Reflection on Intimacy Across the Internet Project

After a couple of weeks of brainstorming via email, chats in class, personal consideration on intimacy themes, collecting images and ideas off of google, and tests of technology, we prepared ourselves for a brief and open-structured encounter on film and across the country.  I thought that overall this work required an interesting kind of quiet energy to remain clear and patient with technology and each other.

The environments that we placed ourselves in to communicate with each other were less than private and intimate.  Dr. Gilbert and I were located in Pless Hall at night, which felt like a large illuminated display case.  There are two walls of open window at the corner of Washington Square Park, so people both inside the building and outside on the street have a view of the space.  A handful of late-night study groups were chatting and had spread out their laptops, text books, and binders full of paper over a couple of tables.  This was midterm week.  For HyeWon in California, she was outside in an expansive area of campus with interesting modern architecture covering a student walk way and little green quads in between.  We saw a few people milling around the space or walking by. 

Without any discussion on how we were approaching the theme of intimacy in our movement, we let the logistics of the technology we were using dictate the entire process.  Before Dr. Gilbert got the camera rolling on HyeWon, she performed a beautiful dance thinking we were ready to observe and record.  Her dance was not lost though, it seemed to happen just for me to watch in the moment, and I used it to learn about her stylistic tendencies, playful choices, and sense of ease and flow.  To be honest, I felt a greater sense of intimacy as the observer than I did as the performer, especially for the couple of moments when HyeWon performed for the first time without knowing the camera wasn’t ready yet. 

In terms of my movement response to HyeWon's dancing, I don’t know if it was because I was experiencing flu symptoms or just general fatigue, but I didn’t feel as though I conveyed a coherent idea.  I felt awkward and only able to react to one or two of HyeWon’s movement ideas (hiding behind pillars, sense of on-going flow, and crossed or hugging arm gestures).  Even though I had these feelings of disconnect, I am interested to examine the footage to see what HyeWon and I might have shared on a subconscious level.

The next step in this process is to edit the footage gathered from both ends of the computer and see how they interact with the intimacy-themed, delicate and contemplative musical themes that Dr. Gilbert composed.  I was interested in collaborating and reacting to both the dance and musical contributions, so I worked with the musical material on the piano, improvised, recorded, and digitally manipulated the recordings from a feeling-based understanding of intimacy.

Intimacy Key Word Google Image Search

This is a basically a slideshow of images found via Google image searches.  The keywords searched were terms I related and associated with the idea of "intimacy."  Keywords included:  Closeness, Diaries and Journals, Eye Contact, Censoring, Embarrassment, Opening Letters, Secrets, Touch, Conspiring Children, Touching Nature, Vulnerability, Family, and Friends.  I thought it was interesting how certain visual ideas and themes were present among several of the searches:  hands, close proximity, crossing or overlapping limbs, small and delicate things.  The sounds were produced using FLOW 3.4.   

Cunningham's Biped

Merce Cunningham - Biped
Uploaded by rybthr

This excerpt is from a 45 minute Merce Cunningham piece:  Biped (1999).  (First performed:  Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Berkeley California)

Cunningham uses chance operations as a collaborative style.  Artists work independently to produce a certain length of music or dance, and then they come together.  For Biped, Cunningham collaborated with music, costume, and visual artists.  Pail Keiser and Shelley Eshkar developed a video motion capture technique to produce the effect of digital bodies echoing the live dancers onstage.  Gavin Bryars produced the music, which paralleled the conceptual idea of the dance:  live performers with electronic equivalents for each instrument.  Gavin Bryars was a contemporary of John Cage—Cage had collaborated with Cunningham for decades. 

At the Merce Cunningham Dance Company homepage, you can read a little bit more about the piece:  http://www.merce.org/thecompany_r-biped.html  

(Part Two) Improvisation/Collaboration Kevin Response

Kevin also asked how can you make use of transitory material from an improvisation in other work?  Countless choreographers and artists utilize improvisation and experimental approaches in their work.  When you have a record of the improvisation (via memory and experience or actual audio/visual recording) you can try to recreate an event (if it’s for a performance piece) or use the actual recording of the improvisation to manipulate and edit into a larger work incorporating various technology resources.  Improvisation can also be used as a structure for performance.  I use it to generate material during dance rehearsals, but I’ve also used structured improvisation on stage for parts of dance pieces where movement doesn’t have to be entirely set.  Sometimes I use this to create a desired random effect.  Other times I just use it to demand a high level of thoughtfulness, spontaneity, active engagement, focus, investment, or natural ease in a movement idea on the part of the dancer or group of dancers.  I would love to know how this idea about performance quality might exist similarly for other forms of art.

Knowing when to generate a new idea and let something that is not exciting the instincts or inciting development dissolve is an important skill in improvisation.  Those types of decisions happen in context.  In collaboration, the material is in the hands of the group consciousness; and even if one person chooses to drop an idea and pursue a new one, someone else in the group may still remain fixated on the previous idea.  I think that’s okay.  Group consciousness is also supposedly taking care of overall composition.  How do you know when there is a group consciousness?

