new collaboration

Ok, so I haven’t updated in a while.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the performance of Memory due to complications on the LIRR from the noreaster we experienced that weekend.  I did however, watch the footage from the roving camera online and it was amazing.  I am very upset that I didn’t get to be a part of that performance.  So, kudos to all of my classmates and professors for a job well-done!

Now, on to the next project…

In class, Raquel came up with the idea of Territory as a theme for our next collaborative project.  Since that class, the idea has expanded into Boundaries, which is essentially the same thing as our originial concept.  We also discussed potential collaborators (Beth thinks that she can get a group from South Africa to join.  I’m very extremely excited about that.)  Tam’s friend from Italy would be willing to collaborate with her again on another flute-graphic art piece that she’s already working on.  This is comporised of two parts ( melodic depictions of the Tora and Qu’uaran).  With everything that’s been going on claiming territory in that part of the world, I find this very appropriate for our theme. Raquel wanted to connect with someone she knows in Brazil and Jason might be able to hook up with people in Texas.  This is a lot of potential connections going on, however I believe Tom said we  can have 4.  Ideally, I would like to broadcast live on the web.  So, if all of our collaborations end up working, here’s what this will look like:

1- Broadcast

2- South Africa

3- Italy

4- Brazil

5- Texas

Obviously, that’s more than 4.  But, as these things usually go, we might be down one connection as we draw closer to the performance, or we could use one of the connections to connect to a different collaborator, or what have you.  The possibilities are endless, really.  In terms of projectors, I think we wanted to have 3 or 4, sort of creating boundaries by the screens that would be set up to project on.  We discussed projecting on the floor, and we discussed projecting onto bodies wrapped in white material, or holding the screen, that would move and distort the image.  I think this is a really cool idea.

 

We also discussed the boundaries of different musical style, period, genre and what gives a piece that identity of belonging to a definite group.  I brought up the idea by saying “What would happen if you took a piece from Mozart and added a blue note to it?” Tom said, “You would have PDQ Bach.”  Although this is both, funny and true, it is this sort of musical boundary distortion that I would like to explore in our next project.  Obviously, not limited to classical and blues, but what if you took something reminiscent of Gershwin’s “Cheek to Cheek” and made it into a rap, or rock song, or even if you added African drumming?  It has now crossed the boundaries of a pop standard and become something else.

 

Sony also mentioned the music building and the practice rooms as having physical boundaries, but also impose sort of societal and musical boundaries.  This is a topic that we are discussing in one of our other classes with Dr. Elliott and I believe that we can further explore this concept through this performance.  What sort of society is created in the music building and what are the social norms of the practice rooms?  What other interpersonal boundaries are created by practicing in a confined space, but surrounded by other people doing the same thing.  I just watched a documentary where there were probably over 100 Venezuelan children all practicing their instruments outside, amongst everyone else, practicing solely their music.  How does this differ from the way that we practice and feel about other people watching us practice, even though we know that they can hear us?

            Those are  some of the ideas that we put forth the other night.  This should be very interesting, so we’ll see where this goes from here and what new developments we can come up with next class.

written at 11:00 AM March 14

Yesterday was the tech setup rehearsal for our Memory performance.   Some new developments have unfolded since my last blog, mainly that I am performing with Sony.  I haven’t had a lot of time with this piece, so I’m a little worried.  Sony and I had a couple of rehearsals and changed some things around.  Even though we’re very lax about the whole thing, I’m still worried about butchering a piece when the composer is sitting at the piano.  That could be extremely embarrassing.   Now, we have Jee Yung dancing for the piece, so that will be very cool.  She will start out in the blackbox with us and then move to an off screen camera in the lobby.  That will act as sort of the memory of her from the blackbox.  I’m excited for that, I just hope that Sony and I can get a little rehearsal time, or at least that I can get some time to warm up and mull over the piece pretty thoroughly.  It’s a short piece and I would really like to do it from memory… how appropriate.

            Yesterday, the somewhat empty black box theatre turned into a huge mess of computers, VDA’s monitors, cameras, wires, cables, tape, ladders, screens, projectors and what ever else we could put in there.  It was pretty intense.  We made a connection with both Colorado and Korea and it took us a while to work out the kinks.  I think that we still have more to work out today.  I’m going to have to sew the openings in the spandex screens closed.  For most of the performance, I’ll be operating camera 3.  I have no trouble with that at all. 

