Re: Site Specific Work: Webbed Feats

Scott deLahunta (sdela@ahk.nl)
Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:26:51 +0200

Hi Stephen --

At 09:53 PM 6/15/97 GMT, you wrote:
>although I am a huge fan of William Forsythe's work, (I
>got to see several different programs in France) I have not been able to
>experience his improvisation technologies and would love to know how I might do
>that....is there a CD ROM available to the public?

What I have seen is a 'crushed' version of the project which fits onto a
CD-ROM and does not include several features. Story at that time (last June)
was that they (ZKM) were looking to make something available to educational
institutions, but I don't know anything else. Does anyone out there have a
more recent word on the project? Here is the URL for the project at ZKM:

http://www.zkm.de/projects/bildmedien/improvisation.en.html

>> Or a button which would have imposed various
>>mathematical scores or structures.
>I'd be curious what you have in mind...

Maybe "mathematical" is the wrong term. At the site, we are given a limited
choice of movement material -- but the structuring principles in terms of
the 'order' we might choose for this material is left up to us. Dance in
this century starts with given us such principles drawn from music, for
example: 'theme and variation' ABA and the rondo (Louis Horst)... and
evolved to give us a broader range of choices which would include such
things as randomness/chance (cunningham/cage/dunn) and "mathematical" like
Brown's accumulation: 112123123412345. Both of these ideas represent the
ideological satellites revolving around NYC in the 1950s-1960s. So, I was
thinking of something like this -- to give the site another type/ layer of
'choice'.

>My budget for this project does come into play in terms of what I could do....I
>was not able to find programmers who were willing to work simply for the love
>of the art....

Sounds familiar.

>Webbed Feats becomes a vehicle to produce other live events through web
>collaboration....

Your emphasis here on the production of live events via web collaboration is
key. I think that my own interests in the web are in-line here with yours --
our net/web community based on shared ideas needs to be punctuated by live
events which help to bring a sense of our solid selves back into focus. The
net conspires to make us forget that we still live in bodies for 24 hours of
the day. Live events bring our floating identities and distributed selves
back into a sense of connection. Post-biological and post-geographical
narratives are only really effective for those individuals who are able to
make a living from negotiating their theoretical territories. What I think
is most exciting about the net is the "desire" it begins to generate for
this "need" for the live event. It brings a new sort of value to F2F... or a
renewal of an old value?

... there are over 80 individuals involved in reading this list now. How
many of their/ our faces do you know? We/ I know that most of you/ us will
be sitting over very similar terminals, one hand probably on the mouse (left
or right?), arms resting on the table supporting some of the weight of the
upper torso and head, the rest of your weight will be distributed down
through the spine and pelvis into the chair, fingers on the keys (both hands
when replying or typing), feet on the ground, are your legs crossed? You/
we/ they/ I am slightly leaning forward, reading this mail, trying to
decipher its contents, deciding what to do with it, to respond? to delete,
to store it in a different mailbox, to print it out?

Our common ground...

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 )