Bodytext

Simon Biggs (Artist), Garth Paine (Composer), Sue Hawksley (Artist)

Research output: Non-textual formPerformance

Abstract / Description of output

Bodytext is a performance work, inquiring into human and machine relations, involving speech, movement and the body. A dancer's movement and speech are re-mediated within a digitally augmented interactive environment employing real-time motion tracking, voice recognition, interpretative language systems, projection and granular audio synthesis. The acquired speech, a description of an imagined dance, is re-written through projected digital display and sound synthesis, the performer causing the texts to interact and recombine with one another through their subsequent compositional arrangement. What is written is affected by the dance whilst the emerging recombinant descriptions determine what is danced. A recursive agency is established between the human performer and the machine based environment. This work questions and seeks insight into the relations between kinaesthetic experience, memory, agency and language. Bodytext was developed whilst the artists were in residence at the Bundanon Trust, New South Wales, and the VIPRe Lab at the University of Western Sydney.

Premiered at Critical Path, Sydney, Australia as part of the SEAM 2010 festival
Performed as part of the Figures of the Visceral Conference, September 2010, Inspace, Edinburgh University, UK
Performed as part of the Dance Live Festival, October 2010, Banchory, UK
Performed as part of the Gaming the Game conference, April 2012, University of California Davis, USA
Paper presented as part of Multimodal Communication: Language, Performance and Digital Media, Lisbon, Portugal, 2013
Paper presented as part of the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art, June 2013, Sydney, Australia
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationCritical Path, Sydney, Australia (SEAM 2010 Festival); Inspace, Edinburgh, UK (Figures of the Visceral Conference); Banchory, UK (Dance Live Festival); University of California Davis, USA (Gaming the Game conference) plus 2 conference paper presentations
Media of outputOnline
Sizeindeterminate
Publication statusPublished - 15 Sept 2010
EventSEAM 2010 Festival - Sydney, Australia
Duration: 1 Sept 201130 Sept 2011

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • interactive art
  • Generative grammars
  • Dance
  • electronic music
  • granular synthesis
  • Speech recognition

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  • Bodytext essay

    Biggs, S., Hawksley, S. & Paine, G., 7 Jun 2013, p. 1-3. 3 p.

    Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

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