[1] Different types of convergence have been detected by researchers in the field, e.g.
network convergence, service convergence, corporate convergence (Cuilenburg and Slaa
1993 according to Fagerjord 2002:4), rhetorical convergence (Fagerjord 2002)
[2] In Rethorical Convergens, Studying Web Media(2002) Fagerjord points to how “a
rethorical device changes when lifted to a new medium” (2002:140), and how a
convergence-perspective that is not sensitive to this difference might loose some of its
potential towards digital media e.g. the remediation-perspective put forward by Bolter &
Grusin ([1999] 2000). As will be discussed further in Chapre 4.4. on exploring theory
through practice, the remediation-perspective may be given more ambitions as analytical
tool on web-communication than what it might support. At this point, however,
Fagerjords critique of how convergence is applied in Bolter and Grusin´s Remediation
serves to illustrate the novelty of digital media studies and terminological difficulty of
convergence. Convergence may be considered a “primitive term”, that is a term applied
undefined, with a general understood meaning (Chaffe 1991 according to Broom, Casey,
Ritchey et al. 2000:6 on the term “Public Relations”).
[3] The term “sms-based” is employed by Beyer, Enli, Maasø & Ytreberg (forthcoming)
in “Small talk makes a big difference: recent developments in interactive, SMS-based
television”, Television and new media.
[4] The assertion refers to the Generator-x 2005 conference program: “Hardware is
irrelevant, software is king”. The Generator.x project is a conference, exhibition and
weblog examining the role of software and generative strategies in current digital art and
design. http://www.generatorx.no/generatorx-introduction/
[5] In Digital Media Revisited Liestøl et al. see reflexivity as an additional burdon on the
innovator: “Knowing that what one discovers depends on where one stands may lead to
knowing about oneself more than anything else” (Liestøl et al. 2003:10). Reflexivity will
be taken up in the final section 5. on the subject of post-structural inquiry and how
research is considered a cultural practice.
[6] e.g. new ways to handle reference information related to artifact and specimen
collections in disciplines such as archeology, literature, lexicography, art history (see
http://www.dok.hf.uio.no/) or new technology-related cources like “Sound for
Multimedia”, “Sound in Public Environments” and “Programming” at departments of
Music (http://www.hf.ntnu.no/hf/Musikk/studier/Musikkteknologi).
[7] e.g. Anita Hammer in “Transdisciplinarity and Theory of Theatre in the Digital
Space” (2002), suggesting a comparison between terms and theory from the liberal arts
fields of literature and theatre and a further comparison of these to approachs of the
sociological field in order to study “simultaneously interactive “places” in net net
communication”. Gunnar Liestøl calls attention to compatible features of methods in
humanities and Information Systems in “Research into the development of digital media
as an interdisciplinary field based in the scince and the humanities” (2001).
Interdisciplinary approach to humanities is institutionalised in e.g. The Department of
Art at UC Santa Barbara, which offers degrees in art and art related fields with an
emphasis in integral interdisciplinarity and holds a “Interdisciplinary Humanities Center”
(http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/)The research field “digital media arts” emphasises a strong
transdisciplinary approach in arts, science and technology collaborative research.
(http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/graduate/areas.html).
[8] Interdisciplinary studies of digital media can be found as a B.A. at The University of
Oslo, combining informatics, media studies and law and as a M.A. at Århus University,
merging information and media studies in areas such as ICT and learning, the internet
and in multi media (see http://old.imv.au.dk/eng). The Information Design and
Technology master program at Georgia Tech offers arts and humanities based advanced
study in digital media design and critique (see http://idt.lcc.gatech.edu/idt/index.php ),
while digital media studies at Florida State University, is directed towards marketing &
management communication (http://www.comm.fsu.edu/comm/g_prog.html#interact).
[9] Such distinctions can be traced back as far as Greek philosophy and the separation of
techne and episteme: Techne denotes technical know how or skill, episteme, as in
epistemology, concerns theoretical know why (e.g. Flyvbjerg 2001:56) and may be said to
be a more robust kind of knowledge in which claims can be true or false.
[10] To include and direct epistemological reflections towards both fields of learning and
research is practiced in e.g. Kjørup ([1996] 2003:25) on the epistemology of humanities
in Menneskevidenskaberne. Problemer og traditioner I humanioras videnskapsteori.
[11] Kristoffer Kjelling, fellow media student/producer of Extended
Andrew Morrison, project leader, Associate professor, InterMedia
Synne Skjulstad, course teacher, Research Fellow, InterMedia
Mia Habib, Choreographer
Jimu Makurumbandi, Choreographer
Inger Reidun Olsen, Choreographer
Emilia Bokløv, Choreographer
Toril Bernatekk, choreography teacher, KHIO
(link til Extended side)
[12] “Extended”, http://www.intermedia.uio.no/extended/
“Extended+”
http://www.intermedia.uio.no//projects/research/multimo/extendedplus_en.html
“Tapet”
http://www.intermedia.uio.no//projects/research/multimo/tapet_en.html;jsessionid=83520
E36F6278B4AEF7580E515A1568A
“Ballectro” http://www.intermedia.uio.no/ballectro/
[13] The notion of paradigm shifts derives from philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn
scientific paradigms in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) - how the
development of science hold that science enjoys periods of stable growth punctuated by
revisionary revolutions (Alexander Bird 2004 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomaskuhn/#3 23.11.05). However, the “(post)modern” notion of paradigms may also be
fruitful within humanities (Kjørup [1996] 2003) but perhaps more adequately seen as
supplementary paradigms, as humanities may operate with multiple paradigms (e.g. a
biographical or formalistic approach to a piece of art). When various brakes with what
might be termed “normal humanities” (instead of “normal science” in Kuhn´s terms)
become pressing and the “reflexivity” or consciousness towards this crisis become
present, the paradigms (in wide sense) and “exemplar” (paradigm in narrow sense e.g.
critical methodological approachs in the humanities), may also shift or be accompanied
by more practice-based initiatives.
