Digital Cultures Lab

 

Video Programme

 

curated by Nuria Font

 

presented Saturday, December 2, as part of the Sandfield Centre Dance Concert

 

Nuria Font, video maker and director of the Mostra de VideoDansa in Barcelona will present a selection of dance videos/films in which digital media play an integral part. Each work formalises a different way of thinking and manipulating the body and movement using digital tools to create a dance film.

As a starting point, she would like to re-visit a work made by Joan Pueyo in the early 90s. While in terms of technology this was still very much the analogue period, Pueyo¹s intention was similar to that of the authors of the works that used here to illustrate the digital era. In order to produce this work, Joan had to work a lot harder and invest a lot more financial resources to achieve the results that we can see in Maria Muñoz than he would have needed to if, in a flash of intuition, he could have looked into the future and waited ten years to be able to work with the systems that exist now. By presenting these works, Font's aim is to show that ideas aren¹t necessary linked to the machines or materials that make the works possible, and discuss some of the inevitable questions that this raises:

To what extent do the ideas of artists define how technology develops? What influence do they have in helping to develop new aesthetics and new ways of composing the performative elements of works? What effects do new media have on the process and the final work? How can artists personalise these digital tools to suit their needs? This short selection of works will be a starting point to discuss some of these ideas through specific examples.

 

The Films

 

Maria Muñoz ­ Joan Pueyo ­ Spain 1993 - 5¹:

The choreography is based on a repertoire of universal gestures connected to each other and linked to a feeling or an idea. The video is both a free interpretation of this choreography and a highly subjective portrait of its creator.

Light body corpuscle ­ Antonin de Bemels ­ Belgium/Ireland 2005 - 6¹

A piece about the fragmentation of space through fragmentation of time, dissection of the body through the scattering of light. The stroboscopic alternation of different points of view creates a disrupted perception of space ant time. The body we see is multilayered, and each layer is locked in a different time-space continuum. What we see defies the rules of physics and human perception and opens a breach in reality as we know it.

Blank e-motiv ­ Konic Thtr ­ Spain 2003 - 8¹

Blank e.motive is a video reinterpretation of choreographies by Constanza Brncic using motion capture technology to create three dimensional representations, generate artificial environments and suggest formal solutions.

Nascent - Gina Czarnecki ­ Australia ­ 2005 - 10¹ Nascent is a visual and visceral journey through and about being. Images form a complex and dense rhythmic structure, stretching, smearing a and distorting Œreal¹ time. The dancers¹ gestures and bodies, poised and isolated, gradually become intertwined, indistinguishable and frenetic ­ turbulent, mutated fragments that form and reform.

Galeria de imágenes de transtornos mentales - Beatriz Sánchez - Spain ­ 2005 (demo Interactive CD rom 5¹)

A loop of 42 short experimental video pieces arranged for CD ROM, so that the user/audience can access the works as though leafing through a sketchbook. The human figure is the focus of events through movement, expressions and dance, and improvisation and a sense of the absurd are important elements of both the production and editing processes. The short videos can be defined as video performances.

 

 

 

 

For box office information, registration and performance details call:

Radiator Festival/Trampoline: Broadway 14-18 Broad St. Nottingham NG1 3AL Tel +44 (0) 115 8409272 info@radiator-festival.org

Digital Cultures Lab: Johannes Birringer Live Art/Digital Research NTU, Victoria Studios, Shakespeare St, Nottingham NG1 4BQ: +44 (0) 115 848 2282 johannes.birringer@ntu.ac.uk

 

 

Digital Cultures is supported by private-public partnerships and donations.