Dirty Electronics @ DigitalLab

I just spent two days with inspiring sound artist John Richards (Dirty Electronics) and an amazing group of dance artists at The Place. The intention was to explore some entry points into the creative use of electronic and digital media from the perspectives of our individual choreographic interests and processes. The workshop began by making a simple electronic instrument.  There was something very satisfying about physically making these sound objects and about gaining an understanding of their mechanical workings. Although very basic and raw, the instruments needed to be handled with great attention to detail and could easily break. In small groups we then devised some performance materials. Starting the process from the workbench seemed to have influenced us in wanting to keep all of this information visible and transparent when making creative choices. I was reminded of my passion for the many ideas that have emerged in the works of minimalist composers over the last decades and the DIY philosophy that often comes with these.

Pictured dance artists Anders Duckworth and Evangelia Kolyra
 

Touch Wood Sharing

Come to our sharing at The Place / Touch Wood on Friday 18th September, 7.30pm. Stephen Moynihan, Aaron Markwell and Richard Court will perform a short extract of our new work in progress entitled 'Tracing Gestures'. In this work a range of visual media are used by the performers to trace each other's movements. We will show an excerpt using video recording and projection, which will be follwed by a charcoal drawing performance. I am very interested to see how these two very different media can be connected to bring the audience closer to the negotiations that take place between the dancers, and to the images that are being created alongside. Let us know what you think!

To book tickets (£5) click here

Rehearsing at South East Dance Studios:

Drawing without looking

In our process we are most of the time not looking at the visual art work while it is created. We use other methods that include touch and proprioception. Here are some interesting work by visual artist Claude Heath entitled Epstein's Hands Sequence (1999, Ink and blutack on mylar film, 150 x 60 cms), and some thoughts by writer Tom Lubbock about drawing blind.

  “Drawing from touch carries a quite different body of knowledge from drawing by eye. There is no light or shade, for one thing - a big difference, because even in the most linear eye-drawing light and shade make themselves felt. And even though the object may be presented from a particular aspect, there is no angle of vision in the visual sense. An object seen always has a profile, a visible edge, the line of its shape as it stands out silhouetted against the world behind it. An object felt has any number of contours running over its surface, but none of them has the special status of this profile.

Or again, in any view of an object there is large amount of that object's surface that cannot be seen. There's its far side, its back. There's whatever of its near side is concealed behind some other part of it. Drawing by eye always deals with these restricted visibilities. But drawing from touch has no such limits. It has no prejudice in favour of near side over far side, or in front of over behind. It deals indiscriminately with the whole tangible surface. On paper, all contours superimpose in confusion.”

(Tom Lubbock discussing Claude Heath’s work entitled Epstein’s Hands Sequence/ The Independent, Don’t Look Now , 08/10/2002)