[14] Social science and humanities might be said to be the two major diciplines to
concider when notions of media studies as cross-diciplinary field are discussed. Media
studies incorporate however knowledge located outside these fields. Perhaps most
important to note in this thesis on digital media studies is informatics (computer science)
(e.g. Liestøl 2001), a field which dominantly originated in mathematical and natural
science (Liestøl 2001:43), and is also often located institutionally as part of mathematical
and natural science faculty (e.g. at the University of Oslo).
[15] According to Fetveit, social science wants not only to understand phenomenas but
to measure their exact expansion. “In such measure-research, our judgment needs
temporary help from apparatus that can compansate for its inadequacy. This apparatus is
the method. The method provides a temporarily suspension of judgement” (Fetveit
2000:6 my translation).
To illusrate the colonialising and marginalising of the humanities, Fetveit refers to David
Bordwell, Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompsons The Classic Hollywood Cinema (1985).
To understand what characterises “the classical Hollywood movie” the researchers
suspended judgement when gathering and selecting the 100 representative movies so that
“our choices where not biased by personal preferences or conceptions of influential or
masterful films” ( Bordwell et al 1985:388 according to Fetveit 2000:13).
The inadequacy of perceiving method as “ systematic approach to develop knowledge” in
humanistic inguiry may be further illustrated by examples from this thesis. In this thesis I
have found it reasonable to include non-systematically collected material and
acknowledge non-manifested knowledge such as my own experinence - both
methodological choices that can be said to be questionable according to requirements of
intersubjectivity, or, put the other way around; both which can be said to question the
status of the same requirement of intersubjectivity within media research.
[16] The term hermeneutics covers both the art and the theory of understanding and
interpretation, streching from theory and methodology for analysing texts
(methodological hermeneutics e.g Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher 18th-century expanded
text-interpretation from its medieval role explaining the correct analysis of the Bible) to
notions of humans as interpretive beings and the conditions for symbolic interaction and
culture in general (philosophical hermeneutics e.g. Heidegger, Gadamer 19-th century).
The latter form of hermeneutics might be said to evolve from the former. Hermeneutics at
this point in the thesis, is to be read as hermeneutics of first order, that is, as art of
understanding and interpretation and as a critiqal responce to the supremacy of the
natural sciences serving as models of knowledge. The object of analysis within
humanities and social-siences might be said to be both constructed and analysed within a
context, hence needs to be interpretated, which make the explanatory logic and aim of
natural science inadequate. However, the partening is not absolutt. In principal, even
natural science might be said to construct their objects of interrogation as theoties are led
by their prior knowledge. Further, when turned towards the second order of hermeneutics
and what I have termed the ontological turn of hermeneutics in my final section 5, even
natural science may in some sense be regarded as hermeneutic (Kjørup [1996] 2003:203],
as the dynamic of theory and empiry of the hypothetic-deductive method may be said to
correspond to the hermeneutic circle/spiral of hermeneutic method between whole/part,
text/context, subject/object. (The section is based on the following readings: Østbye et al.
1997,
Kjørup
[1996]
2003,
Stanford
Encyclopedia
of
Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/ , Ariadne Idehistorie Encyclopedia
http://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/ariadne/Idehistorie/framesettogm.htm?metode/metode_hermen
eutikk.htm )
[17] The separation derives from how Wilhelm Dilthey (1883) distinguished between the
“natural” and the “human” sciences on the grounds that as their subjects of inquiery are
different, so does their methods need to be different. The separation between humanities
and social sciences (and natural science) in turn, may be said to devolop from Jurgen
Habermas´ notion of three categories of process of inquiry or “cognitive interests” (e.g.
Kjørup [1996] 2003).
[18] To analyse, to approach a phenomenon by study parts of the phenomenon, is
charecteristic of structurlistic thinking. The notion of the dynamic of parts and whole is
shared with hermeneutic but may be said to be supplied with Saussure´s notion of the
parts structure derived from his separation of “langue”, abstract linguistic system, and
“langage” concrete and manifold language (e.g. Kjørup338). Adapted to other fields (by
both Saussure and following thinkers), structuralism is the identification of universal
structures underlying culture (Belsey 2002:114).
[19] There are modules such as “Humanists in practice” situated at e.g. the faculty of Arts
at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU, as part of this
institution attention and focus on innovation http://www.hf.ntnu.no/hip/. This is however
not a module in which students make their own artifacts as part of the research design.
The aim of the module is to enhance humanists awareness on humanistic competence
outside academia and tools (web-publishing) helpful to create new establishments.
[20] Notions of “post-critical methodologies” are articulated by e.g. Patricia Sullivan
and James E. Porter in Opening Spaces: Writing Technologies and Clinical
ResearchPractice (1997),
emphaising researchers critical self-awareness and
methodology conceptualised as praxis (Kevin Eric De Pew, Susan KayMille 2005:261)
[21] “Artifact” refers in this thesis to any object created by humans or process resulting
from human activity i.e. not necessarily an object or process which represents things from
the past or an object remaining from a particular period.
[22] As the critical paradigm developed, its concern of working-class subordination
broadend to a wider view of other kinds of dominations e.g gender or ethnicity
(McQuaile [1983] 1994).
[23] The term “critical” refers to both judgement, interpretation, or observation and a
position disagreeing with or opposing the object of criticism. The ambiguity generates
difficulty when concepts such as “criticism” and “critical theory” are applied. In social
sciences and humanities critical theory has two quite different meanings with different
origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism.
In social science “critical theory” is shorthand for the social theory oriented toward
critiquing and changing society, and may be distinguished from more “traditional”
theory according to a specific practical purpose; a theory is critical to the extent that it
seeks human emancipation. The intellectual movement Frankfurt Critical School
originated as a response to the World Wars (the perspective originated after WWI, and
developed during and after WWII), studying the possibility of rational human subjects.
These studies saw a common concern in the ability of capitalism to destroy the
preconditions of critical consciousness (However inspired by Marx, the institution and
theoretical tradition of Frankfurt Critical School applied “critical theory” rather than
“Marxism” (Kjørup [1996] 2003:318)). The critique of capitalism turned into a critique
of Western civilisation as a whole and, during the 1950s to the middle 1960s, turned into
a critique of Mass Media.
