The Implicit Body as Performance: Analyzing Interactive Art

Author(s): Nathaniel Stern

Source: Leonardo , 2011, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2011), pp. 232-238
Published by: The MIT Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20869455

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Color Plate D

Participant-performer with Camille Utterback's Untitled 6 (from the External Measures series), interactive installation, 7.5 x 10 ft,
2005. (? Camille Utterback) See article in this issue by Nathaniel Stern.

232

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The Implicit Body as Performance:
Analyzing Interactive Art
Nathaniel Stern
ABSTRACT

This paper puts contemporary

theories of embodiment and

w
performance in the service
of interactive arts criticism.
Rather than focusing on vision,
structure or signification, the
derstandings
atching viewer-participants of "the
interact with body" (as a
author proposes that we explic
static System
David Rokeby's installation Very Nervous and explicit
may lead"thing") one
itly examine bodies-in-relation,
be ap
plied. As Marilyn
to conclude that they are dancing erratically Strathern
to a strange sonic warns,
interaction as performance,
it would
composition; they are actually creating be a
these mistake
sounds in to
his
and "being" think
as "being-with." He we
know what
real-time, response-driven environment. Herea the
body presents four
is when we see
audience concrete areas
of concentration for analyzing
moves, and is moved, to make music one [4].
[1]. Rather, interactive
Similarly, contribu art, qua
the category of interactive art.
inter-active,
tors' movements in Camille Utterback's must
Untitled be The
examined
6 generate author also examines how with
animated responses that cumulativelytheinteract
movingwithbody-in-relation;
each such work amplifies subjects body
other
over time. Their activity complexly and world
layers must
space, be understood
line and and objects as always already
color as
implicated across one another.
implicit in one
to create evocative and painterly compositions. A another.
"continual
flow of unique and fleeting moments," infolding and unfold
ing, sensual and contemplative, it Embodiment as
is akin to the "experience
of embodied existence itself [2] (Color Plate D). Likewise
Relational
in Mathieu Briand's series of "systems," spectator-performers
literally share, swap and interfereIn with
his Parables for the
each Virtual, contemporary
other's percep philosopher Brian
Massumi
tion. Each participant wears a custom implores usoutfitted
headset to put "movement,with sensation, and quali
cameras, screens, microphones and ties ofearpieces.
experience" backHere
into ourwe understandings
see of embodi
ment. "Our entire vocabulary"
and hear what people in other times and spaces are looking [5], he says, "has derived from
theories of signification
at and listening to, while they simultaneously that are still wedded
experience and to structure even
respond to the sights and sounds across
picked irreconcilable
up from differences"
our [6].ownHe doesn't wish to undo
the important
body's "viewpoint." Briand's enfleshed network work of cultural studies'
invites us to linguistic model for
encounter bodiliness as interactiveunderstanding
and relational race, gender,
[3].class or other forms of identifica
Artists such as Rokeby, Utterback tion,and
but hopes to rather
Briand areengage
morewith movement and "continu
interested in how we move than in what
ity." FollowingweGilles
see.Deleuze,
Their whoinstal
followed Bergson, Massumi
points but
lations are not objects to be perceived out, "When a body isto
relations in motion,
be per it does not coincide
with itself. It coincides with its own transition: its own varia
formed. The contemporary artist-researchers who create what
tion" [7].
is called interactive art are concerned withHere the
howbody interactivity
is not a "known" structure, but a "state
of invention"
itself "matters," a relatively new concept in [8], an "accumulation
artistic creativity. of relative perspectives
Here, physical action literally andand the passages between
figuratively them . . . retaining
becomes the and combining
past movements"
"work" that is the "work of art." Artwork and [9], continuously
audience, "infolded" [10] with "cod
action
and perception, body and world, are ing and
each codification"
and always[11]. already
Massumi
implicated across all others. What this has an understanding
means is that they of embodiment
are as relational,
collaboratively enacted, dispersed, emergent
entwined, and incipient: topological but not plottable. In other
differentiated
and shared. In this way, interactive words, the body is processual;
installations exceed it isextant
constituted in and of its ac
models for understanding art, which tivities with the world
almost around it. Therely
exclusively body, this paper argues,
on signs, vision or form. is performed.
A new approach to analyzing interactive art cannot be
The Pre-Formed
gin with language, images or objects; and the Per-Formed
nor can everyday un