I can tell that this is going to be a long one, thanks in part to setting the clocks ahead one hour, but mostly because of the fact that we will be there for at least 12 hours today.  Well, maybe I’ll only be there for 11 hours, as I sit here and wait on a westbound train that has been delayed for the third time.  Maybe our next project can be an ode to MTA, the bane of my existence.  I could write a piece entitled My 4 Hour Commute.  

last class before performance

So, Memory stars this weekend.  What a way to kick off spring break.  I’m glad that other people have stepped in to help out with everything, especially people who have done this before.  I think it is extremely valuable to have people who have experience doing this tech thing especially since I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed.  At least now, if the screen goes black, there will be less chaos, or maybe more… either way, I feel better.  I think that I’ll be operating a camera for the majority of the performance, which is something that I actually do feel comfortable with.  If I had to work the mixer or the switch, I might go out of my mind.  Maybe for the next performance.  I have worked a sound board before, but this is a little more involved than a high school musical.  I don’t think I’m quite ready for that responsibility.  Hopefully, we will hash out a lot of stuff in class tonight.  Maybe a little field trip to the blackbox? That would prove helpful.  My shoe thing didn’t quite pan out the way that I would have liked.  Mostly because I couldn’t procure a working camera.  I borrowed my dad’s cheap-o digital camera yesterday and started to take some pictures. I’m also trying to use some pictures from my library.  This camera doesn’t take the best video, and the logistics don’t quite work out, so I’ll deal with the stills for now.

post date blog- 1 wk

As our performance draws nearer, I can’t help but feel worried.  Part of this, might be the fact that I can not stay after class, so I’m a little left out of the meetings.  I don’t know if Sony is still performing his piece because of the whole problem with Italy and if he is, am I performing with him?  I’m a little disappointed that Denu isn’t collaborating with us anymore.  That man is certainly a character.  We have yet to set up the blackbox theatre.  I have never even been in there before, so I’m sure this will be interesting.  I am anxious to see how everything will look when it is set up and exactly how things are going to flow between scenes and even what the scenes will look like.  Not only are we not exactly sure how things on our side will pan out, but we have no idea what things are going to come out of Colorado or Korea.  This is the most exciting to me.  I feel like it is going to be one conglomerate mess of dance, music and art.  I guess the motto for this entire project should be “go with the flow.”  I feel like my participation is considerably lacking on this project.  I would like to offer more on our next, I guess smaller, project.  I still feel like I’m getting my bearings on this Memory project.  I would like to offer something visually.  I have this idea about shoes and how they hold the memories of where a person has been.  I don’t know if I want to make a movie of people walking or something like that or if I want to take still pictures and put them together to create something.  We’ll see how this develops as the week unfolds. 

project 2

I've been thinking a lot about progress lately. This might not have to do with memory, but I believe that there are some ties.

More specifically, I've been thinking about the relationship between progress and history.

There are many different kinds of progress and if asked, I don't believe that two people would have the same answer. However, I do believe that there is some general understanding that progress generally refers to some sort of forward motion, or advancement. Progress usually has some sort of positive connotation, not generally referred to in a negative way. There is scientific progress, technological progress, and social progress. Then there is the term "progress trap", which I found to be generally associated with environmental issues. "The progress trap" occurs when societies unintentionally create problems, through their own innovation, that they do not possess the means to solve, in turn impeding or preventing further progress.

Now, history and progress is the thing that really gets me. If progress is a forward, linear motion as so often perceived, showing improvements and advancements through time, then how is it that we often hear the old saying, "history repeats itself." Granted, Western culture, as well as other cultures have advanced greatly in the way of technology and science, but historical progress? I believe this has to do with society. It is seen in fashion, in politics, in the arts, a hearken back to some older time. When did society stop progressing? I am not saying that there was never advancement in society. Every 20 or so years things seem to repeat...wars, stock market crashes . Is this inevitable, predestined? Maybe it's just that people can only see what has been laid out for them and follow the paths of their ancestors, only doing what has been done in the past. Taking something old and branding it "new and improved".

Perhaps, 20 years is a long enough time that people have kept all of the fond memories that they have stored of a time period and discarded all of the unwanted ones. Sort of how "oldies" stations play the hit songs of whatever decade they chose and not the ones that didn't really make it, leading parents to tell their children, "our music" was so much better than yours.

Perhaps people need to reevaluate their idea of progress. Either that it is something that moves cyclically, rather than linearly, or to act on the definition already in place of progression. To improve, create something new, something better, perhaps steering the wheel of history, rather than riding it.

