June 7, 2006

A Dance Vocabulary for Performance Art

On the Networked Performance blog I came across an interesting write-up about a multimedia and performance art work by Ursula Endlicher.

For this installation, "Website Impersonations: The Amazons (.at versus .com)," Ursula creates a movement vocabulary that corresponds to the underlying HTML code of a webpage. You can watch a video that shows exactly how users interact with this art work (QuickTime video file is about 27 MB):

A user sits down on top of a giant trackball as they watch two side-by-side projection screens positioned in the corner of a room. One image is projected of a performer whose movements reflect the HTML code for Amazon.com while on the other screen the performer's movements reflect the HTML code for Amazon.at. The code is generated in real-time from a live Internet connection. By moving one's butt to roll the trackball, users can determine the position of the cursor and thus the corresponding movements that appear on screen. Here's a diagram of the installation set-up and a larger version of these technical requirements are available on Ursula's site:

I think that the online presentation of this installation would be enhanced if there were a separate movement vocabulary gallery that showed, in a visual fashion, the specific connections between HTML code and the individual movements. For example, what are the specific series of movements made by a performer when he or she encounters a tag for the beginning of an HTML table? By creating this video-based movement vocabulary library, both online and in-person audiences would have a better understanding of the inner workings of this installation and would likely enjoy it more.

Ursula Endlicher will be showing her work this Saturday, June 10th at 7:00 PM at 315 Broadway, 5th Floor (between Duane/ Thomas Street) in Lower Manhattan.

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