Friday, October 8, 2010

VANESSA DAOU | Degrees of Freedom, Gravity & Spontaneous Sculptures @ SVA — LECTURE TEXT

Impromptu sculptures made by students of Suzanne Anker's Digital Sculpture class following my lecture/discussion "Degrees of Freedom", an analysis of the language of Dance as it relates to Sculpture:

"Degrees of Freedom"

MAIN DISCUSSION POINTS:

    ▪    Degrees of Freedom (Lecture text)
    ▪    The Scientific Method
    ▪    Jack Kerouac: BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
    ▪    Resistance, Freedom
    ▪    Martha Graham: movement, energy, motivation
    ▪    Motion, movement, momentum, motivation
    ▪    Bill T. Jones: "labor, work and action"

    ▪    Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky
    ▪    William Forsythe: structure & visualization
    ▪    Michelangelo’s "Unfinished" Slaves
    ▪    Yvonne Rainer: The Mind is a Muscle
    ▪    Wallace Stevens: Anecdote of the Jar
    ▪    Trisha Brown: moves, measures
    ▪    Kenneth Koch: One Train May Hide Another
    ▪    Emily Coates @ Yale: Dance and academia
    ▪    Antony Gormley: body as instrument
    ▪    Anne Carson: The Physicality of Poetry
    ▪    Robin Rhode: mind in motion
    ▪    Soft Sculpture [PDF]

    ▪    Gravity   
    ▪    'Joe Sent Me' & the Hidden Language of the Body
    ▪    Vanessa Daou's Essentials for the Artist





Resistance, FreedomWherever there's freedom, there's resistance.


re·sist

–verb (used with object)
 
1. to withstand, strive against, or oppose: to resist infection; to resist temptation.

2. to withstand the action or effect of: to resist spoilage.

3. to refrain or abstain from, esp. with difficulty or reluctance: They couldn't resist the chocolates.
–verb (used without object)
4. to make a stand or make efforts in opposition; act in opposition; offer resistance.


 

Origin:
1325–75;  ME resisten  (v.) < L resistere  to remain standing, equiv. to re- re-  + sistere  to cause to stand, akin to stāre  to stand

 

Resistance & Freedom are themes heavily explored in both Dance & Sculpture due to the inherent FLEXIBILITY & PLASTICITY of materials

 

I want to talk today about resistance.

The root word comes from the Latin, to remain standing.

To remain standing is a physical act, but beyond that, it's a symbolic one.


To take a stand - to make a stand - is to take a position for or against something: often, it's a moral act.

To remain standing is both the starting point and the end point for the Dancer.

Whereas gravity is the constant, to remain standing is the variable. 


Every Dancer - when engaged in the physical act of dancing - flirts at the precipice, at the edge of Physics and Mystery, of Imagination and Materiality

How many of you here have studied Dance?

Dance is the only art that uses the body as the primary vehicle of communication

It merges principles of Physics, Psychology & Philosophy


There are many reasons why it's the least studied of all the arts, and that's a topic for another conversation



And I hope that after today some of you will be intrigued by the possibilities of studying Dance as a way of broadening the language of your sculpture making


We all understand the concept of 'freedom' in making our art, and today I'm more interested in 'resistance'

For the dancer, the starting and end goal is to remain standing

It's a physical act, and beyond that, it can be a symbolic one

At its core it's a form of protest

It's sometimes a defiant act


Standing requires balance, and where there is balance, there is equilibrium

Whereas balance is an external attribute, which can be measured and discerned, as a scale does, equilibrium is internal, an inner state of being which is felt and cannot be measured

To master equilibrium is something the dancer does on and off stage

There's a constant awareness of the physical capacity of the body - an understanding of its thresholds


On stage, there's an awareness of space, of place, of purpose - an awareness of architecture as it relates to self

This deep rooted understanding gives the dancer a unique and heightened perspective

For the Dancer, the movement of the body is inextricably tied to that of the mind

Friday, October 1, 2010

Degrees of Freedom


"In mechanics, degrees of freedom (DOF) are the set of independent displacements and/or rotations that specify completely the displaced or deformed position and orientation of the body or system." Wikipedia


 


RoboticsResearch



 

The Scientific Method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[3] 
Wikipedia

  1. Problem/Question  
  2. Observation/Research  
  3. Formulate a Hypothesis  
  4. Experiment  
  5. Collect and Analyze Results  
  6. Conclusion  
  7. Communicate the Results




     

    Link

Jack Kerouac: BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE


1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven


Resistance, Freedom

re·sist
–verb (used with object)
 
1. to withstand, strive against, or oppose: to resist infection; to resist temptation.
2. to withstand the action or effect of: to resist spoilage.
3. to refrain or abstain from, esp. with difficulty or reluctance: They couldn't resist the chocolates.
–verb (used without object)
4. to make a stand or make efforts in opposition; act in opposition; offer resistance.

