Re: Dance Tech curriculum/content 2

Jody John Ramey (ramey@vancouver.wsu.edu)
Wed, 6 Jan 1999 21:54:17 -0800 (PST)

> >The solution seems............ is to discover the
> >"passions" that underlie the new tech, that permeates it as all human
> >creations. Perhaps the issue shouldn't be the aspect of politics in our
> >dance, but rather the issue of the roots of politics, the affective
> >sources.
>
> I like your take on this matter, although I was not thinking of passions
> of affective sources "outside or at the root of" dance/technology or
> art/technology. For example, I don't make work to discover passions.
> They are already there, going into the work. The audience, on the other
> hand, is asked to move along with what we invent or display, and you are
> right, the question of how the work affects people is important, and not
> a quantitive matter, I think, even though much today, in cultural
> practice, is about measuring (how many times I have heard someone tell
> me the number of hits their website receieved. And what would that mean,
> please?). What's a hit?
>
> If we pause to think for a moment, then, how do you "measure" what your
> audience perceives/feels if you, for example, were not aware of the
> distancing effect of the virtual (and all the substitutes of sensorial
> experience). How do you perceive audience reaction to your work with
> sensors, VR or Big Eye environments, "proximity-sensitive" or
> "heat-senstitive" activators of an interactive design? What does
> vibration simulate, and how? Is dance a good vibrator these days?

Good points. With new technology comes new perception, and to understand
that perception, one must find an appropriate measure. A "hit" is really
only valuable if you know who the hit was from, where it originated, why,
and the path leading to that hit. Till we can efectively obtain that
information, we must be satisfied with yet another example series of
questions, "Who are we? Why are we here? Is there a higher power? Who
do we see? What do we see? How do we see. . .A whole series of ancient
questions will need to be re-applied yet again.

Jody John Ramey