In literary criticism and humanities - where the critical orientation developed rapidly
beyond its origins of literary criticism, “critical theory“, by contrast, labels theory applied
in criticism. It is not necessarily oriented toward radical social change, involve a
normative dimension or even toward the analysis of society but is focusd primarily on the
analysis of texts and text-like phenomena.
Nevertheless, since the 1970s, there has been some overlap between the critical theory of
humanities and the social, critical theory of social science, which complicates the picture.
The overlap might be said to derive from their interrelated attention to language,
symbolism, and meaning construction. Because of the Frankfurt Critical School focus on
the role of false consciousness and ideology in the perpetuation of capitalism, they
analysed works of culture, including literature, music, art, both “high culture” and
“popular culture” or “mass culture.”
From the literary side, reacting against the New Criticism of the previous decades (in turn
a reaction to 18th century history-biographical orientation) that tried to analyse literary
texts purely internally, scholars began to incorporate theoretical perspectives such as
semiotic, linguistic, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and deconstruction and critical
social theory and various other forms of neo-Marxian theory into their analyses and
interpretations of literary works.
(The section is based on the following readings: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/,
McQuail
[1983]
1994,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#Relationship_between_the_two_versions,
Kjørup [1996] 2003.
[24] It should be noted that the diverse cases discussed in Making Media are media
education in classroom practice at secondary schools. I consider however Making Media
as informative here regarding the broad theoretical concern of the book, where the cases
are part of their “theoretically informed interrogation of practice” (Buckinghamet al.
1995:225). In Making Media “media education” does not refer to media used in
educational setting i.e. means of teaching content. Media education refer to the
instructional practices that promote a merge of critical analysis and media production
skills. As recogniced by the authours there are considerable overlap between media
education and media literacy, particularly in the digital age. Literacy entails knowledge of
the structural features of media and how these might tend to influence the content of the
media, and matters in a context of media understanding broader than education.
[25] The twin concepts “analytic” and “synthetic” were introduced by Kant in Critique of
Pure Reason (1781).
[26] The collaboration and online research and documentation and notions of
performance-based research are elaborated in “Researching performance, performing
research: dance, multimedia and learning” (Skjulstad, S., Morrison, A. & Aaberge, A.
2002) published in
Researching ICTs in Context (Morrison, A. (ed) 2002)
http://www.intermedia.uio.no/konferanser/skikt-02/skikt-research-conferance.html
[27] Equally proximate and integrated with the written thesis-text and argumentation are
secondary information or resources such as notes and external references like referred
web-published texts, presentations of academics, artworks or educational- and researchprojects.
[28] How may practice-based methods inform studies of digital media? How may the
interplay between practice and theory be conceptualissed? How may practice-based
studies be communicated?
[29] In the anthology Dance and Technology, “New Media are viewed as new forms of
communication, since they work with computers and are thus capable of digitally
combining different elements, such as image, text, and sound “ (Evert 2002:58).
In Digital Media Revisited (2003) both terms are applied; (“(…) there are historically
compelling reasons why we might at this moment seek to define a practical theory of new
media. The evolving relationship between digital media and pedagogics is also central to
the critical understanding of digital media”. (Liestøl, Morrison, Rasmussen introdcing the
divers contributors and the outline of the book 2003:5)
[30] e.g. CD-ROM might in some sense be considered a new type of media, as it is based
on digital technology and opens up for interactive communication, but in most regards
now days, CD-ROM is hardly new, the future etc. The novelty of digital media is highly
relative.
[31] To strech notions of media to also include artistic material such as performance, can
be found e.g. in Lev Manovich´s The Language of New Media (2001) wherein he
analyses the visual aesthetics of new media. He situates the origins of new media
aesthetics within the history of visual culture, articulating connections and differences
among new media and older forms.
[32] As poet, critic and lecturer Stephanie Strickland argues in “Moving Through Me as
I Move: A Paradigm for Interaction,” in the anthology First Person. New Media as Story,
Performance, and Game (2003/2004), “(…) the particular discordance, or non-reference,
that seems to exist between image and text will, at some point, spring into resonant
oscillation for the reader who either sees, or reads (Strickland 2003:189), so do I want to
argue that digital media and live movement “spring into resonant oscillation”, from a
viewers perspective. Such approach to multimedia performance might be considered as a
phenomenological approach, and will be touched upon again in Chapter 4.3 [Link]
refering to perspectives of contemporary scenography and their effort to develop
understanding and vocabulary of staged multimodality striving to challenge the role of
scenography being mere “spectacle”.
A phenomenological approach to live performance as multimodal expression, looking out
over ontological differences, is also in line with contemporary theatre-and performance
studies. Auslanders critique and tentative destabilisation of the theoretical oppositions of
liveness and mediatised has already been mentioned in relation to the suggested lack of
dynamic between terms and evolving disciplines, of which “performance” is one example
of such [link]. In (the prior) “The screen test of the double”, Matthew Causey is
approaching the ontology of performance in a corresponding way, trying to respond to
the analytic challenge of multimedia performances: (…) one way to start answer (…)
questions is by conceiving theatre as a medium that overlaps and subsumes or is
subsumed by other media including the television, film, radio, print, and the computeraided hyper-media. Such a process will change, considerably, our definitions of the
boundaries of the theatre and the ontology of performance” (Causey (1999) in Auslander
ed.2003: 392)
Finaly, to perceive multimedia performances as multimodal expression or in Causeys
terms; “a media that overlaps and subsumes or is subsumed by other media” (ibid.), may
be argued from a more general performance perspective; “To study performance, an art
form that lacks a distinctive medium, (and hence uses any and all media), requires
attending to all the modalities in play” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblatt 1999 according to
Schechner 2002:3) She sees a tendency to confound categories in contemporary art and to
create art performances that “dematerialises the art object and approachs the condition of
performance” (ibid.). As I interpret Kirshenblatt-Gimblatt, material such as e.g. digital
media and live movement may be perceived as equivalent modalities at resonant play as
digital media “performs” in a performance art sense, without being a live art form.
[33] An example of such performance-technology or -technique, is the, at that time, new
lighting options of 19th century romantic ballet, which made it possible for the first time
to create mood lightning for romantic scenes (ibid.).
