Notes on performance theory
I believe that every artistic creation develops in the same way that this Sarmatian woman took shape in my imagination. First there is the innate tendency common to all of us to capture a subject that has eluded most other artists; then the author's own experience intervenes and provides him with the living being whose prototype already exists in his imagination. This figure preoccupies him, seduces him, captivates him, because it corresponds to his innate tendencies and mirrors his particular nature; he then transforms it and gives it body and soul. Finally, in the reality which he has transformed into a work of art, he encounters the problem that is the source of all subsequent images. The inverse path that leads from the problem back to the configuration is not an artistic one.
L. Masoch


Every performance involves an agent, acting within a spatial configuration serving as its container. Their interaction triggers the "event". This threefold set of "agent-space-event" is dynamic and perpetually interactive : it develops in time by means of formal modifications. The event, i.e. the interaction between the agent (figure) and its spatial configuration (environment), occurs as a kind of mutation- hence the performance proceeds in an evolutionary mode : a series of figural and spatial changes which is represented by sequences of their transformations.

"Might not the dancers be real puppets, moved by strings, or better still, self propelled by means of a precise mechanism, almost free of human intervention, at most directed by remote control?" Oscar Schlemmer


The distinction between geometrical and functional space in performance theory was emphasised by Oscar Schlemmer in his works and lectures at the Bauhaus. Geometrical space refers to linear constructions and orbital dancing methods, whereas functional space invokes the response of the agent. Schlemmer's "Dance in space" and "Figure in space with Plane Geometry and Spatial Delineations" performances, intended to transform the body into a "mechanised object" operating into a geometrically divided space, pre-existing the performance. Moreover, the proposition for the remotely controlled dancer of the mechanical ballet might serve as an endeavor to reform the body into a receptor of information that comes from the container space. Hence, movement is precisely determined by the information from the environment.

 


Fig.1. Oscar Schlemmer, "Slat Dance".



Fig.2. "Figure in Space with Plane Geometry and Spatial Delineations."

 

 



Fig. 3.The dance from the film "Vita Futurista",1916, by Marinetti, Balla,
Corra.


The Futurists proposed the system of human-machine and their interactions as the model of new aesthetics. They manifested an expansion in time and space for the body that emerged from the power and the glorification of the machines.
Umberto Boccioni, in his manifesto named "Absolute Motion + Relative Motion= Dynamism 1914", writes: "Absolute motion is a dynamic law inherent in an object. The plastic construction of the object must here concern itself with the motion which an object has within itself, whether it be at rest or in movement?Relative motion is a dynamic law which depends on the object's movement. It is quite incidental whether we are talking about moving objects or the relationship between moving objects and non-moving objects. In fact, there is no such thing as a non-moving object in our modern perception of life."
Marianne W. Martin in "Machine Aesthetics and the Dehumanization of Art" :
"Marinetti hoped that the artist would overcome his physical limits and ' merge?into the infinite of space and time' and initiate 'the mechanical kingdom' supplanting 'the animal kingdom'. Appropriately enough, Marinetti also envisaged the accompanying evolution of a new being, an immortal superman who will be 'mechanized' with replaceable parts.' " [3]


Stelarc has developed several systems for the actuation of the body. In the work "Split Body: Voltage-In / Voltage- Out, " a touch-screen interface to a multiple muscle stimulator allows the body's movements to be programmed by touching the muscle-sites on the computer model .A sequence of motions can be replayed continuously with a loop function. As well as choreography by screen-touching, it is possible to paste sequences together from a library of gesture icons...At a lower simulation level it is a body-prompting system; at a higher simulation level it becomes a body-actuation system."
"Robot arm-Host Body/Coupled Gestures" [Fig.5] is an interactive event where the motions of a scanning robot are related to an electronic third hand and the arms of the body. Stelarc states that "the interest is how electronic systems can extend performance parameters and how the body copes with the complexity of controlling information, video and machine loops, on-line and in real time." [4]
What is important in works like Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and Stimbod is that Stelarc discusses a reformulation of the notion of intent, which we often associate with movement. As developments in technology become more and more unpredictable, we should rather talk about the "alloted body", which can function strengthened by the complexity of technology.
In a text named "Phantom Bodies and Collective Strategies", Stelarc concludes : "Must a body continuously affirm its emotional, social, and biological status quo? Or perhaps what is necessary is electronic erasure with new intimate, internalized interfaces to allow for a design of a body with more adequate inputs and outputs for performance and awareness augmented by search machines." [5]