Origin:

1325–75;  ME resisten  (v.) < L resistere  to remain standing, equiv. to re- re-  + sistere  to cause to stand, akin to stāre  to stand







 


Martha Graham: movement, energy, motivation

"There's always one person to whom you speak in the audience, one." Martha Graham





"I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements . . . I wanted significant movement. I did not want it to be beautiful or fluid. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge." Martha Graham


MARTHA GRAHAM
"Lamentation"
Herta Moselsio
"Lamentation,"ca. summer 1937
Silver gelatin prints 


"Martha Graham's impact on dance was staggering and often compared to that of Picasso's on painting, Stravinsky's on music, and Frank Lloyd Wright's on architecture. Her contributions transformed the art form, revitalizing and expanding dance around the world. In her search to express herself freely and honestly, she created the Martha Graham Dance Company, one of the oldest
dance troupes in America. As a teacher, Graham trained and inspired generations of fine dancers and choreographers. Her pupils included such greats as Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, and countless other performers, actors, and dancers. She collaborated with some of the foremost artists of her time including the composer Aaron Copland and the sculptor Isamu Noguchi." Link



Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer
Title: Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer
Medium; TechniqueBronze
CultureGreek
PeriodHellenistic
Date3rd–2nd century B.C.
DimensionsH. 8 1/16 in. (20.5 cm)



Motion, movement, momentum, motivation




mo·tion (mshn)

n.

1. The act or process of changing position or place.
2. A meaningful or expressive change in the position of the body or a part of the body; a gesture.
3. Active operation: set the plan in motion.
4. The ability or power to move: lost motion in his arm.
5. The manner in which the body moves, as in walking.
6. A prompting from within; an impulse or inclination: resigned of her own motion.
7. Music Melodic ascent and descent of pitch.
8. Law An application made to a court for an order or a ruling.
9. A formal proposal put to the vote under parliamentary procedures.
10. a. A mechanical device or piece of machinery that moves or causes motion; a mechanism.
b. The movement or action of such a device.


movement [ˈmuːvmənt]
n.

1.a. The act or an instance of moving; a change in place or position.
b. A particular manner of moving.
2. A change in the location of troops, ships, or aircraft for tactical or strategic purposes.
3. a. A series of actions and events taking place over a period of time and working to foster a principle or policy: a movement toward world peace.
    b. An organized effort by supporters of a common goal: a leader of the labor movement.
4. A tendency or trend: a movement toward larger kitchens.
5. A change in the market price of a security or commodity.
6. a. An evacuation of the bowels.
    b. The matter so evacuated.
7. The suggestion or illusion of motion in a painting, sculpture, or design.
8. The progression of events in the development of a literary plot.
9. The rhythmical or metrical structure of a poetic composition.
10. Music A self-contained section of an extended composition.
11. A mechanism, such as the works of a watch, that produces or transmits motion.


momentum [məʊˈmɛntəm]
n pl -ta [-tə], -tums

1. (Physics / General Physics) Physics the product of a body's mass and its velocity. Symbol p See also angular momentum
2. (Physics / General Physics) the impetus of a body resulting from its motion
3. driving power or strength
[from Latin: movement; see moment]


motivation [ˌməʊtɪˈveɪʃən]
n
1. the act or an instance of motivating
2. desire to do; interest or drive
3. incentive or inducement
4. (Psychology) Psychol the process that arouses, sustains and regulates human and animal behaviour
motivational  adj
motivative  adj

Bill T. Jones: "labor, work and action"



"Ghostcatching is a digital art installation that fuses dance, drawing, and computer composition. Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar created the visual and sound composition; Bill T. Jones created and performed the dance and vocal phrases. Seven minutes long, the piece is a meditation on the act of being captured and of breaking free. 

Ghostcatching finds its place in the unexpected intersection of dance, drawing, and computer composition. The work is made possible by advances in motion capture, a technology that tracks sensors attached to a moving body. The resulting data files reflect the position and rotation of the body in motion, without preserving the performer's mass or musculature. Thus, movement is extracted from the performer’s body. 

"Captured phrases become the building blocks for the virtual composition. As data, the phrases can be edited, re-choreographed, and staged for a digital performance in the 3D space of the computer. 
"Here, the body of Bill T. Jones is multiplied into many dancers, who perform as three-dimensional drawings. Their anatomies are intertwinings of drawn strokes, which are in fact painstakingly modeled as geometry on the computer — never drawn on paper. 

