Re: request for criticism on undergraduate project

Scott deLahunta (sdela@ahk.nl)
Sat, 22 Mar 1997 14:23:00 +0100

Hello list,

Glad to see some activity -- thank you to those who have subscribed after
the invitations Mark Coniglio and I sent out recently. We are now up to 33
participants from around the world -- if you are curious about who is
reading this list you can send a message to:

listproc@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu

With the following message in the body:

recipients dance-tech

.... the rest of this message is in response to Anne Hundley's recent
posting regarding her web-presentation "In Giving A Dance Class, I Received
A Translation". I have only taken a very cursory look at the site, but in
general it's an impressive catalog of your experience in Senegal. I'm afraid
I don't have the time to give you solid feedback on the web presentation,
but I'm intrigued by your wish to 'connect with work that asks how the
Internet can present current questions of dance documentation'. The issue of
documentation and the interpretation of dancing in 'other' cultures is a hot
topic. To consider the 'internet' as a delivery method for some of this
'research' is interesting -- because it seems it might take several steps
backwards, or sideways, from the critical debates which have evolved in this
area. An attempted analysis of something like social interaction between
dancer and audience is difficult enough with good and lengthy videotape
material. When one views a 30 second tiny quicktime video on the computer
screen, issues of representation, authenticity, authority, readability, etc.
all get sort of skewed. Taking into account the evolution of net culture at
large, I find this sort of fascinating...

So, Anne, this is not so much a direct feedback on your work as much as a
little diversionary thinking on the questions your site seems to pose to me.
Generally, your project seems very exciting and rich and I certainly hope
you can find a host for the pages so that they don't disappear entirely from
the net. Maybe someone from this list would know a good place to move them.

Regards,

Scott
----------------------------------|
Scott deLahunta and Susan Rethorst
Writing Research Associates, NL
Sarphatipark 26-3, 1072 PB Amsterdam, NL
tel: +31 (0)20 662 1736
fax: +31 (0)20 470 1558
email: sdela@ahk.nl
http://huizen.dds.nl/~sdela/wra (WRITING RESEARCH ASSOCIATES)
http://www.art.net/~dtz (DANCE AND TECHNOLOGY ZONE )