers to scale. ‘Technics’ refers to ‘the science or rules of a field of knowledge, especially a technical one’. That’s exactly how I experienced this afternoon. I felt able to interact with a vast field of knowledge about which I know absolutely nothing, to feel wonder and aesthetic pleasure, to be in composition.

An opportunity to play with a range of sensor-based prototypes/tools and costume. The session was structured so that each person had 3 minutes to try out a prototype, followed by a quick group discussion.

Somaya offered “Idio”, an apparatus that generates sound in response to accelerometer data provided by two accelerometers, one strapped to each wrist. My impulse was to play with the relationship of the accelerometers on my wrists, to see what effect this had on the sounds generated. It reminded me of an approach to generating movement imparted by my dance teacher, Annetta Luce that had a particularly powerful effect on my own dancing. That is, by relating one part of the body to another, be it elbow to ankle, head to coccyx, or heart to ovaries. The positioning of the sensors on the body can facilitate this.

George had patched together a simple, yet mesmerising sound generator that took accelerometer data from a Wii remote handheld. His motivation was to encourage slow movements. The sounds generated were tinkling bells +. I decided to draw on my Butoh Bodyweather training in bizeku, where you move as slowly as possible. In doing this, I listened to the sounds produced – delicate and meditative – , but did not attempt to influence the nature of the sound through my actions. The delicacy and fragmented phrasing of the sound made me wonder about a group of performers composing a soundscape through the intermingling of their individual effects.

Jonathan had rigged up an array of liquid crystal panels that changed their opacity in response to data from a proximity sensor. The proximity sensor used ultrasound, with the distance calculated from the delay in the reflected wave. In playing with it, I tried approaching from different angles, at different speeds, to see where the envelope of sensing ended and its sensitivity to change in position.

My offering was costume, with a view to body augmentation, wearables and organic? environments. I had draped a skin-coloured stretchy fabric over a beam and stitched the ends together. This created a membrane or cocoon for people to inhabit and play with. The costume consisted of a plain skin-coloured bodysuit that could be stuffed with a variety of padded shapes filled with dacron soft-fill and/or popcorn. The popcorn gave a nice weightiness and texture to the pads. I was interested to see how people would react, explore, experience. And later to imagine the connections between the use of costume and the sensor technologies …

For many, the putting on of the garments was a performance in itself … and very funny.

George escaping the cocoon

Lizzie's big bust

Catherine's corrugated legs

Jonathan testing the limits

Maggie crawling to the cocoon

Working with clay – what a treat! I absolutely loved it. I felt like Auguste Rodin, shaping human form out of a lump of clay, so malleable, yet requiring physical force, an engagement of the whole body not just the hands. Imagining the flesh, the volume, the density, the boniness, the receptivity to touch.

In the first session Catherine asked us to sculpt a body out of clay. In the second session we sculpted our own body while blindfolded. The body was to assume a posture or gesture familiar to us. In between these two sessions, Catherine lead us on a Feldenkrais exercise working with tilting the pelvis, articulating the spine and rotating the entire arm from the shoulder. At the beginning of the exercise, she asked us to register where the act of sculpting still resonated in the body. For me, I felt a glow in my abdomen, lower arms and hands.

My first body sculpted out of clay

The first clay sculpture had an almost chicken-like lower half, swollen abdomen, drumstick thighs. The chest was like heavily whipped water, almost ravaged. I wanted to show the intensity of emotion experienced in this part of the body. The clay allowed a easy translation of the dynamic, emotive qualities of human experience.

My body in clay ... sitting cross-legged

I felt a freedom being blindfolded, not caring so much about getting the visual form “right”. The pleasure in the body moving and making, feeling and stroking the clay, came to the foreground. I sculpted standing up, feeling the force of the earth under my feet feeding through my body and hands into the clay. I took heed of Catherine’s reminders about taking care of my body in the act of making … where was I holding tension, where did it hurt … shifting to a new position.

I notice my sculptures were both incomplete forms, offering suggestions, ambiguity in interpretation.

Monday

We converge at Riversdale, a place of retreat, generous offering, unbelievably beautiful.

Danielle Wilde has devised this simple, yet fabulous wearable interface, the hipDisk. I met Danielle at OZCHI2008 in Cairns. The hipDisk consists of two disks that you wear above and below your waist. An array of soft switches is positioned on the perimeter of each disk. A sound is generated when two switches touch. The disks exaggerate and make visible the changing relationships between the torso and the hip in motion. Cap it off with an Esther Williams-style bathers and swimming cap, multiply the number of performers, and you get this wacky musical ensemble playing The Girl from Ipanema.

http://www.daniellewilde.com/iWeb/daniellewilde/hipdisk.html

Was thinking about how I could use accelerometers and gyroscopes to track and respond to rhythmic body movements, which got me thinking about Feldenkrais pelvic clock excersises, and then Hula hoop work. Seemed like a realy obvious and fund thing that the Wii people must have thought of, and indeed they have:

Interesting to note how for forceful this woman’s movements are. I think it should be possible to refine the way the animation and sounds respond to the Wii-fit data to attrach people to more gracefull, gentle movements: track velocity amplitudes, and emphasis the quieter actions, and revolutions per 5 seconds, and emphasise slower speeds.

Here’s a demonstration of Wii-Fit excersises from designers at Nintendo:

For the Maxers among us, there’s a thread on the Max-MSP forum re Wii-Fit interfaces for Max-MSP:

Eric Samothrakis:

You could try Osculator:
http://www.osculator.net/wiki/Main/HomePage
It supports Wii-Fit although “Some Wii-Fit balance boards are unfortunately not working properly (YMMV, a model bought in september was working perfectly).”

Oli Larkin:

a colleague of mine has connected the wii balance board to Max on windows using OSC via Glove Pie: http://carl.kenner.googlepages.com/glovepie

i also tried it on Mac using OSCulator, but seemed that not all the data was sent correctly