‘Of dance, we are interested in its presupposed extra-human origin (since every dance was created in illo tempore, in mythical times, by an ‘antena-to’, a totemic animal, a god or a hero). Choreographic rhythms have their model outside the profane life of man. Whether they reproduce the movements of the totemic or emblematic animal, or those of the stars; whether they constitute rituals in their own right (labyrinthine steps, leaps, gestures performed with ceremonial instruments, etc.), a dance always imitates an archetypal gesture or commemorates a mythical moment. In short, it is a repetition and, consequently, a re-actualisation of ‘that time’.’
‘The Myth of the Eternal Return’ - Eliade
The choreographic movement is historically linked to celebration, to the overturning of the
social order and its abolition. A staging of Chaos that serves to resolve itself in the Cosmos,
the new social equilibrium re-established.
In the work, the concept of celebration is re-actualised by taking it out of its usual context.
The performer is in fact physically alone but, by means of new technologies, leaves
continuously online a trace of her movement. Through a heartbeat detection system, signals
(movement frames) are sent within a public chat room. The vital organ, spontaneous and
uncontrolled, vandalises the network for the duration of the performance even when the
subject makes no movement whatsoever.
Fundamental to the work is the connection between body, in its most organic and physical
conception possible, and online spectator, without identity or form, potentially infinite or
non-existent. Whoever interacts with the work suffers its impetus and consequences. The
network, used in the transmission of frames in time to the heartbeat, cannot handle the mass
of data, it screeches and bends making itself inefficient, it does not guarantee any
communication between the participants in the work.
Music introduces a further aspect of analysis into the work. The body and the sound element
constantly condition themselves - beat after beat - as the latter is modified in real time by the
sensor. The body, on the other hand, involuntarily tries to move in time, inevitably increasing
its heartbeat and seeking a rhythm, a balance that it can never find.
Work by Karim El Shafei, Fabio Caporizzi, Maditha De Paoli and Federico Torretti.
Un sensore di frequenza cardiaca Polar H10 collegato al performer rappresenta l’input
principale di tutte le tecnologie impiegate nell’opera.
Il dispositivo, collegato ad un pc via
bluetooth, registra continuamente il battito cardiaco di chi lo indossa e invia il segnale dal
software del sensore cardiaco (Cardia) al software vvvv tramite una connessione udp in
locale.
In vvvv il valore della frequenza cardiaca ricevuto viene usato per inviare un frame
fotografico, estrapolato dal flusso video della videocamera che sta filmando la
performance, ad un bot di Telegram liberamente accessibile in rete.
Lo spettatore dovrà
solo inviare un messaggio testuale al bot per far avviare la sequenza di fotogrammi.
Inoltre, la frequenza cardiaca in bpm viene inviata al software Ableton Live, che andrà a
sincronizzare i bpm della traccia musicale, il tutto in tempo reale.
A Polar H10 heart rate sensor connected to the performer is main input of all the technologies used in the work.
The device, connected to a PC via
Bluetooth, continuously records the wearer's heartbeat and sends the signal from the heart
sensor software (Cardia) to the vvvv software via a local udp connection.
In vvvv the heart
rate value received is used to send a photo frame, extrapolated from the video stream of the
camera filming the performance, to a freely accessible Telegram bot on the network.
The
viewer only has to send a text message to the bot to get the sequence of frames started.
In addition, the heart rate in bpm is sent to the Ableton Live software, which will
synchronise the bpm of the music track, all in real time.