 


Fig.4. Stelarc "Split Body : Voltage-In / Voltage- Out".

 



Fig.5. Stelarc, Robot arm-Host Body/Coupled Gestures.

 

 


William Forsyth
"I am seeing your finger as a line ("I see your finger as a line, so there are two points. Between these points there is a line, and that line has a lot of potential - like a diagram on the computer ( in fact there is an infinite number of ways regarding how to continue from this point - it depends on how you observe : you look at a specific configuration and you think, what are the logical or illogical ways to continue from this point ? What is the next event ? e.g. I can drop that line, or I can extend that line... W. Forsyth
W. Forsyth considers geometry as an extension of his body, and by the same token, physical movements are extensions of one's body. His performances are based on architectural drawings, and/or mathematical processes, like the "translation" of iteration into movement. He understands drawings not as a graphic notation or as a static space but as structural rhythm in which space is actually being created - this is a way of defining what the space of the human body is, i.e. the invention of an atmosphere brought through spatial movement. To him, everything becomes an analogy to movement, a possible operation on movement. In this sense William Forsyth re-discovers the un-theorisable aspect of spatial relations. This is the most fundamental aspect of his work, i.e. the invention of the link between choreography and performance.

 

 

 

3. PERFORMANCE PROPOSAL
Bio-performance, a theory based on the conception of the "analogical body" (as
opposed to digital), attempts to re-establish the corporeal status of experience de-depenting the body from the domination of simulations or virtual allusions.

Performance is here defined as the dialectical mechanism between body and context. The concept of performance is based on interaction, in the sense that the body of the performer is dynamically -and non-reversibly- transformed by the environment, as well as the environment is transformed by the movements of the performer. Interaction occurs and evolves because the body does not have an overview of the context. Hence the body needs to move. Movement in turn, causes transformation of the spatial configuration as well as of the body itself, a perpetual process. The question then becomes what are the operations for these alterations ? Do they fall into patterns and/or other regularities ?



Fig.6. Drawing from the Bauhaus.

THE AGENT
From information systems to bio-information processes. This section examines the invasion of information on the body.


Within the borders of bio-capitalism, biotech is formalising nature into molds, mechanising organic systems, applying informatics in the bio-organic level. Placed within this framework, information is transformed to bio-information which is mechanically imposed on the body, potentially altering its developmental perspective. As P. Rabinow claims in his essay titled "Artificiality and Enlightenment:From Sociobiology to Bio sociality" : "?the oblect to be known- the human genome- will be known in such a way that it can be changed. This dimension is thoroughly modern; one could even say that it instantiates the definition of modern rationality". Genetic information, due to its complexity, provides a source of transforming the body into a complex system which brings about unpredictable outcomes.
If a performance theory aimed to present the body as a bio-analogic system, all representations and interactions should be replaced by competitive systems and evolutionary processes.
A substantial discrimination between the geometrical space of Oscar Schlemmer and the bio-performance may be observed in their relationship with the body :

 

Schlemmer

 

 

 

Virtual performances

 


Bio-performance

 


space= soft {"a space filled with pliable substance in which the figures
of the sequence of the dancer's movements were to harden as a negative form." The body of the dancers obtain an 'object' quality, moving in a rather predictable way. [2]}

The body "disappears" and is remotely controlled. Its feedback is determined by external information.

body= soft, malleable. The body is forming a "liquid space" formation within space.

