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Interactive Awakenings:Heightening Consciousness of the Dance Artwork for Artist and Audience Member |
Keywords: Dance, interactivity, choreography, artist, Internet, communications, participation
[The Internet] is much more a social phenomenon than anything else, with users attracted to the idea that computers are now boxes that connect them with interesting people and exciting places to go, rather than soulless cases that deny social contact. [1]Internet technology offers huge advancements in the possibilities for interactive art where the viewer becomes an active participant, experiencing the artwork through communication with the artist or the work itself. The greatest potential for interactive art lies in involving the participant in the creative process, rather than in simply allowing interaction with the artistís completed work. Such interaction, where reflection and individual involvement are permitted, empowers the participant with a sense of ownership of the artwork that encourages a more intense understanding and appreciation. The artist also becomes more consciously aware of the work and its relevance to the viewers through facilitating the creative role of the participant. This paper supports these assertions with reference to the Hands-On Dance Project, an interactive dance-making project on the Internet. [2]
The Hands-On Dance Project involves participants via the Internet in the process of choreographing dances. It consists of a series of individual projects, that each take place over a period of several weeks. The participants do not need to have any particular knowledge or background in dance, as the Project attempts to provide an environment where all comers can be creatively involved. To do this, the Project employs the unique communications systems provided by the Internet to facilitate a high level of interaction between project director or artist and participants. Through email discussion, videoconference rehearsals and creative Web-based tasks, participants are involved in all stages of the creative process, supplying inspirations, suggestions, comments and questions. Each participant may choose the types and frequency of contributions that he or she makes to the process, and all input is registered upon the Web site, so that the individual feels a sense of involvement in the artwork created. The participant ideally becomes consciously involved with the artist in the problem-finding and solving that is the process of making the dance. [3]
Interactive installations and CD-ROMs are the most common occurrences of interactive artworks. Some artworks place the locus of control closer to the audience than others, and this defines how far the audience member is required to make a conscious choice about his or her role in the work. Where the locus of control is with the audience completely, as in the CD-ROM dance work windowsninetyeight [4], the audience member or participant must make choices in order to see any performance at all. Without choices being made, the initial image will be all that the viewer sees. Choices about where to click on the screen or which section to view next must be made, and in this way the work is re-created at each viewing by the individualís decisions. In installations, such as Paul Sermonís Telematic Dreaming [5], it is possible for the audience member to watch passively while others participate. However, when the audience member chooses to participate, he or she must make choices that affect the content of the work through exchange of information with the remote participant on the bed. In each case, prior to the viewerís conscious choices only the artistís prepared space existed, containing the potential for the artwork. Conscious choices affect the way in which the participant experiences and understands the work, as he or she is involved in its creation.
The skills needed by artists if they are to truly loosen control over the audience, but still share their pleasure, are perhaps less like the traditional art skills, and more like the social interaction skills of ëthrowing a good partyí, or of enabling/community art. [6]In a CD-ROM or interactive art installation the artist creates the content and the possible paths of access. The work then awaits the interaction of the user or audience member to achieve its final structure, as the piece of art does not exist until that interaction takes place. But according to Grahamís analogy, such artists are like the host who throws a good party, but then does not attend it himself.
In an on-going interactive art project such as the Hands-On Dance Project, the constant interaction between participant and artist allows the artist to be continually up-dating the environment to suit the particular needs or requests of the participants. As director of Hands-On Dance Project, my role is to facilitate the creation of the dance, developing a space where others can come to create with me. It is necessary to consciously re-assess the shape of the project in the light of all submissions, questions and suggestions. Where the participantsí submissions or suggestions conflict with each other or with the my personal ideas, decisions have to be made on how to deal with the situation so that nobody will feel excluded, and yet the dance can retain a sense of unity. Rather than simply designing the potential and leaving it to the audience to make of it what they will, the process involves constantly seeking and developing potential pathways in the process, and re-designing the project accordingly.