Some other questions to consider:  How much freedom do you allow in improvisation?  Is it true that the less experienced the group of improvisers (either with each other or with improvisation in general) the more structure/ rules needed to create a successful improvisation?     

As improvisers, do we want absolute creative freedom or limited freedom?  What do set parameters and rules help us accomplish in an improvisation?  Generally, I think they guide the material in a certain direction, and they also guide the overall composition (keeping it in some sort of check).  Maybe they also guarantee a certain amount of coherency and success as long as the rules are universally understood and applied (by the improvisers).  When can we stop having to decide on rules openly and just let them form naturally?

An improviser’s freedom or ability to rely solely on instincts versus censoring ideas is in constant flux.  I think it’s all based off of our immediate interpretations of the generated content.  In an ideal situation...We sketch and re-sketch and redefine rules to further shape new ideas.  All the while we are trying to connect to some sort of primordial collective or group consciousness.  We re-interpret, further, respond, repeat, and rehash other people’s ideas. We are generous with other people's ideas that run through our own modes of expression.  

Some of my friends/teachers have given me this advice regarding group improvisation: Try not to throw out too many ideas or worry too much about creating something out of nothing.  Creating on the spot is a risk, but get it over with and more importantly try to build on what you see.

Many artists and researchers have written about improvisation in various fields (theater, music, dance) and contexts (education, performance).  I am interested in finding more material on this, particularly regarding group improvisation across different media/ genres/ fields.  Anyone have any specific suggestions?  Thanks. 

(Part One) Response to Kevin on Group Improvisation/Collaboration

My classmate Kevin wrote about the feeling of dissatisfaction after an improvisation on his blog.  Then he thoughtfully posed the following interesting questions:  How can total strangers create relevant art via experimental means?  How can you make use of transitory material from an improvisation in other work?  How to make impromptu art-making more valuable? 

I too have been involved in improvisation experiments that felt awkward for me or “didn’t go anywhere.”  Sometimes I blame the overall group dynamic (i.e. an inability to listen or sense each other, issues with people’s styles and personalities, and lack of experience with improvisation or risk-taking in general).  Other times I blame differences in interpretation of the rules, or even a lack of structure in the framework for improvisation that’s decided on.  Sometimes I also just blame the universe, time of day, elements outside of any one or any group’s control like fatigue, general malaise, or even bad luck. 

It seems that Kevin and I both agree that improvisation is experimental.  Believing that an improvisation has completely “failed” though probably suggests that the improvisers expected a particular kind of result.  I think that improvisation can sometimes function as a learning tool in that way.  Since it’s an experiment, it’s somewhat trial and error and can be useful no matter what the outcome as long as you can analyze what happened, learn from it, and move on.  Letting an improvisation session naturally “fail” can be a great way for students to start discussing improvisation strategies.  It can also open up a discussion about what constitutes dissatisfaction in an art-making experiment?  Are you disappointed in the product?  Did it not take on a meaningful structure?  Did it not subscribe to a particular aesthetic?  Did it not develop?  Why?  Or, are you disappointed in some aspect of the process?  Was there a lack of connection or communication with others?  Was any particular part of it valuable if not all of it?  Addressing these questions can help improvisers learn how to set up the kinds of limited structures/rules they need to produce a more specific or desirable result.

I would hope that eventually improvisers can build up to a place where the only structures needed are “there’s a beginning and an end in this space. Go!”  And then, a group of experienced improvisers (people who understand the nature of improvisation and can strategize well with others…even if they are strangers and don’t know each other personally) can successfully create valuable work together.  They can work through fleeting structures that develop naturally (as the improvisers recognize and contribute to what’s going on) and then allow those structures to dissolve or eventually change into a different set of fleeting rules as individuals make decisions that impact the group.  The underlying idea of collaboration, to me, is that individuals make decisions that affect the group (no matter how abstractly that resonates in an improvisation I think that is basically what is going on).  If an individual does something that is never addressed by the group (or at least one other collaborator in the group) in any way, then there is some sort of disconnect.

To me, improvisation is the most satisfying when those around me are listening, sensing, and reacting with each other.  I've also heard the idea that improvisation is about building a temporary world with improvisers imagining and collaborating within that world as a community.  So, how long does it take to build that community?  What does it take to get that community to understand and function creatively within a set of parameters or rules?

It probably takes years to build a strong community, but just seconds to build a community.  One quick way to build a community is to stand in a circle so everyone can see and have each individual enter the center of the circle and offer a short phrase (musical, rhythmic, dance, a gesture, a posture, some dialog, an I am a___ statement etc..).  After one person performs the whole group repeats the phrase.  This way everyone can unite and practice the task of mimicking and inventing. 