Richard Schechner is largely credited with expanding our un

derstandings of performance, using a combination of anthro
pology, cultural theory, postmodern reflection and his practice
Nathaniel Stern (artist, educator), 2847 N. Farwell Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211, U.S.A.
E-mail: <nathaniel.stern@gmail.com>. URL: <http://nathanielstern.com>. as a theater director. He says that performance "is a very inclu
sive notion of action," theater being "only one node on a con
This article is based on Nathaniel Stern's Ph.D. thesis, "The Implicit Body: Understanding
Interactive Art through Embodiment and Embodiment through Interactive Art," Trinity
College Dublin, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, April 2009. The tinuum" that includes, for example, performances in everyday
abstract for the thesis received the highest ranking by the Leonardo Abstracts Servicelife, rites and ceremonies [12]. Performance, scholars have
(LABS). Those wishing to submit abstracts to LABS can find thesis abstract submission
argued,
forms at <leonardolabs.pomona.edu> (for English-language abstracts) and <wvw.uoc.edu/ is activity and process, transportative and transforma
artnodes/leonardolabs> (for Spainsh).
tive, in between modalities. It is a "liminal space," that is not

?2011 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 233-238,2011 233

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 j^all "reducible to terms independent of its which the subject (viewer-participant) the projections we might look at, the
gjlii formation" [13]. and object (software and/or installation) moving parts we witness or the sounds
gjipi In a study of digital art inter-actions, are composed of their interrelations. An we might hear within the gallery space.
qII Nicole Ridgway builds on these foun approach to analyzing such art should Inter-activity is understood to be enac
g^llll dations, using the "philosophical focus on performance and activity. tion, practice, affect, (the) "work." How
SipH tradition [s] of . . . relation and emer are audiences, the framework asks, liter
rafl gence" to bring new light to perfor The Implicit Body ally and physically "moved"? The case
mance. She says that it is not liminal studies catalog, through detailed ac
Framework counts from life or video documentation,
B?Hj and "'in' the between, but rather 'of
fepp the relation." Ridgway follows the work The framework I propose here posits a the careful breathing, fast-paced running
liiiii of Gilles Deleuze and Elizabeth Grosz concentration on four key areas when an and awkward grasping, the intricate ges
to juxtapose pre-formism?the already alyzing a given work: artistic inquiry and tures of fingers, mouths and toes angling
preformed or completely given (rather process; art work description; inter-activ to trigger sensors, the extravagant leaps
than produced)?with per-formance?"a ity; and relationality. While traditional and dances of bodies making music
taking place, something in process and, readings of digital art and new media across space, the quiet stutters and stares
by definition, unfinished." Per-formance, most often stop after the first two areas that attempt to elicit the perfect union
says Ridgway, "inaugurates not enacts." of concentration, I argue, it is the latter with and response from a software or in
So interaction "is not [then] a meeting of two that account for the far-reaching po stallation as time goes on.
two extant essences, but a movement and tential of interactive art [17]. This approach differs from the afore
unfolding of the [relation] that is always mentioned, and credit-worthy, Muller
supplementary and incomplete" [14]. Artistic Inquiry and Process and Jones documentation of interac
Embodiment, I contend, is inter How artists approach their work?cri tive artworks through interviews in that
action. Bodies only come into being tique what it is doing and reapply their implicit body case studies examine em
through how they inter-act and relate. In understanding of the piece while it is bodied action rather than accounts of
his book, Being Singular Plural, Jean-Luc still in production?obviously affects our how such works are experienced. My
Nancy avers that "being" is always "being readings of it. How artists contextualize own young daughter, for example, often
with" [15]. Here I assert that "body" is their work in a gallery, title it and write tries unfamiliar food and exclaims, "deli
always "embodied-with." It is per-formed about it on the wall description in the cious!" in order to impress me with her
and co-emergent with its surroundings. gallery and in the catalog or on their cultured palate, while her facial expres
And interactive installations have the po web site all feed back into how we un sions and body language tell a far differ
tential to reconfigure action and percep derstand, interact and engage with the ent story. Here, the goal is to articulate,
tion in ways that amplify this incipient work. These are thus presented as part as much as is possible, movement (or the
and interactive "bodiliness." of the implicit body framework, through lack thereof) before it is qualified. While
analyzing texts by, and interviews with, the process of embodiment itself resists
the artists.
Intervening in the being captured or presented in text or
images, it is precisely this resistance that
Body: From the Explicit
to the Implicit Artwork Description the implicit body framework attempts to
The artwork description is a detailed address. This allows for intricate analyses
Performance studies scholar Rebecca description of the piece?what it looks of how artwork and audience, body and
Schneider argued that performance art and sounds and feels like, how it responds world, co-emerge.
featuring "explicit bodies" stages and to us in the gallery or performance space.
makes explicit (in Latin: unfolds) the As Lizzie Muller and Caitlin Jones point Relationality
social inscriptions on, and attributed to, out, the intentions of artists and experi The implicit body framework also en
the body. Work by artists such as Karen ences of viewers may differ greatly in the deavors to analyze how we relate?in, of
Finley and VALIE EXPORT, Schneider media art domain and so this section may and as these interactions. While interac
maintains, "renders the symbolic [as] lit include documentation shot and written tion and performance may be insepara
eral" in order to intervene in and "pose by others?including the critic or audi ble from relationality and co-emergence,
a threat [to] structures of comprehensi ence?or even edited interviews with in in the implicit body framework they are
bility" [16]. teractors [18]. heuristically separated and given equal
In work by artists like Rokeby, Utter measure so as to ensure a concentration
back and Briand, I maintain, the body of Inter-activity on both our literal, physical movements
the viewer is unfinished and implicated Most writing on interactive art will ex and on what and how they per-form. In
(in Latin: infolded). Such work engages plain that a given piece is interactive his discussion of Stelarc's work, Massumi
not with the body as sign or structure, but and how it is interactive but not how we avers that the artist is able to physically
with a "continuous" embodiment. Rather interact. The implicit body framework, on experience ideas, to encounter what he
than staging an explicit body in perfor the other hand, explicates participants' calls "sensible concepts." Massumi says
mance as an attempt to unfold its inscrip physical actions, enabling critical read that sensible concepts do not "pre-exist"
tions, interactive art engages an implicit ings of that which is per-formed: Our lit their own "performance"; they are rather
body as performance. It has the radical eral movements over time and in space, "manifested" through their own "physi
capacity to enhance, disrupt, intervene our affect, movement and sensation are cal expression" [19]. The implicit body
in and alter experience and action in described in detail as the "work"?the in interactive art, I would argue, enables
ways that call attention to our infolding, work of art and the work of embodiment. viewer-participants?not just perfor
embodying and co-emergent relation In implicit body case studies, the ac mance artists?to enact and explore such
ships with our surroundings. The "work" tual (and actualizing) "activity" of inter corporeal-conceptual relations.
is an enduring and per-formed event in activity is genuinely given priority over The implicit body framework's fourth