         
         

 

How does the bio-performance reflect the malleability of the body?

Corporeal limitations of the body...

 

lead to the recreation of life's parameters through a model, a "schematized conceptual grid" .,.if these recreations inspire us to remodel the physical body, a transgressive reality

Inside the lab or the performance space :
A computer program serving as a Selective system

 

The units of selection reform
the body. "Selection" is here defined as a software which takes space measurements and proceeds to specific calculations. For example, thermal scanning of the space may be the input data so the computer produces real time music output,
The system is irreversible-time moves towards the future (arrow of time)
Performance space Gene interactions. Numerical calculations of the performance may be based on the DNA sequence.
Bio-information exchanges

Performance is mostly based on numeric calculations which run with unpredictability
         

 



In the bio-performance, the information is perceived from the outside, processed by the body and exported to the initial source (the environment) [6]]. Environment though, is a complex concept, that may include self-derived parts or functions of an organism which can potentially be activated in relation to it. (e. x. some genes within an organism may be part of a gene's environment ) [7] . In this sense, performer and environment become comparable entities.
The concept of the performer owning an altering body whose form is perpetually dissolved and recomposed, leads us to consider performance as an organism. The technique of this transformation is realised by emphasizing its bio-analogical responses.
By considering life in terms of a structure, several corporeal alterations occur, and bio-information is about to reform the body. The new anatomy has to be experienced literally, even if it requires support by simulated environments. The figural and functional data might be re-organized in such a way as to evoke a mutated aesthetic outcome. The process of mutating life is considered a rather artistic implementation, which questions whether the external, inserted parts will be integrated to form a new corporeality.[8] Thus, the body's capacities appear unknown.
On a process that seems to be opposite to transforming the human figure into an engineered object, the bio-performance underlines the corporeal nature of experience. However, there are other problems evolving from this issue; thus, there is an attempt to address some of the main aspects of the bio-body.


Notes on human and meta-human technicality.

The basic assumption underlying the bio-performance text is the shift from the technologically mediated environments [postmodern performances]- to the genetically constructed body.
The aspects of the bio-body are proposed to be :
1. Reappearance of the body which becomes "analogical". Biotechnology as a basis of corporeality.
2. The uniqueness of the body is emphasized.[instead of its homogenization]
3. The body is not considered a privilege as a space for the self, but as a unique, malleable system that is defined in and by its environment.
4. While the machine and the body co-operated, now machines produce a mechanized-analogical body, empowered by the reposition of information.(DNA).
5.Biotechnology becomes the abolishment of all metaphors ?

3.2. THE CONTEXT
The space where the performance occurs is subject to transformation into a bio-space (a laboratorial system) or an equivalent (simulation) on the basis of which, the performer moves, using features common to the body and the environment (i.e. models of Artificial Life, genes). [9] However, several questions integral to the deduction of the bio-lab and the simulation, relate to the fact that the performer acts from-within an "altering body", which is dissolving and recomposing in new forms. This concept relates performance to the notion of an organism. The question arises as to whether a bio-lab serves as a proper performance space. The next chapter, titled Superhuman, focuses on developing questions of this kind.

EVENT
The dialectical relation between the agent and the container space.
In general, the proposal involves a number of spatial configurations within which the agent(s) will be inserted. Hence the performance(s) will take place. The interaction between the specific configurations and the agents (human and/or mechanical) constitutes what we call "event". This interaction (events) will be recorded as a series of instances describing the transformations of both the agents and the configuration. Thus we may say that the alterations form spatial and figural sequences that we subsequently superimpose. The question is to find the mechanism as to how the environment triggers a specific reaction of the agent. Moreover, how the agent's reaction would in turn cause yet a new reaction to the configuration - so that we have a perpetual transformational flaw. This we call evolutionary form.