If you’re in a chaotic mess of an improvisation…I think you can actively try to make a group improvisation feel more valuable to you by seeking out someone else in the group who you’re either instinctively drawn to or see/hear doing something that you find evenly remotely interesting.  Try and develop a connection with that one person.  There are a lot of ways to try and connect: eye contact, gesture, touch, facing the person, or moving closer to them in space.  More importantly you try to connect to them with an action by following what they’re doing.  One easy way to do that is by directly mimicking whatever it is they’re doing.  Another easy way is to try and deliberately oppose whatever they’re doing repeatedly.  Hopefully they’ll notice you and immediately understand the relationship you’ve established because of its simplicity and continue to play along.  Then hopefully more people in the group will notice this duet forming which will prompt them to decide how they want to react or join in.  Identifying possible relationships in the group is a useful tool; being aware of others trying to form a particular kind of relationship with you is also vital. 

I agree with Kevin in that as a class we should start collecting strategies/ ideas for improvisation:  anecdotes that we find useful about an approach to improvisation and useful examples of rules and structures for improvisation (games/ activities/ prompts etc.).

Unfinished Art Projects (Random Footage)

Here are slightly longer unfinished film projects that I edited on both Windows Movie Maker and iMovie 6 that anyone is welcome to re-edit, compose music for, or respond to in any way:

Bored in a Dorm Footage:  These are shots I captured with a digital camera in my old dorm room. It was winter in upstate New York, and my roommate had an interesting book of funky hairdos lying around.

Driving home in Vermont:  A friend of mine wanted to use my camera and film my perspective driving home.  

Friend's Back Porch Footage:  I tried to figure out how to create a blinking effect with lots of quick fade outs.

Strange Old Objects:  This is really old footage I had kept from a digital camera that used floppy discs to record material onto believe it or not.  The images are of some random figurines I have in my bedroom at home as well as views outside after a Vermont snow storm.  The clips were edited mostly on Windows Movie Maker. 

Some Tranquil Burlington Stuff:  This is a mixture of footage that a friend of mine shot with my camera and other shots I took on the same summer day in Burlington, VT.  

  

Unfinished Art Projects (Animations)

I recently found some unfinished animation experiments on my computer.  If anyone is willing, feel free to download any of these and manipulate them however you'd like.  Most of them are very short and have no purpose, no music, and no specific narrative to them yet...

I drew these images on the Paint windows program and later animated them using a combination of Windows Movie Maker and iMovie 6: 

Moon, Man, Chair, Bird, and Hill

Girl Poses, Bows, Arms Raise

Flying Business Men With Inverted Colors

Head Explosion 

This is my first attempt to animate a random photo found in a google image search.  I used Photoshop to manipulate still images and Windows Movie Maker to put them together:

Guy Talks

Again, please play with, respond to, use these clips however you'd like.  More raw film materials to be posted.  

  

Intimacy Project: First Stages

I am participating in a collaborative dance experiment with my music and collaborative arts professor (here in NYC) and a doctoral student in dance from UC Irvine in California.  My professor conceived of long-distance dance collaborations over the web live via iChat or Skype that will also be captured and recorded simultaneously on video.  With the recorded footage from across the country my professor and I will then edit the material and develop a musical/sound score.  The doctoral student expressed an interest in working with the theme of “intimacy,” and said that she had been studying intimacy and gender roles in dance performance. 

I think it would be useful to start this process by first building a strong mutual understanding of the term “intimacy.”  What does it mean?  What associations do we have with the term?  Sharing personal insights (via email/blog discussion) would certainly help us brainstorm a working definition of intimacy. 

Then to prepare for dancing with one another, perhaps we can also discuss movement vocabularies that interest us.  Hopefully we can find an authentic movement way to communicate with each other.  To us, is intimacy about gesture?  Space? Timing? Effort?  We can decide.  Or, do we want to not do any movement idea preparation at all and face each other cold?  In that way we could experiment with trying to force ourselves to be in an intimate dance conversation no matter how awkward and confusing. 

Without imposing too many rules for the live internet dance interaction, it might still help us to structure our improvisations into some form of conversation.  We can decide on our own structure for the dance interaction, but here’s my suggestion:  one of us dances a phrase, then the other repeats it back to the sender immediately with our own approximation of the other person’s movement to mark our understanding before responding with our own movement phrase.  Using nonsense words to denote dance phrases, the format might go something like this:  dancer 1 says, “turn-bop-turn;” then dancer 2 says, “turn-bop-turn and shwoop-up-diddle;” then dancer 1 says, “shwoop-up-diddle and po-gong;” then dancer 2 says, “po-gong and vramm-cah-ha-ray…” and so on. 

My first attempt at defining intimacy:  closeness, understanding, private, opening-up, touching, close relationship, attached, togetherness, inseparable, sharing secrets, trusting with emotions, uncensored body knowledge.