Re: validity grids

Dawn Stoppiello (troika@artswire.org)
Fri, 2 May 1997 15:56:48 +0100

>The discussion has fiercely moved ahead, so I will be late, still thinking
>about Dawn's grid and why is it there.

Well...I have come to the conclusion that the dance that I originally made
with the Grid in mind is in fact a different dance completely and now that
we have a working, physical instrument, I (we) can proceed with making the
new dance which is for/about/with/inclusive of the Grid.

>another kind of dance. If I understand Dawn correctly, her company wants to
>be acknowledged in New York as a dance company (that happens to use high
>technology), and it may get invited to events such as BODY ELECTRIC where
>people will wonder whether bodies are necessary or need to be present. Aha.

Yes. I would like both. And why not? Do you have to be excluded from one
group to be a member of the other? Otherwise, where do we perform our work?
Where is our theater? Who is our audience? There are not enough
"dance-technology performance events" in our immediate area to support the
amount of performing that we hope to do. I want to remain connected to
those who go to see dance since that is my primary medium of expression.
There is always a live body dancing in all of the works I create.

I, who hold a simple bachelor of fine arts degree (only the beginings of an
academic career) and have never published, will only be invited to any
academic conferences based on the quality of the art works that I create
and there relevence to the conference topic - I think. And although my
brain twitches furiously from the intense papers presented at some of these
conferences - maybe there needs to be a non-academic conference? What would
that mean? I only want to be invited to any conference if people want to
SEE the work then hear the theories. These are such sad reports about the
Atlanta conference but maybe not so suprising. Is the lack of
thought/care/regard for the Art Makers simply reflective of the same lack
in society at large?? But, I also have faith in Thecla and Richard or those
at ASU to create a different kind of experience if the other proposed
conference ideas fly.

>Which makes we want to ask you all how you imagine looking into the face of
>an abandoned house?

Have you ever seen the work of Tony Oursler? (I have seen some of his
recent works around NY) He projects faces (moving video not stills) onto
head-shaped orbs. The effect are dissembodied talking heads of varing sizes
in different configurations. They generally have a sad quality to them (for
me) but are also quite beautiful. Perhaps if you did some kind of animation
on the image of a house facade and projected it onto an orb shape it might
enhance the face quality? Just a wacky off the cuff thought.

more later.
Dawn

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Dawn Stoppiello / Artistic Co-director / Troika Ranch / troika@artswire.org
http://www.art.net/~troika
416 W. 23rd Street #3D New York, NY 10011 / 212.691.9547
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