a conversation with the air around my body is a short, choreographic work for video exposing the psychological/physiological terrain of embodied writing as a site for public performance. Stillness, weight, and kinesthetic awareness are translated through the dancer’s mind/body into words that appear as text on a screen. These words are then translated in real time through an artificial intelligence interface to generate the performance’s musical score. In the same way the physical intelligence of the body is translated by the mind into words, the letters of these words are abstracted into musical notes through the algorithmic thinking of a computer interface. This work regards the body of the dancer as a contradictory site--a location of continuous resistance and surrender. As the external forces of gravity and inertia are resisted and redirected by the innate, internal energy of the dancer’s body, this intimate interaction is translated into a moment-by-moment, first-person narrative encounter. The resulting text is the residue and evidence of this ephemeral, embodied experience. 

Untitled (red) is a short work for video that draws inspiration from text within Jospeh Alber’s book, Interaction of Color (1963, Yale). It is a meditation on the color red--a color that has deep significance in many cultures. Historically, it has often been the first color to be named as societies develop. That is, it is the first color that differentiates itself from the “noise” of the world. Red is also thought to be the first color we can discern as our vision develops and is imagined to be the last color we see before dying. Red is both the subject matter and material presence of our project. In the work, a monochrome red video undulates in juxtaposition with an original score derived from a performer reading aloud forty-five different names for the color red. The score manipulates this recording using analog tape, along with outmoded microcassette recorders, to change the pitch, speed, and timbre of the recording, creating a landscape of sound used to frame and underpin the original text naming these forty-five different kinds of red and their representation on screen.  

"If one says "Red" (the name of a color) and there are 50 people listening, it can be expected that
there will be 50 different reds in their minds. And one can be sure that all these reds will be very different.

Even when a certain color is specified which all listeners have seen innumerable times- such as the red of
the Coca-Cola signs which is the same red all over the country- they will still think of many different reds.

Even if all the listeners have hundreds of reds in front of them from which to choose the Coca-Cola red,
they will again select quite different colors. And no one can be sure that he has found the precise red shade.

And even if that red Coca-Cola sign with the white name in the middle is actually shown so that everyone focuses on the
same red, each will receive the same projection on his retina, but no one can be sure whether each has the same perception.  

When we consider further the associations and reactions which are experienced in connection with
the color and the name, probably everyone will diverge again in many different directions." (Albers, J. 1963, p. 3)¹

Sublimation

Composer: Stephan Carlson
Production Artist: Kimberly Fain

Sublimation takes the viewer/listener on a journey through three environments: a cascading landscape; the operating deck of a space-ship; and a metaphysical environment in which the pastoral and galactic characters of the first two spaces are sublimated into a third and final space. Threaded through these three environments, serving as both a point of reference as well as reflection, is a Renaissance-styled setting of Ubi Caritas. Each of these three environments seem to emerge from the Ubi Caritas as it undergoes various transformations. Sound and light combine in a stretching of the senses, submerging the listener/viewer into other worldly spaces that seem to dwell just beneath the surface.