"So, we may ask: What is human movement in the absence of the body? Can the drawn line carry the rhythm, weight, and intent of physical movement? What kind of dance do we conceive in this ghostly place, where enclosures, entanglements, and reflections vie with the will to break free"

from the Artists’ Statement by Bill T. Jones, Paul Kaiser, and Shelley Eshkar
For a more detailed account of Ghostcatching, see the catalogue essay Steps



fragment from 'Breathing Show' 

"Don't be afraid to fall off balance." Bill T Jones, vocal fragment from 'Breathing Show' [ video below]







"After Ghostcatching began as an updating of Ghostcatching, the 1999 installation piece created with Bill T. Jones, but the work took on a new existence as the possibilities of 3D projection led deeper into the original terrain.





A re-envisioning of Ghostcatching (1999), After Ghostcatching is built up from the same motions and vocalizations of Bill T. Jones used in the earlier work, but explores the themes of disembodiment and identity with the new possibilities opened up by 3D projection and a custom 3D renderer built up in Field

OpenEnded Group





 

Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky


"The apt use of a word (in its poetical meaning), repetition of this word, twice, three times or even more frequently, according to the need of the poem, will not only tend to intensify the inner harmony but also bring to light unsuspected spiritual properties of the word itself. Further than that, frequent repetition of a word (again a favourite game of children, which is forgotten in after life) deprives the word of its original external meaning. Similarly, in drawing, the abstract message of the object drawn tends to be forgotten and its meaning lost. Sometimes perhaps we unconsciously hear this real harmony sounding together with the material or later on with the non- material sense of the object. But in the latter case the true harmony exercises a direct impression on the soul. The soul undergoes an emotion which has no relation to any definite object, an emotion more complicated, I might say more super- sensuous than the emotion caused by the sound of a bell or of a stringed instrument. This line of development offers great possibilities to the literature of the future. In an embryonic form this word-power-has already been used in SERRES CHAUDES. [Footnote: SERRES CHAUDES, SUIVIES DE QUINZE CHANSONS, par Maurice Maeterlinck. Brussels. Lacomblez.] As Maeterlinck uses them, words which seem at first to create only a neutral impression have really a more subtle value. Even a familiar word like "hair," if used in a certain way can intensify an atmosphere of sorrow or despair. And this is Maeterlinck's method. He shows that thunder, lightning and a moon behind driving clouds, in themselves material means, can be used in the theatre to create a greater sense of terror than they do in nature."

William Forsythe: structure & visualization



"[O]n his 1999 "Improvisation Technologies" CD-ROM, Forsythe provides a hands-on guide to the approach he uses to create different types of movements. His methodology is grounded in using geometric shapes such as points, lines and three-dimensional forms to help dancers develop their own improvisational practice. And each of the video explanations includes overlain animated graphics to help dancers visualize each example.
 
Here are two video examples that provide a glimpse into Forsythe's methodology. The first video illustrates how to create arm movements by extruding lines from points" Great Dance


Forsythe-Lines-Point point line-2-Extrusion



Forsythe-Lines-Complex Operations-3-Dropping Curves










William Forsythe - Solo





slideshow












Synchronous Objects

Synchronous Objects reveals the interlocking systems of organization in William Forsythe's ensemble dance

One Flat Thing, reproduced through a series of objects that work in harmony to explore its choreographic structures and reimagine what else they might look like.

Michelangelo’s "Unfinished" Slaves



Yvonne Rainer: The Mind is a Muscle




 









MoMA: "Trio A is a well-known dance sequence by Yvonne Rainer. Since its first presentation in 1966 as part of the larger performance The Mind is a Muscle, Part 1 at Judson Memorial Church in New York, it has been performed repeatedly in various forms and contexts by dancers and non dancers alike. The piece comprises a sequence of unpredictable movements that unfold in a continuous motion, deliberately opposing familiar dance patterns of development and climax. Trio A is performed at MoMA by Pat Catterson, a professional dancer, and Jimmy Robert and Ian White, two visual artists and nondancers, in front of a projection of a historical recording of Rainer's own 1978 performance of the piece."



"Rainer's work has been linked strongly with minimalist sculpture: she compared the neutral, specific qualities of those objects to her own "work-like" or "task-like," "ordinary" dance, and she collaborated early on with Robert Morris. But The Mind is a Muscle manifests an agitated and contradictory relationship to the idea of "work" in the context of an affluent, postwar America. Wood describes the way the choreography of The Mind is a Muscle proposed a new lexicon of movement that stripped away the gestural conventions of dance or theater narrative in an attempt to present the human subject on her own terms while at the same time manipulating the seductiveness of the image, increasingly being harnessed by capitalism. Rainer's legacy persists through her decision to allow the Trio A from The Mind is a Muscle as a "multiple," distributed by being taught to many dancers and non-dancers, proposing, Wood argues, for the art object as code."
Catherine Wood,
MIT Press