[34] As pointed out by Kirstin Evert in the referred anthology, interaction and
interactivity are often indistinguishable and are used almost synonymously. “A
differentiation can be made between the two, however, with interactivity describing the
input-output schemes of the computer, while interaction refers to interpersonal
communication” (Evert in Dinkla et al. 2002:58). Evert”s limitation/reservation of the
term interactivity to input-output schemes of the computer is further limited by Simon
Penny, aiming to develop an “Aesthetics of Behavior” (2004). He reserves the term
interactivity to describe human-computer interaction. “ Critiques of representation
derived from painting, photography, film and video are inadequate for discussing the
power of interactive experience. In interactive media a user is not simply exposed to
images which may contain representation of things and actions (..) You can”t add an
ingredient to a cake after its baked” (Simon Penny “Towards an Aesthetics of Behavior”
ISEA 2004)
[35] Auslander considers thinking about the relationship between live and mediatised
forms in terms of ontological oppositions as not especially productive, insisting that how
technologies are used should be understood as effect rather than cause, referring to
Raymond Williams”s critique of technological determinism in Television: Technology
and Cultural Form (1975).
[36] As activity theory is employed primarily in fields such as organisation studies or
education, the adaptation of the framework into dital media and performance-studies as
means of framing my approach to practice-based method, may be said to be somewhat
novel. However, initiatives such as this can be found e.g. in “Inside the Rings of Saturn”
and “Border crossing and multimodal composition in the arts” in which Morrison (2005)
applies the apparatus of activity theory to collaborative practice-based student projects
(of which Extended was one) to emphasise the link between multi-disciplinarity,
contradictions, border-crossing and knowledge making, the latter acknowledged to be a
process and not only directed towards the shaping of an end product (Morrison 2005).
(http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu//viewarticle.php?id=45&layout=html.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_aset=V-WA-A-W-AUMsSWYVW-UUW-U-AABVSWUYUS-AABWWUASUS-VDSVUCSDD-AUU&_rdoc=1&_fmt=summary&_udi=B6W49-4FBM2491&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_cdi=6537&_orig=search&_st=13&_sort=d&view=
c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3e79400fd5588
c6227bd4a8d0f3300fb )
[37] L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontév and A.R. Luria
[38] The first phase, centred on Vygotsky, developed the vital and to activity theory
essential concept of mediation. This idea was crystallised in Vygotsky”s (1978, p. 40)
triangular model, which is commonly expressed as the triad of subject, object, and
mediating artifact. The insertion of cultural artifacts into human actions was
revolutionary in that the basic unit of analysis, activity, now overcame the split between
the individual and the societal structure. “The individual could no longer be understood
without
his
or
her
cultural
means
(..)”
(Engeström
1999
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/intro.htm )
However, the unit of analysis remained individually focusd. In the second phase,
influenced by Leontév, differentiation between individual and collective action was
made. With his example of primaeval collective hunt, the crucial differentiation between
an individual action (hunting, however what she/he actually might do is frightening a
herd of animals, sending them toward other hunters) and a collective activity (hunt), was
drawn
attention
to.
(Engeström
1999
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/intro.htm )
[39] technical set of Ngirozi
Dynamic animations, created by stills and graphic from African cave paintings, were live
mixed by Sem/Kjelling according to cues in the choreography. The animations were
projected into the performance space by two, frontal positioned projectors creating a
vigorous shadow accompanying the solo-performer. Dynamic animations on an
additional, partly transparent canvas hanging from the ceiling situated the represented
performance-environment on a distance, outside and inside an African cave.
conceptual impact of digital, visual media in Ngirozi
We applied the dynamic scenography to both spatially and temporally situate the
conceptual journey-motif of the performance. During this journey, the dancer, through
movement and sound, sought to invoke his ancestors in a transition from traditional to
modern life. Besides being able to alter represented vs. performed space/time, in Thea
Breisec”s words “open the axe of time”, recognising how the mediated stage space is
capable of performing both past, present, future (Breijsek 2003:12 my translation), the
dynamic projection sat a pace to the rite-like confrontation with the ancestors at play with
the changing pace of applied traditional live and recorded music. Parts of the digital
material were made in a less organic way than the overall traditional cave material,
thereby engaging a digital aesthetic to represent the modern in a cross cultural
performance where contemporary aesthetics and multimodal means of expression where
applied to converge with east and southern African dance traditions (link el bilde av hule
x 2).
[40] technical set of In Between
Apart from some props in the audience space and the fact that the performers were
already performing at stage when the audience entered, this piece had an orthodox
separation of audience and performance-space like the one of Ngirosi. At a given cue, the
tables on the stage were pushed forward towards the stage end. The scratching sound was
recorded and echoed as the visual “echo”, video-feedback, appeared at the projected
back-drop. The live-feedback effect appeared as the camera, hand-hold by Kjelling,
catched its own projected video-stream. (See similar effect in the Ballectro-production.
http://www.intermedia.uio.no/ballectro/
and
http://www.intermedia.uio.no/seminarer/designingdesign/Ballectropaper/Designing_perf
ormance.htm ). A recorded and gradually more divergent video-feedback section
followed, before another live feedback section restored the interactivity between live
movements and projected feedback – this time with slightly different digital effects added
(strobe effect, in addition to the constant black/white inverted effect). The performance
continued with detailed- and close up-stills of the choreography (prepared photo
montage) before a final sequence of double-projected stills and live-video-feedback.
conceptual impact of digital, visual media in In Between
Apart from being a fluid black/white-aesthetic element in contrast to the static orange
every-day-props (table, lamp, gold-fish), the projected video-feedback, behind the live
performers, extended and multiplieed the performance-space and number of performers
in slightly delayed series of recorded physical space. One might say that the multiplied
dancers were impersonated into representatives, as the “material body and its subjectivity
is extended, challenged, and reconfigured through technology” (“The screen test of the
double”, Matthew Causey 1999 in Auslander 2003: 382). The piece wanted to explore
and express unstable relations as a concept and not the represented characters unstable
relations in particular. Shifting emotions were highlighted by stills, but perhaps more
strongly through the unsteady and ever changing live feedback as such feedback might be
said to recreate a physical feeling of “unsteadyness” within the ones observing it. The
extension of space/performers in In between was constantly changing and at play with
the live movements, changing stage light and Kjelling”s camera movements. His partly
improvised choices of scope and camera-movements altered the expression, making his
appearance in the piece obvious, live and performative. This despite digital videofeedback being a representation generated by reproduction and repetition and hence
opposite of what often defines live performance (e.g. Peggy Phelan 1993).
