Soft thought (in architecture and choreography)

This article is an introduction to and exploration of the concept of ‘soft thought’. What we want to propose through the definition of this concept is an aesthetic of digital code that does not necessarily presuppose a relation with the generative aspects of coding, nor with its sensorial perception and evaluation. Numbers do not have to produce something, and do not need to be transduced into colours and sounds, in order to be considered as aesthetic objects. Starting from this assumption, our main aim will be to reconnect the numerical aesthetic of code with a more ‘abstract’ kind of feeling, the feeling of numbers indirectly felt as conceptual contagions’, that are ‘conceptually felt but not directly sensed. The following pages will be dedicated to the explication and exemplification of this particular mode of feeling, and to its possible definition as ‘soft thought’

Video recording and documentation of the performing arts: from the annotation to the visualization of metadata, the example of the Rekall software

International audienceFrom the mid 2000s, an increasing number of initiatives have explored the digitization of live performance collections. Generally these initiatives focus mainly on video recording, the most “spectacular” and easily approachable components of performance archives. Yet, it may seem simplistic to suggest the webcasting of video recordings, in whole or in part, in the midst of the possibilities offered by semantic web technologies and metadata. What are the benefits of digital technologies over the more conventional documentary method that has now become video recording? We will demonstrate how one answer lies in video recording annotation. Far from being univocal, video recording annotation has brought forward multiple approaches in the field of the performing arts. We will outline key experiments on the subject, including those led by William Forsythe, whose work has transformed video recordings from heritage materials to being a generator of digital arts, in the perspective of capturing choreography. Using Rekall software (currently under development), the goal is to expand the video annotation model to reach out to new visual possibilities of displaying the metadata underlying a heterogeneous corpus of documents associated with the same performance

Reconstructing the Present Through Kinesthetic History: An Investigation into Modes of Preserving, Transmitting, and Restaging Contemporary Dance

Methods of dance preservation have evolved alongside conceptual themes that have framed dance’s historical narrative. The tradition of written dance notation developed in accordance with notions that prioritized logocentricity, and placed historical legitimacy on tangible artifacts and irrefutable archives; whereas the technical revolution of the late twentieth century saw dance preservation practices shift to embrace film and video documentation because they provided more accessible, and more convenient records. Since the 1970s video recordings have generally been considered to provide authentic visual representations of dance works, and the tradition of score writing has begun to wane. However, scholarly criticism has unveiled both philosophical and practical challenges posed by these two modes of documentation, thus illuminating a gap between theories of embodiment and the practice of dance preservation. In alignment with contemporary discourse, which legitimizes the body as a site of generating and storing knowledge, this dissertation suggests ‘kinesthetic history’ as a valid mode of dance preservation. Operating as a counterpart to oral history, and borrowing theoretical concepts from contemporary historiography, existential phenomenology and ethnography, the term ‘kinesthetic history’ suggests a mode of corporeal inscription and transmission that relies on the reciprocal interaction of bodies in space. The use of ‘kinesthetic history’ as a methodological approach to the preservation, translation, and reconstruction of movement material reflects the elements of fluidity, plurality and subjectivity that are often characteristic of contemporary choreographic practices. This theory is interrogated through a case study, which explores the ways in which both a written and digitized score, video recordings, and the ‘kinesthetic history’ of an original cast member operated as modes of transmission in a 2013 restaging of William Forsythe’s One Flat Thing, reproduced (2000) at The Juilliard School. Conclusions drawn from the case study challenge the traditional notions of reconstruction and restaging and suggest ‘regeneration’ as an alternative term to describe the process of preserving and transmitting contemporary dance works

Visual Translation of Multi-Dimensionality: Comparisons In Physics And Dance

The fields of dance and physics both utilize tools for communication that translate movement into two-dimensional formats to share and process information in new ways. This research highlights issues surrounding this process, including: what is gained and lost in translation in both fields; the role of objectivity and subjectivity in dance and science; and what interdisciplinary research can potentially mean for advancing communication tools and shifting biases about how knowledge is valued. Both physics and dance register philosophical shifts in the twentieth century, related to the shift away from determinism and a Cartesian mind-body divide, and towards the rise of indeterminacy seen in quantum mechanics and dancemaking practices. This includes the popularization of improvisation as a choreographic method. I conceptualize modern communication tools in science and dance in terms of their relationship to time: predictive/descriptive (like scientific models and dance scores) or preservative (like apparatuses of instrumentation and notation systems). Choreographers who are using these communication tools for various purposes within their practice follow the historical examples of Merce Cunningham’s improvisation strategies, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Trisha Brown’s scores, and William Forsythe’s digital notation system, Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing Reproduced. Through investigation in the studio and the creation of a performance that showcases translation of dimensionality, my theoretical and practical research demonstrate the value of multiple forms of communication and lenses through which to make and view dance