Yvonne Rainer and 'Martha Graham' (Richard Move) in 'Trio A'



Wallace Stevens: Anecdote of the Jar


Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Trisha Brown: moves, measures

Trisha Brown

If you couldn't see me (1994)
 The Joyce Theater, NYC, 2008


If you couldn't see me (1994) 02:01
The Joyce Theater, NYC, 2008
CREDITS
Choreography by Trisha Brown
Music and Costume: Robert Rauschenberg
Lighting: Spencer Brown with Robert Rauschenberg
Performer: Leah Morrison
Video: The Joyce Theater, NYC
February 10, 2008



Like Sculptures Constantly in Flux 

By CLAUDIA LA ROCCO

Flux and solidity vie in "Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503" (1980), in which four performers slip and tangle through the shimmering, decentralized space created by Fujiko Nakaya’s “cloud sculpture,” a roiling bank of machine-generated fog backlighted by Beverly Emmons’s warm lighting design.

Seen in Dia:Beacon's cavernous basement, the work’s spooky, otherworldly qualities came to the fore. Ms. Brown is adept at subverting traditional notions of how choreography develops; much like the misty cloud, the dancers momentarily cohered into larger, shared themes, only to melt away along individual trajectories"


Accumulation with Talking plus Water Motor- Trisha Brown


"With 1978's Accumulation with Talking plus Water Motor, a complex solo combining elements of three other pieces, she demonstrated a mental and physical virtuosity seldom seen in the dance world, then or now. Brown's rigorous structures, combined with pedestrian or simple movement styles and tongue-in-cheek humor brought an intellectual sensibility that challenged the mainstream "modern dance" mindset of this period." Wikipedia








Trisha Brown


ARTseenSOHO: Free Measures: drawings

"Trisha Brown has played a vital role in contemporary American choreography for over thirty-five years. Begun as private notations, many of her drawings contribute to her choreographic process. As she puts it, drawing "sits in the air between me and my dancers..." In turn, she has come to see choreography as a kind of drawing. "Whether they are in air or on paper, it's a whole other vista of possibility, another way of thinking about the body moving in space that frees me up to do things I would never think of doing in dance." - paraphrased from an essay by Hendel Teicher, who organized the exhibition.




Karin Davie with Joan Waltemath


"On the occasion of her traveling mini-survey featuring 41 paintings, drawings, and sculptures, which began last month on February 23rd at the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, Rail contributing editor Joan Waltemath visited Karin Davie’s Lower East Side studio to discuss her life and work.

Rail: When I first saw your paintings I understood that you were painting stripes as a genre though you had made a great deal of references to Trisha Brown. Could you elaborate more on that?
Karin Davie, “Between My Eye and Heart No. 18”
84" by 108", oil/canvas, 2005. 
Courtesy: Mary Boones Gallery, New York.

Davie: Well, I‘ve always been interested in her work because of the way she dealt with the mechanics of the body, the edges and where they lie, the sense of natural gravity that she uses and defies at the same time, and how she was able to extend all of that beyond the boundary of the stage, out of the concert hall into other alternative spaces like rooftops and walls as well as gallery spaces."

Kenneth Koch: One Train May Hide Another

One Train May Hide Another
Kenneth Koch
(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line--
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
     Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another--one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath
     may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple--this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by
     the mother's
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love
     or the same love
As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"
Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the
     Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading
    A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the
     foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It
     can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.


Link 

Emily Coates @ Yale: Dance and academia


"...she launched into an explanation of how the dancer’s use of sneakers the second time around recalled the birth of postmodernism, and her words, as always, revealed that thought is inseparable from dance."

"Since coming to Yale — first as an undergraduate, now as the artistic director of the World Performance Project and a lecturer in theater studies — Emily Coates has sought to unite these worlds. ... Performance and academia. Dancing and thinking. In each case, Yale, like other Ivies, has traditionally embraced the second and excluded the first.


...

Students and professors offer many theories as to why the Ivy League has resisted dance in the curriculum, ranging from an ingrained conservatism that values classics over modern and interdisciplinary fields to the historical division between the university and the conservatory. But dance historians and experts in performance studies point to two main factors: dance’s status as a traditionally female pursuit, and more importantly, how dance, as an art form rooted in the body, is at odds with a Cartesian mind-body dualism that privileges mental activity as the basis of academia. With a history as all-male institutions that value intellect, the Ivies have been naturally inhospitable to dance, whose peculiar bodily nature sets it apart from other art forms. As Roach notes, "Where you have a text as in drama or music, where you have a printed artifact, it’s easier to see how it can fit in with subjects such as French literature and history."