Performance > observations > results
(performance space)>(bio-information)>(performance act with gene interactions)


Regarding the genes, we may technically homogenize the organism (agent) and the environment. The DNA code is co-possessed by the organism and the environment, however the latter operates at a higher level of complexity. Therefore developmental and evolutionary models replace the social and behavioral ones that were dominant in art and performance theory till now.


References.

1.Venus in Furs, Zone Books, N.York, 1991,
Appendix 1, A Childhood Memory and Reflections on the Novel, page 273.
2. Oscar Schlemmer's notes, RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Art, Thames and
Hudson, 1988.
3. Futurist Art and Theory, 1909-1915, by Marianne W.Martin, Oxford Press, 1968, page 130.
4. Stelarc, www.stelarc.co.va.au
5. Stelarc, "Parasite Visions: Alternate, Intimate, and Involutionary Experiences", Ars Electonica, Facing the Future, page 415.
6. Mae-Wan Ho, "The New Age of the Organism", A&D, volume 70, No 3, June 00. page 48. "The whole is thus a domain of coherent activities, consulting an autonomous, free entity, not because it is separate and isolated from its environment, but precisely by virtue of its unique entanglement of other organic space-times in its environment."
7. Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, third edition, Glossary, see: "environment".
8. Eugene Thacker, , Lacerations : The Visible Human Project, Impossible Anatomies and the loss of Corporeal Comprehension, http://gsa.rutgers.edu/maldoror/theory/Impossible.html ?"the crucial move implied in Versalius' critique of Galen was that, for anatomical science, the demonstratibility of visible proof would take priority over the tradition of textual authority forging an intimate link between seeing and knowing."
9. Mae-Wan Ho, "The New Age of the Organism", A&D, volume 70, No 3, June 00. page 48, " ...the parts behave as though they are independent of one another. This is the radical nature of the organic whole(as opposed to the mechanical whole), where global cohesion and local freedom are both maximised, and each part is as much in control as it is sensitive and responsive."
10. Stuart A. Kauffman, The origins of Order, (N.York : Oxford University Press, 1993), page 10.
11. Douglas J. Futuyma, "Evolutionary Biology", third edition, Sinauer Associates, Massachusetts, 1998, pages 24 and 651.
12. Paul Rabinow , in his article "Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociology to Biosociality", refers to Gilles Deleuze's book "On the Death of Man and Superhuman", which presents "Man as a distinctive being, who is both the subject and the object of its understanding, but an understanding that is never complete because of its very structure."
13. Eugene Thacker, "The Thickness of Tissue Engineering: Biopolitics, Biotech, and the Regenerative Body.", Ars Electronica, Lifescience, Springel Wien New York, Austria 1999, page 184. Also Ars electronica public discussion, September 1999.
14. The hypothesis that humans are "machines, puts humans and machines in a juxtaposition. Within western philosophy machines are often presented as "slaves", potential antagonists to the human race. Hugo de Garis claims that robots will conflict with the humans when their intelligence will approach ours.
15. Douglas J. Futuyma. ibid, page 743.
16. Ed. Kac,"Transgenic Art",Symposium, Ars Electronica Lifescience, (Austria : SpringerWienNewYork, 1999), (p.296).

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Links:
http://www.humancloning.org./
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/origin.html
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/biomed/bme490.981/artificial_skin.htm
http://www.aec.at/lifescience/indexv4.html
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/981003/superhumans.html
http://www.ess.ucla.edu/huge/Biochips.html
http://www.biota.org/org/vision.html
http://prophecyclub.com/jan99/16.html
http://www.nih.gov/nigms/news/features/artificial_skin.html
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/biomed/bme490.981/artificial_skin.htm
http://www.vegan-straight-edge.org.uk/taxonomy.htm
http://www.robotbooks.com/artificial-muscles.htm
http://www.ai.mit.edu/
http://faculty.washington.edu/wcalvin/bk8/bk8ch8.htm]
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb/superintelligence.htm
http://www.cs.usu.edu/~degaris/papers/journal.html