Touch
A live networked performance work
Randall Packer • Galina Mihaleva • Angeline Young
and students of the School of Art, Design & Media at NTU • Singapore
Thursday, April 21, 11am-12pm SGT
Performed in Singapore + Arizona = Third Space
Concept
The final project will be a live performance entitled “Touch.” In the age of social media and other forms of networked communications, how has distance challenged and reshaped our relationship to one another? No longer reliant on face-to-face to engage with one another, we now turn to our mobile devices, Facebook, text messaging to maintain contact: to “touch” one another in our everyday lives remotely and virtually. Do we now prefer the digital mode of communications in the third space?
We will explore the idea of “Touch” in all its manifestations: the heart beat, the biological system, emotion, intimacy, and the material sense of touch. This exploration of touch will draw from the loss of the physical, and how we attempt to regain the experience of human contact remotely. How do we touch each other through the network despite physical separation? The question we ask, are we losing the intimacy of face-to-face conversation and physical contact. Are we yearning for something lost? Are we entering a post-human age where emotion, contact, and intimacy is achieved primarily from a distance. Through electronic sensors integrated with garments and wearables, the performance of “Touch” will engage these ideas and manifest them through movement, expression, communication, and other forms of interaction in a distributed, networked, third space.
Logistics
The final project for Media & Performance will be a networked performance organized and directed by ADM faculty Randall Packer and Galina Mihaleva, along with guest artist Angeline Young (dancer/choreographer) from Arizona State University. The work will be performed by Angeline Young in collaboration with ADM students. The performance of the work will be networked between the iStage at ASU and the Third Space Lab at ADM, as well as live broadcasted to a worldwide audience via Web streaming. This transglobal collaboration will be staged via the creation of a virtual “third space” Internet performance network coordinated between the participating schools. The project will involve the remote interaction of wearable technologies, sensors, and textiles with dance movement, sound, and live imaging.
Each student will work collaboratively in groups on the overall concept as well as a unique component of the final project. Students are expected to independently and jointly research and conceptualize their contribution to project, whether it be a wearable, electronic interaction, or imaging, etc., as it pertains to the acoustic or visual signals, motion, or control of the media environment. The goal of the project is to collaboratively participate in the creation of a compelling audio-visual experience for a live global audience from the many artistic and technical possibilities in networking dance/movement, costume, wearables, interactive sensors, digital music, and visual media.
The final project will be created through a series of in class workshops that focus on all aspects of the production: materials, electronics, wearables, sensors, movement, live imaging, and sound. There will be two scheduled full rehearsals (with the possibility of more) and a final performance scheduled for Thursday, April 21st, the week following the conclusion of classes at NTU.
Student Groups
Students will divide intro approximately three or four collaborative groups, distributing the following tasks:
- Costumes
- Wearables & input/output sensors
- Video & Sound
- Movement
Each group will have one person who takes the lead in one of these tasks, although everyone will participate in each of the workshops in order to learn all facets of the production. It is important for the collaborative dynamic of each group that each student is focused on their own task, but has a solid understanding of all the elements of the work. We will divide into groups during the early part of the semester.
Essential criteria for the final project:
- Students will form groups with members individually responsible for the creation of garments, wearables, movement imaging, and sound.
- The project is built with materials, tools and software presented in workshops.
- Individual and collective work is to explore critical ideas drawn from our study of media, performance, wearables, fashion, and net culture.
- Students will document their work using OSS through Project Updates and three Project Hyperessay installments. Documentation will be an important aspect of process assessment.
It is expected that students will concentrate on the final project throughout the semester, with emphasis during the second half of the semester, demonstrating progress on a regular basis. Developing a good workflow is essential in media art, with so many technical issues that need to be researched, tested and resolved.
Grading
Each student will be graded based on their individual contribution to the overall project. Grading will take into account the process of creating the work: how the student was able to consistently and systematically develop their work towards the final project. Grading criteria will be based on the strength of concept, execution, and the ability of the student to engage critical issues discussed in class, to develop the work in a timely manner, to work through conceptual, aesthetic, and technical issues, and to steadily progress towards the completion of the project throughout the semester. Each stage of the project will be graded: (1) Project Hyperessays (I – III); (2) Project Updates; and (3) Final Work. In sum, the entire process of creating the work, using the Project Updates and Project Hyperessays for effective process documentation, the discussion of the work, and following through on the work’s completion and exhibition are all elements of the grade for the final project.