Digital video-feedback is live performance, and extends the ability of traditional static
scenography. The conventional separation of technician, performer and choreographer
may be questioned by In Between as Kjelling obviously becomame responsible for the
artistic quality. Such blurred separation between the roles of technician, performer and
choreographer was also the case at Ngirosi, duskalplasjon and Proximal – each and all
dependent on live performance by visul media-, light- and sound-technicians. However,
the liveness of such technical performances does not attract much attention, that is, unless
the technician manage to faile.
[41] technical set of Proximal
Technically, this piece was fairly simple in the actual live performance context. The
visual, digital media in this piece was only displayed as frontal or layered live-mixed
projections of abstract animations (i.e. two projections on top on each other, making the
performing dancer and her shadow fall in between the two). However, the way the
projections were used was a complex interplay of moving animations and moving
dancers, dancers as canvases and projections as stage-light. Apart from establishing a
rigid colour-scheme to the piece and a non-representative aesthetic, the projections give
depth to the stage and a monotonous pace to the whole piece. Apart from one initial
penetration of the audience space by performing dancers seated among the audience, the
orthodox separation of audience and performance-space was kept.
conceptual impact of digital, visual media in Proximal
Overall, the penetration of performance into audience space in this piece was conceptual
rather than physical. The piece dealt with presence, a concept or quality we defined as a
way of performing which generates an impression of the piece as authentic in the
perceiving audience, that is, authentic in the sense that the performance reveales its own
performativeness. The abstract animations, the bisarre costumes, the sparse soundmaterial (recordings of the costumes in motion), stage-light (bright, close to non-stagedlighting) or the physical scenography of mere costumes and hangers were in no way
applied to construct a hypothetic represented staged space. The performance was
supposed to be present in the same conceptual space as the physical audience space, that
is, in a performance context. The live movements and attention of the dancers and the
dynamic digital, material were supposed to be present alternately, commenting on the
performativeness of both.
[42] technical set of duskalplasjon
The amount of technical equipment, the fussion of live and recorded material and the
rejection of orthodox special arrangements made duskalplasjon the most challenging
piece concerning the technical set on stage. In this performance, the traditional separation
between performance space and passive audience space was turned into one, installationlike space with audience participation. The shared space was initially divided into two
unequal parts, both in sise and content, with a partly transparent projected hallway in
which the dancers were already performing. At entrance, the audience was directed by a
monitored performer to go to one of the two sides of the hallway. They were free to move
around within this space to see as much as possible of the performed movements or
projections. The monitored performer was seated, watching the arriving audience at
another monitor in one of the two open audience spaces while documentary material
covering Sapatistas in South-Mexico was displayed in thespace on the other side of the
hallway. The projected material on the hallway was partly abstract video-material and
partly recordings of the choreography both synch and out of synch with the live
performers. The second section of the piece was introduced by a bright stage-light
revealing the set and the monitored performer who asked the audience to pull aside the
projected fabrics. The performance continued with a choreography located close to
selected parts of the audience. The monitors were turned into the now joint space, one
displaying the live performance (from another angel in the space) and the other
recordings of the monitored performer who directed the audience while entering.
Throughout the final section of the piece, parts of the audience were asked by a voiceover to please leave the space, leaving only a handful audience able to watch the
choreography to its final.
conceptual impact of digital, visual media in duskalplasjon
The piece dealt with mediated realities, juxtaposing live and mediated material in order to
blur and question the boundaries and intrinsic characteristics of the virtual and physical
object.
[43] Related methodological initiatives applied to expose new issues and questions
which may not be considered or pre-defined theoretically can be found as e.g.
“creative/visual methods” in contemporary media audience research at “Centre for
Creative Media Research” (David Gauntlett 2004 ). Creative methods of media audience
research is hovever not concerned with the conceptual apparatus of activity theory,
[44] It should be noted that video-feedback, (an effect applied throughout the 1960s in
particular) is not dependent on digital technology.
[45] This improvisational, recursive design resonates with the cyclic process of
prototyping, testing, analysing, and refining a work in progress very much present in
fields such as e.g. software design and developmen, termed iterative design.
[46] The term “Web 2.0” is one example of implied notions of evolving, digital
generations. Web 2.0 cover new collective ways to generate, categorise and adjust
content e.g. blogs, Flickr, Wikipedia. For more on Web 2.0 see Tim O´Reilly
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228.
[47] The tremendous pace and technological change is also noticed by Buckingham et al.
1995, Jarvis 1999, Buckingham 2003. “Until quite recently, research and theory where
found in the domain of the academy, with practice far removed in the workplace. But the
distance between research and practice is rapidly fading as the tremendous pace of global
and technological change makes the need for continuous learning an inescapable fact of
professional life” (Jarvis 1999:xi)
[48] e.g. Simon Penny in “Towards an Aesthetics of Behavior” points to how notions of
representation derived from painting, photography, film and video are inadequate for
discussing the power of interactive experience. “In interactive media a user is not simply
exposed to images which may contain representation of things and actions” (Penny
ISEA-conference paper 2004).
[49] A close and dynamic relationship between how digital media texts are both
constructed and interpreted in order to exploit developers” discourse as a source of
conceptual knowledge does not necessarily imply the type of explorative practice-based
method as referred to in this thesis. One does not have to experience the making of a
computer game to be informed by developers” discourse. The point made in for eksample
“Gameplay: From Synthesis to Analysis (and Vice Versa)”, is rather that the term
“gameplay”, is not traceable to any origin outside the computer game industry. Hence,
“developers” discourse” becomes a valuable source of conceptual knowledge within an
evolving field.
