Re: We are Content

Johannes Birringer (orpheus@rice.edu)
Thu, 30 Apr 1998 02:50:30

Hi Greville, James, Sarah, Isabel, Richard.... and everybody

I think Isabel put it best, after a couple of stormy days.
<The discussions going on concerning form/content issues are hilarious.>

On the other hand, maybe they are not, because obviously many of us differ
on these questions of where/how we see/operate the technology in the
dance/with the choreography or with the ways we compose.

It's amazing though that this discussion got started with a critique of the
"content" of a performance nobody has seen yet. I'll be there, Yacoc, see
your content on Friday.

I had a question for James:
> Tell me more about your [Greville] dissertation on 'The architectural
use of
>technology in dance'. Do you mean the spatial rendering abilities of
>digital media? VRML? Projected space? ... or the architectural
>theory/criticism of form and movement? How do you anticipate exploring the
>noise/collision between digital and analog media?

What is meant here by "noise/collision between digital and analog media"?

As I write this, I am fantasizing (listening to OVAL's CD "Wohnton", which
amazes me because it's primarily digitally generated, the space of the
sound shaped by the manipulation of the basic structural samples, and yet,
interfering or layered over this is a kind of song/melody the Oval team
performs, with analog voice amnd probaboy analog recording, the
songs/lyrics are deliberately out of tune or semi-Sprechstime, and yet they
create a fascinating disconjunction with the electronic sound sculptures. I
mean by that: they make no sense. They make perfect sense. Anyone here
familiar with OVAL?

I hope my ensemble will be able to work in a similar way when we dance with
live/digitally changed music and digital video, later this month (May 21,
"North by South"). This will be an interactive dancefilmconcert not
developed interactively, not designed. We will work with 28 modules. (for
those interested, see module algorithm below). The content of the form is
the investigation of the inside of my left side (post-surgery). But the
performance is not about the form of the content of the (medical)
technology used. Nor is it about the content of the specific way we paint
the sound in the space. Nor is it about the relationship of the
spectator-participant to the film sculptures. We (I don't know the content
of my fellow dancers) don't know yet what the content will turn out to be.

module choreography structure:

Parachute North by South
a new dance-film/music concert in six movements

1. territories hindbrain/pons
left side/limited arm
knot 1
the flesh
textures 1-4

2. signals lungs/breath
aspirations
anaesthesia
cell slides

3. violence lymphoma
markings
pollination/El finge
codes 1-3

4. intimacy axon
intercourse
tactile surfaces
the hand/the ear
knot 2
5. interferences knee
knots 3+4
undertones

6. reversal feet/soles
code deletion
the left inside
the left outside
knot 5
Coda

(c) AlienNation Co.

greetings,

Johannes Birringer
Houston

PS.

For those interested by any chance in the COntemporaray DAnce scene in
Houston,
we have created a new website for dance, CODA:

see: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~orpheus/CODA.html
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