As the deadline for our project draws nearer, I've been thinking a lot about the word memory and the different types of memory that exist. Of course, we have been comparing the human memory to technological memory, but I've been thinking more about perspective and more specifically dreams.

Perspective on a memory can vary over time and from consciousness to subconsciousness.  Dreams are basically a memory that is altered by our subconscious.  Whatever we want that memory to mean to us is how we view it in our dreams.  A dream can be a memory, exactly how we experienced it, or can exist in fragments, as a catalyst of events for the rest of the dream.  

There are also memories that we choose to forget and those that reoccur, whether we want them to or not.  There are also the memories that we forget and are triggered, maybe many years later by our senses.  I experienced this recently at an arboretum on Long Island.  I had completely forgotten I had been there as a child.  As I walked the trails, I had no recollection of the day until I walked through a house onto a wrap around porch that looked out onto the Connetquot River.  I was suddenly 6 years old again.  When I walked through the branches of the giant willow tree, among the hundreds of carvings, I saw a heart, bearing the names of my aunt and uncle, who had accompanied  me to the arboretum that day.  This gave my vague memory validity.

This also brings me to another point.  If a memory changes over time, then what validates it?  Another person's account of the story, a scene, a picture, a sound, a smell?  Things that can validate a memory could also be the same things that can discredit it.  How often do people argue over details of a specific event?

There are also big events that impact a wide range of people, such as the assassination of JFK or 9/11.  Everyone has a different memory of the event that they can specifically recall.  Often, people are asked "Where were you when...?"  Showing that memory has a specific place in our lives, in society and in history.

Can we call this a variation on a memory?  A collective memory that varies from person to person.

I hope to develop these ideas a little more as we delve further and further into this project

2nd entry

I'm running a little behind on my blog entries, so I'm going to get a lot into this one. The first thing I'd like to comment on is our experiment with Cisco a couple of weeks ago. I think that the communication system is great for the purpose it it was invented for. I can see that it can be very useful for board meetings and things of that nature. The latency isn't very bad when you compare it to things like skype or ichat, however we were only about 2 blocks away from eachother during this experiment. I don't know what the latency would be like across the country or throughout the world. The downside to the Cisco communication system is that it is extremely costly to set up and use. There is a great deal of equipment that is needed that a small business or school, as portrayed in the tv commercial, would not be able to afford. For our purposes, if we had a system set up in the blackbox theatre it could be a good system of communication. It would be even better, if we could set up multiple cameras for use with the Cisco system. I realize that this is new, and just as all technology, it will take a while to come out with something less expensive, and more accessable to the public. If Cisco, or another company could come up with the same technology that is less expensive or maybe even portable, like an upgraded version of skype, I think it would do very well.

Now for my second point,

I visited the Guggenheim last week and saw the exhibit that Prof. Gilbert had mentioned, Memory by Anish Kapoor.  The exhibit was amazing. It consisted of a giant, almost egg-shaped, steel structure.  There were three possible viewing points to see the structure, however the entirety of the structure could not be viewed from any such point.  This forces the viewer to put the entire structure together in their mind, not the way that it actually looks, but obviously, the way that they remember it.  

Another interesting piece I saw at the Guggenheim, is a sort of human-interaction piece by Tino Sehgal entitled "This Progress".  When I entered the building with friends and walked toward the rotunda ramp, We waere greeted by a young girl who asked us to define progress.  We walked up the spiraling while I was searching for a definition, then she disappeared and I was greeted by a girl who was about 20.  She lead us to refine our definition as we walked on until we met a man who I presume was in his 30's and the girl disappeared.  He asked us if we felt that we were getting more boring as we grew older.  He too disappeared and a woman in her 50's walked with us to the top of the ramp and told us a story of a man who planted vegetables in the planters of an office building.  He harvested the vegetables and gave them to homeless people that he found on the street.  The strangest fact of all of this, was that no one in the building had noticed.  The woman then told us the title of the piece, This Progress. 

This lead me to think about "progress" in terms of technology.  The first instinct that we had when we first asked "What is progress?" was to think in terms of inventions or to things moving linearly, generally in a positive direction.  By the end, the term became more ambiguous.  

I thought about our class.  Although, the framework of the course is to learn technology, the purpose of the technology is to interact on a very human level.  We are attempting to communicate and to collaborate using specific technology (something new) to perform in the arts (something old).