[50] That said, multimodality and multimediality, when seen as combinations of writing,
speaking, visualisation, sound, music etc., “ (..) have always been omnipresent in most of
the communicative contexts in which humans engage. However, they have for a long
time been ignored, as various academic disciplines have pursued their own research
agendas as research fields” (Ventola, Charles & Kaltenbacher 2004:1).
[51] Social semiotics is a “movement” performing studies of literature, visual semiotic,
music as well as other semiotic modes, much inspired by linguist Michael Halliday´s
ideas (on notions of “grammar”) according to Kress and van Leeuwen ( [1996] 2001:5 ).
[52] Notions of visual thinking in varied disciplines such as visual design or scenography
are much influenced by Rudolph Arnheims perception psychology (e.g. Visual Thinking
1996): “Intellectual thinking (as expressed in language, and as opposed to visual
thinking) “strings perceptual concepts in linear succession (...) Intellectual thinking
dismantles the simultaneity of spatial structure (Arnheim 1969:246 according to Guntlett
2004:12 applying Arnheim in audience studies).
[53] To see linguistics as the model of semiology is an understanding of semiology
derived from Ferdinand de Saussures who introduced `semiology` in Cource de
linguisticue generale (1916). de Saussures saw verbal language as the paramount, the
most complex and characteristic sign system and hence a model for semiology (Kjørup
[1996] 2003:255).
[54] Semiotoc (from the Greek word semion, sign) is the study of signs tied to Charles
Peirce, while semiology is tied to Peirce co-founder of contemporary semiotics Ferdinand
de Saussure and his studies of signs within society, constructing the structuralistic
paradigm in linquistics and, in turn, the ground for structuralism (Kjørup [1996]
2003:252).
[55] According to Robert Cheesmond (1999), scenography is the latest of the theatre
disciplines to be theorised, much indepth a recurrent source of tension in the field of
dramatic presentation dating back to Aristotles Poetics, 350 BC: “The Spectacle has,
indeed an emotional attraction of its own, but, of all the parts [of drama] it is the least
artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry” (Aristoteles according to Cheesmond
1999: unpaginated).
[56] Cheesmond exemplifies his assertion by pointing out how the quality of light is
experienced by the audience, as well as interpreted, and further, how “(...) the actor”s
walk is through the middle of the stage, from back to front stage, or in a circle. Whatever
it may represent, that is what it is” (1999:unpaginated).
[57] Both the perspectives of Di Benedetto and Kress and Van Leeuven might be
situated in close relation to the emerging academic field of visual culture studies
“concerned with visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure is sought by
the consumer in an interfact with visual technology (…) a tactic with which to study the
genealogy, definitions and functions of postmodern everyday life (…) (Nicholas Mirsoeff
(1999) according to David Gauntlett 2004). Shared notions of visual thinking and the
static and immobile logic of language can be found in Rudolph Arnheim, Visual Thinking
(1996).
[58] I consider the slightly customised use of for instance “shift in communication from
narrative to display” to a non-interactive in ICT-sense, performance space as reasonable,
based on the sheared features of digital technology. The digital scenography further
enables expressions to be dynamic, visualised and displayed rather than narrated, as
Kress describes the tendency in contemporary communication As I will return to in
chapter four, interdisciplinary theoretical knowledge are being adapted into the present
context. I consider my adaptation of knowledge from the field of scenography a straight
loan from a neighbouring field while the theoretical adaptation of Kress, and other
literature in this thesis referring to information and communication technology, so called
“conceptual convergence” (Fagerjord 2003:145) or “disciplinary covergence” (Liestøl &
Morrison 2001:2 my translation). This type of theoretical adaptation is what I have
termed, referring to Liestøl and Morrison earlier on interdisciplinarity, a consequence of
digital diciplinary convergence; divergence.
[59] The separation of text-types or modes such as a narrative from an argument, is not
absolute. The text types are loosely adapted from Seymour Chatman´s Coming to Terms
(1990), in which he inquire the delimitation of the narrative text-types as against the texttypes of argument and description.
[60] How we adapted and inverted “the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy”
(Bolter &Grusin [1999] 2000) in Proximal in order to achieve an authentic feeling in the
perceiving subject, will be elaborated further in the next chapter “Artifacts of expression
and expressive artefacts. Exploring theory through practice” related to the piece
duskalplasjon [link])
[61] A brief presentation of changing notions of ”presence” in performance studies is
included here, as the potentially contradictory concept “meditised presence” embody the
explorative background of the performance Proximal.
Changing notions of presence
In “Negotiating Presence. Performance and new technologies” Andrew Murphie
(http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/andrewmurphie/mysite/ ), studying a variety of digital
media-related topics from performance towards theories of cognition, situate performance
art´s particular prominence during the 1960s and 1970s. “It flourished during this period
on the strength of its presence. It was live, separate from the re-productions of film and
the static arts on one hand and from the imaginary narratives of theatre on the other” (
[1990] 2003:351).
In “The Presence of Mediation” Roger Copeland equally emphasise the impact of what
he terms “living presence” during the 1960s but states that the term ´presence` means
different things to different people, and some of this meanings are mutually exclusive
([1990] 2003) Copeland approachs presence as a value located in the relation between
performer and spectator and locates a shift in this relation or expressive logic in what he
calls the “immense chasm that separates the 1960s from the 1980” (Copeland [1990]
2003:306): 60s pure non-mediated performances followed by 80s insistence of the
mediatedness.
Copelands illustrate the immense chasm with Living Theatre”s Paradise Now (1968) and
Richard Foreman”s What did he see (1988). While rite-like performances as Paradise
Now, “where actors bodies form a pile, caressing, moving, undulating, loving” (Copland
1990 2003:306) may be regarded as unmediated presence, Foreman”s production twenty
years later on the contrary was intent upon “constructing barriers, not eradicating them
(or, perhaps more precisely, objectifying otherwise invisible barriers)”. Here, the
performer/spectator relationship was mediated both aurally and visually. A transparent,
Plexiglas wall separated the audience from the performers. The actors voices where heard
“indirectly” filtered through microphones and speaker systems “- but not for the
conventional purpose of amplification. (…) No, this mode of technological mediation
was there to mediate (…)”(Copland [1990] 2003:306).
