e-Dance project

Last week I (Sita) was in Dresden, Germany, as a guest presenter at the Post Me_New ID Forum (31st October-2nd November 2008).  The Forum web site describes this international gathering of academics and professional artists as “a platform for reflection on how we are creatively and socially engaged in digital networks, how we perform our online and offline identities, how we have become plural and variable post human bodies.” The site includes a full record of the event, and an active blog.

The event was held at Hellerau (above), once the workspace of such performance visionaries as Mary Wigman (dance) and Adolphe Appia (scenography).  

The first day of the Forum was devoted to discussions around the topic of “Networked Creations”.  Yacov Sharir gave a keynote presentation, following which I conducted a public ‘conversation’ with the Australian choreographer Hellen Sky.  We discussed the fluid and expanding body in digital performance, and we explored how networked creative processes and identities are characterised by fragmentation, partial attention, and notions of ‘becoming’.  It was very interesting to hear Hellen Sky referencing her extensive background in telematic performance with her group Company in Space.

The following day explored “Multi-identities”, and Steve Dixon gave an excellent keynote on the ‘digital double’ in performance.  He proposed four categories:

1. Mirror double – the emergence of the self-reflexive technological self
2. Alter-ego – the dark doppleganger, the schizophrenic self
3. Spiritualised emanation – the transcendent, mystical conception of the virtual body
4. Manipulable mannequin – the replacement body; body of a synthetic being

These might be useful terms for e-Dance to consider in relation to the way in which we experience our ‘selves’ through Access Grid technologies.