hi all;
thanks for your response the other day (Danielle)., and I probably concur with
all you say
and had brought up my questions to Valerie, actually, to find out more about
how a conceptual
response (and a conceptual work such as I one I refered to, amongst more
directly staged
performances with human and animal performers) can approach the issue of
materiality
(what materiality defines a wearable, what wearables define performance or
other functions
and in what contexts specifically and for what purpose), i think my main
concern was to
get under the skin of the performative science to see who wears it, in what
context, for what
audience, and for what purpose.
As to laboratory (and performanvce studio culture), i think bio-art has begun
to present
a particularly interesting challenge to either paradigms of knowledge
production (science and
art/humanities), and also is a kind of materials science, i think "Victimless
Leather" is a wearable
if you see it straight on (with the necessary irony) as a jacket that can grow
or comments (as
a wearable might) on bio-reactions.
I guess i am interested, from the performer (and programmer proints of view) in
the bio-reactions
that are expected, desired, or played with when you wear sensors, whether
openly or built into
fabrics, but meant to extend or augment your gesture or movement, behavior and
appearance,
your sounding and your listening, and various other aspects of your kinesthetic
or proprio-ceptions.
as kinaesthetic proprioceptions (and tactile etc. and cognitive experiences), I
suggest, they happen in the wearer/performer;
and the performer / audience divide you now address, in regard to Ashley's
posting on “Noisense,” is a natural, in most
concerts or performance, conventional or other. The performers would have
trained with their instruments
or worn them to find what they do and how the performer body/mind processes the
actions that are effected
(in the environment or on the body, in the system) and are effected for
dramaturgical of theatrical
reasons. I quite agree with Ashley here, if we are talking studio/laboratory
work that grows into public
presentational performance – the rehearsals are controlled and specific. The
audience would not partake in
the same process but observe, witness and experience empathetically, as they
always do, and yes, the discussion
about whether a theatre audience needs to know the functionalities or the
causalities of interactivity, that's a debate
and now an old one. You make your own choices, i guess.
In installations designed for audience interaction with a system and, if so
arranged, with specific wearable instruments or
clothes or devices (analog and digital), is a whole other ball game, as
probably everyone here has experienced when
designing interfaces intended for audiences to intuit, figure out, explore,
play with, and have fun with or be immersed into.
hmm, would be interesting if they designed fashion runway shows like that, to
let your audience slip on the new
Chalayan or wear the new Helen Storey, like her "Say Goodbye" dress before it
has dissolved or as it is dissolving, i wonder
why this has not been picked up yet by dancers, probably because it's too close
to the skin and the lure of the erotic.
audiences, in other words, are always included (especially when they appear
excluded), and when one asks what
the participation in experiential processes is, again one probably needs to
differentiate from case to case
(the immersant in Char Davies' "Osmose" has a different experience from the
onlookers, I assume, but once the
onlooker has worn the gear and floated in the Virtual World, then later when
onlooking can reexperience the
process as we all do when we remember what certain things/sensations feel like.
It would, probably, be quite fascinating to look at social uses of wearable
technologies ("social choreographies"),
and ask whether and how they differ from arts-based/contexted performances.
regards
Johannes Birringer
DAP-Lab
dans sans joux
http://www.danssansjoux.org
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