The pure, unmediated presence or relation between performer and spectator of the 60s
may be said to be challenged by “poststructuralists thinkers” who complicate the
distinction between presence and absence (Copland [1990] 2003:307) by emphasising the
absence of presence. Adapted to the context of performance art, one might say that the
staged live performer is no less mediated then the projected one. I will return to the
assumed relation between the authenticity, “double logic of immediacy and
hypermediacy”, post-structuralism and performance theory in the next chapter.
[62] According to Philip Galanter (2003:4), generative art refers to “any art practice
where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer
program, a machine, or other procedural intervention, which is set into motion with some
degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.”
[63] A dramaturgy represented by numbers may misrepresent other features of the object,
and is not considered a good solution, but an example of lack of such. Not avoiding risks
of misrepresentation, but applying more conventional representationsform, the
dramaturgy could for instance have been represented more adequately by curves in a
chart (e.g. like the dramaturgy of Greek tragedies), with multiple curves.
[64]
In
“Expressive
artifacts
and
artifacts
of
expression”,
http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes1/research/papers/wpades/vol3/ldkabs.html, (based on her
phd (2002) on the same subject), the concept expressive artifact refers to “artifacts that in
many cases were intended to communicate”, as autonomous wholes to interpret while the
twin-concept artifacts of expression, is acknowledging how art consists of materials or
media that support, convey, allow or carry through an act of expression (Dias-Kommonen
2004). The separation drawn here by Dias-Kommonen derives from how philosoph Marx
Wartofsky (1997) propose a three-level hierarchy of primary, secondary, and tertiary
artifacts (corresponding to Leontévs (1978) former three levels of activity and
Engeströms more recent “What”,”Why/How” and “Where to” (1990))
“Primary artefacts are artificial entities created by humans, such as axes and clubs, and
which allow them to alter directly the nature of their environment. Secondary artefacts
consist of representations of primary artefacts and of the modes of action using them.
Tertiary, artefacts consist of a class of artefacts that can come to constitute a relatively
autonomous “world” in which the rules, conventions, and outcomes no longer appear
directly practical in nature. Such imaginative artefacts can influence the way we see the
actual world. They can also act as agents of change for current practice. Examples of
third-level artefacts are works of art, myth, worldview and theoretical models”(DiasKOmmonen 2004 on-line).
[65] -1. Practical work as self-expression, 2. Practical work as method of learning, 3.
Practical work as vocational training, 4. Practical work as deconstruction
[66] The term paper was very much informed by the notion of practical work as
deconstruction towards media learning, and the already referred paper from performance
studies “Ontology vs. history. Making distinctions betweern the live and mediatised”
(Auslander 1997). By emphasising elements of liveness in the mediatised material, the
performaces might be said to questioned the conception of digital media as means of
reproduction and repetition, and challenged the dichotomy “liveness – mediatised”, as an
analytical tool.
http://www.intermedia.uio.no/Extended/idunn_oppsummering.html
[67] It should be noted that the authors of Making Media, where the concept “practical
work as deconstruction” appear for my part, place themselves within this versions of
practice-based media learning, but with a strong sense of the inadequacies of this
position. Buckingham et al. emphasise the value of such media learning, however without
its political origin of deconstructing dominant ideology and the implicit primacy of
theory over practice.
[68] Liestøl adapt the concept “topical grid” from Roland Barthes´ overview of ancient
rethetoric, in which the execution of topic as grid “provides a network of empty forms to
be filled by elementary operations” (Barthes according to Liestøl 2003:407)
[69] As have been pointed to by reference to Auslander, digital media may denote
repetition and distribution and is understood as a negation of “live performance” in much
performance theory despite the substantial interest in thinking about the ways in which
performance can interact with media and information technologies. Auslander discards
this approach as technological determinism, suggesting that “(…) in the context of a
mediatised, repetitive economy, using the technology of reproduction in ways that defy
that economy may be a more significantly oppositional gesture than asserting the value of
the live” (Auslander 1997 http://webcast.gatech.edu/papers/arch/Auslander.html )
[70] Monitors:
-live video of “talking head” directing the audience through a monitor, being present in
the same space,
-live video of the performance recorded from a different angel then the point of view of
the audience, augmenting the point of view with two additional angels of the live
performance.
-recorded video of bowing performers for the “non-simultaneous” acclamation performed
by most audience, as they where asked to leave the audience/performance space before
the dance-performance was ended
Multiple, fragmented views of “reality” were created through projectors by
utilising several projectors from different angels. Set at different preferences (mirrored,
vertical flipped) imitating varied camera angles, both abstract video and recordings of the
dancers movements were repeated and altered simultaneously.
Projectors:
The first displayed video of the dancers was synchronised to the choreographed
movements, simulating a live recording. The second displayed video was slightly
different than the first, creating an almost invisible aberration to the repeated
choreography. The third and last video sequence was a repetition of the first calm
version, creating a contrast to the now diverged choreography. The live voice-over,
apparently describing the movements, was constant, regardless of what actually where
performed or displayed. Although live, the voice-over repeated the displayed and live
movements of the first sync sequence, enhancing the confusion.
[71] In What is Scenography? scenographer Pamela Howerd describes such
audience/performance-space as a “fluid playing space without a fixed point of view”,
where (..) The spectators and performers become part of the scenographic scheme (…).
They have to accept that they will not necessarily see everything (…) learn not to get
every detail of the story” (Howard 2002:112). The fluid “scenography” have an impact
on the entire structure of the piece with touching points to my last chapter on visualised
and displayed culture; “The fluidity of the ever changing space replaces the textual,
literary or narrative development we are used to in the conventional divided theatre
space” (Howard 2002:114).
[72] The precise terms for scenography or performers invarding the audience-space are
“scenic unification” and “experienced environment” respectively, according to Aronsen
in Environmental Theatre (1981). Altering performance space by invading the traditional
audience space is often referred to as “environmental staging”, simply categorised as
“non-frontal” (Aronson 1981).