To facilitate the maximum sense of involvement for participants, immediacy of response is a factor. [7] If the participant submits an inspiration or makes a comment, then the faster this is registered on the Web site or receives a reply, the closer the participant feels to the work. The participants who became most involved in Hands-On Project 1 often emailed more than once a day, and responded within hours to replies. This makes the project extremely work-intensive as email must be checked several times a day and the site must be updated accordingly. There is a sense of total immersion in the project for the artist that is very demanding in terms of time and energy, as in addition to rehearsals with the dancers, there is a constant stream of input and questions from participants which require consideration and responses. In this method of working, the artistís consciousness of the developing artwork is greater than in more traditional methods of choreography, as s/he must be constantly reviewing the developing creative process in order to facilitate it.
Öfor the participant, too, the interactive installation is hard work. To be meaningfully experienced, it demands time and serious attention. [8]Many of the participants do not have the time or the inclination to make such a commitment to the project. In Project 1, the first stage consisted of participants submitting text and images as inspirations for the dance movement. The dancers then created short dance phrases for each inspiration. This was a direct exchange of ideas, like the giving and receiving of gifts, and all but one of the participants took part in this stage. They saw their work displayed on the Web page and they each received a danced response, almost as a personal reward. One participant submitted a poem, and when the dance phrase for it was put on the Web site he sent three more poems within an hour! Twenty-six people took part in this initial stage of the project, but only five continued to participate through the later stages when the work became more collaborative, as a single dance was formed from all the input. The problem lay in engaging the participant in the overall work, rather than in only what they saw as their part of it. The initial stage was very quick and required minimal input from participants to achieve considerable response. Later stages required more thought, as the movement material on the Web site had to be considered and decisions made. Both time and attention were required, as download times for the movies were a factor, and participants need to check the Web site regularly to keep up to date with developments. The "I did that" syndrome is important in the Project, but it is intended as a way to draw people into a consciousness of the larger context of the dance.
Although asynchronous communication was used to encourage reflection and consideration in involvement, videoconference rehearsals proved to be a useful working method. However, they were most effective when used in conjunction with asynchronous approaches. Several participants submitted inspirations for dance movement, and then joined us via videoconferencing to work on the dance. These participants tended to feel a greater sense of involvement in the initial stage of creating movement material. [9] One participant completed a Web-based task for sequencing short dance phrases into a longer dance, and then joined us to watch the dance being made. He was able to give additional instructions for the ending of the sequence. A combination of reflective asynchronous contribution and synchronous discussion and experimentation appeared to facilitate an optimum sense of participation in the creative process.
The aim for the artist is to instil in the participant a sense of responsibility for the work that will result in a greater feeling of involvement in both the process and the product. For some of the participants in Hands-On Project 1 this did indeed happen. One of the participants, who was involved throughout the creative process of Project 1, came to see the live performance of the dance product. In an interview afterwards he said that he felt a strong sense of personal engagement and appreciation of the dance, even though he could no longer identify within it the original dance phrase that was created for his inspiration. Despite very little experience of viewing dance, he felt that he understood the intention behind this dance having been involved in its creation, and he enjoyed the performance very much. His sense of engagement or conscious involvement with the dance was so strong that he felt ëalmost embarrassedí at watching it with other people. [10]
It is the art of communication, but instead of words, or music, or picture as the medium, the medium is experience. Öthe interactive artist is one who masters the shaping of experience for an audience--not through the manipulation of human feelings and stereotypes, as in traditional theatre, but through the creation of spaces for those feelings to develop as they will. [11]The skills that are required by the interactive artist are different from those of the traditional artist. Instead of a completed product, the interactive artist designs a framework that contains the potential for the creative experience of the participant. Interactive art also asks more of the viewer/participant, since meaningful interaction requires time and reflection.
The interactive creative process does not necessarily result in innovative
or exciting art products, but it does result in a level of involvement
through communication that empowers both participant and artist with a
depth of awareness of each other and the artwork itself. It is the
interaction between participant and artist that creates the artwork, but
it is the shared experience of creating the dance that results in a heightened
consciousness of it, through awareness of the intentions and processes
that went into creating it.