echo::system

Technology is the linchpin that links dance, music and visual media ranging from motion sensors to audio/visual media and software. The ecological sciences make extensive use of computer-simulated models. As an artist, I interpret this process of modeling and it becomes the means, the grammar and the vocabulary for the project. echo::system is a collaboration between scientists, artists, and designers interested in exploring dynamic behavior of integrated systems in art and nature. The performance phase of the project reveals a myth about the creation of this alternative desert, which the inhabitants of the land are attempting to rediscover. This myth is based on “natural” biorhythms of the environment as modeled in a computer-based system. This piece follows the historic trajectory established by earlier diasporic art forms. The piece immerses the audience in a world with which they are free to interact and engage. Video, sound, light and animation work together replace the boundaries of the theatre walls. Echo::system attempts to offer moments of emancipation to not only the audience participants, but also, the artist themselves. As inhabitant of an environment rather than performers on stage, actors are free to engage with and become inspired by the other elements existing within the environment. At the highest level in each of these arts technology is used to facilitate the art; it is not the art itself. The ideas underpinning the work must be greater than the technology itself. The whole must be greater than the sum of the parts. When the art becomes subsidiary to the technology itself, the work suffers… and the art becomes the tool to display technology. In this way the technology almost operates as another actor on stage. An amazing performance from a single character is not enough, what makes a show is the interaction and the relationships developed between characters. This project is continually exploring methods of collaboration, communication and inspiration to work across disciplines and cultural barriers in developing new methods art production. In the past 6 years ‘artistic’ research had been focused in the realm of science and technology. In order to create a rich platform for inter and transdisciplinary work, we have drawn on multiple existing approaches to collaboration - intimate think tank retreats, architectural charrettes, behavioral prototyping of interactive systems, software design, and more traditional dramaturgy consultations and studio based dance and music rehearsals. Experimentation and improvisation have lead to a novel set of hybrid processes that draw on mind/body techniques in the performing arts as well as generative and critical processes native to the domains of science and technology. An emphasis on embodied performance practices shapes the critical discourse, providing the foundation for the development of a unique shared language. Dance and performance techniques in body/mind integration serve as the grounded practice for conceptual development.