[73] “Postmodernism is a practice in the visual arts, architecture, and performance art.
Poststructuralism, a.k.a “deconstruction” is the academic response to postmodernism
(Schechner 2002:124)
[74] This said, it should be noted that ”performance” may also refer to the ”agitprop”
pieces of the 1970s (e.g. Councell & Wolf 2001:31 according to Morrrison 2005).
[75] Overall, the shift in communication seems to grow out of several interrelated
dichotomies that are being challenged (with or without the multimodal and non-linear
ability of digital technology): the narrative development - multiple points of view
(Howard 2002) linguistic cognition – sensations of the body (Benedetto SI: Issue7)
representational theatre – non-representational performance (Murphie [1990] 2003,
Schechner 2002, Eskelinen & Tronstad 2003), temporal sequential logic of the spoken
language - spatial-simultaneous logic of the visual, narrative – display(Kress 1999)
verbal-visual (Kress & van Leuween 1996, Bolter 2003a,b), referring to the diverse fields
of contemporary scenography, performance theory, social semiotic and embodied cultural
theory respnding to emerging visual, multimodal culture.
[76] See for example choreographer and Research Fellows (PhD) at Kunsthøyskolen in
Oslo, Per Roar Thorsnes, and initiators of the New Media Education course Andrew
Morrison and Synne Skjulstad commenting on their experience of duskalplasjon at the
“Electronic Art” seminar in the Designing Design series held at InterMedia, 2004. The
discussion continues on “post-structural spectatorship”, “presence “, “estrangement”, and
“destabilisation of attention” by choreographers in the Dance and Technology-field
Marlon
Solano
and
Grechen
Shiller.
(http://lillestroem.uio.no/intermedia/dd/071204/morrison_skjulstad_com.mp4)
[77] For some viewers the dynamic video-feedback together with the moving live
movements, part of the work In Between, is making the viewers look at the multiplied
modes of communication itself, hence “immediacy through hypermediacy”. For others,
video-feedback is a well-known artifact of expression, and they might look through the
moving bodies and dynamic video onto what this represents (for instance; unstable
relations between dancers that through multiplying video-feedback becomes “people” or
“couples”), hence immediacy. Or further skilled viewers, so familiar with feedback that
they know its historical context, would look at the choice of this particular technique as a
sentimental comment to the history of performance as this technique was particularly
present the 60s (according to Rush [1999] 2001:54), hence hypermediacy.
[78] Bolter and Grusin notion of genealogy is indebted Foucault “an examination of
decent”(…) “which permits the discovery, under the unique aspect of a trait or a concept,
of the myriad events through which – thanks to which, against which – they where
formed” (Faucault 1977:146 according to Bolter & Grusin [1999] 2000:21). The
remediation-perspective of which the double logic of immediacy and hypermediacy is
much present is set in a cultural frame beyond contemporary media stretching back to the
Renaissance. Though the logic of hypermediacy is multiplying the signs of mediation,
and hence may be a logic much prominent in digital multimodal media, hypermediacy
can also operate in a unified medium: The overall key-feature of hypermediacy is that we
become aware of the medium or media and reminded of our desire for immediacy (Bolter
& Grusin [1999] 2000:34).
[79] I think a reading of Remediation needs a consciousness towards when the authors are
discussing this logic in relation to mediating, electronic medias, this logic at play in and
through digital media in particular, and this logic understood within a larger cultural
desire for both the authentic real and the authentic mediatising. Bolter and Grusin talks
within the frames of visual media-technology, but at the same time “addressing our
culture”s contradictory imperatives for immediacy and hypermediacy (…)” (Bolter &
Grusin [1999] 2000:5)
[80] The link between performance art and digital installation is pointed out by, for
instance, Días-Kommonen in “Expressive artifacts and artifacts of expression”: “Then
there are new categories, such as performance art, and digital art, in which the object of
art is not only intangible and ephemeral but can also be distributed in such a manner that
no individual can ever experience the whole work.” (Lily Días-Kommonen 2004)
http://www.herts.ac.uk/artdes1/research/papers/wpades/vol3/ldkabs.html
[81] Practice-based innitiatives involving humanities, innovation and trade directed
towards students or newly graduates are becoming more established like “Prosjektforum”
http://www.tik.uio.no/prosjektforum/prosjektforum.html
http://www.humsam.no,
“Humsam” and “Humanister I praksis” http://www.hf.ntnu.no/hip.
[82] Bolter considers the gap between media theory and cultural practices that surround
new media form, the most recent version of the suspicion and “tension between theory
and practice that has been present in a variety of disciplines in the humanities over many
decades.” (Bolter 2003a:26) We can find this tension in music departments (between
performers and musicologists), (…) and radio-, television- and film-departments
(between communication- or film-theorists and practitioners). The distance between the
domains of theory and practice present in the humanities is however not considered a
reason for capitulation. Quite the contrary, as I read Bolter, the distance between the
domains of theory and practice embody an argument for practice-based research as the
suspicion is mutual and hence mutually a responsibility of the humanities. Humanities on
their part need to reconsider the research designs of interpretation in hindsight and
research detached research contexts.
[83] Another example of interdisciplinary critique and thoroughness or disciplined
multidisciplinarity arising through the interdisciplinary work with this thesis is how
digital media-art and perhaps digital media per se may be contextualized by the intentions
of the avant-garde. That is, how e.g. intentiones of dynamism (e.g. the painting
Dynamism
of
a
Dog
on
a
Leash
http://www8.vjc.edu/ArtHistory/stories/storyReader$419, Giacomo Balla 1912) or
compositional parameters of chance ( e.g. the work of John Cage in the 1960s) have
existed prior to digital media (represented by the futurists and the fluxus
movement, respectively) but may be said to be first realised by digital
technology.
[84] Marshall and Newton are much informed by Ernest Boyer (1990) which, according
to Marshall and Newton, remapped the notion of scholarship in the modern academy.
Especially interesting in this context, is Boyer´s “Scholarship of Discovery”,
understood by Marshall and Newton as “the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake,
freedom of inquiry, following an investigation wherever it may lead”. (Marshall and
Newton 2000).