234 Stern, The Implicit Body as Performance

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 area of concentration asks, What ideas Thus Utterback's Untitled 6 might, for active artwork and environment that uses jjiii^iB
or concepts are "embodied-with" inter example, be read through what I call the four infrared video cameras and custom I^Es
active art? How, in our activities and per Body-Language thematic, which studies computer vision software to construct a SKil
formance, do we sensibly conceive of, the co-emergent relationships between 3D volumetric model of its participants, lll^l
for example, architecture or meaning the performance of embodiment and the who interact within a Cave Automatic !!|i|ljiB
making or society? How are they infolded process of meaning-making. When we in Virtual Environment (CAVE) [20] (Fig.
into, and formed by, the body and one teract with her work, our enfleshed writ 1). The CAVE contains projections of
another? What do we learn about em ing, drawing, painting and making marks 3D videos across three walls, the ceiling |BiB
bodiment and interactivity through these are not inscriptions to be read, but activi and floor that respond to a participant's liKM
continuous relationships? ties with which we sensibly conceive. Our movement in real time. The active per- |^P]|
Here I am arguing for, and beginning, bodies and her software together create formers in Traces see floating "images" as lilil
an ongoing list of implicit body "themat an ongoing composition, a relational 3D moving sculptures in the immediate
ics," relational couplings between em space in which we "make sense." space around them. This interface invites
bodiment and various concepts often Since bodies co-emerge not only with a moving, affective and sensual sensori
found in contemporary interactive art. meaning but also with space (flesh motor body into the interactive experi
Thematics name, and attempt to criti space), with society (social-anatomies) ence of virtual reality. It is important to
cally engage with, the sensible concepts and with a plurality of other sensible con note here just how enveloping a CAVE,
that emerge from our interactions with cepts, the thematic approach presented and the interaction in Traces, really is.
such work. I choose the word "thematic" here calls for multiple readings of any Many media theorists over the last de
because it is more reflective of a sensible given interactive artwork. Each itera cade have analyzed Traces, most notably
concept: It is not only a noun, but also tive reading calls for specificity?what, Mark B.N. Hansen and N. Katherine Hay
a potential adjective or adverb, and can precisely, is emerging with the body?? les [21]. What follows is a truncated case
thus always be in relation to activity. The within a collection of co-emergent cat study using the implicit body framework,
matics differ from traditional conceptu egories in order to explore relationality, in order to show how it might add to on
ally based themes in that they aim to embodiment and interactivity in more going discussions about interactive art.
investigate the materiality and form of our depth. There are three modes of interaction
relationality; thematics require (inter-) in Traces, where each leads into the next.
activity. Every thematic is both a theme In the first, "passive" trace, every move
and an action, a careful reading of the
A Case in Point ment, small or sweeping, draws real-time
"with" of the incorporating practices we Simon Penny and his collaborators' lilac-colored "voxels" (volumetric pixels)
perform and embody with interactive art. Traces (1999) is a fully immersive inter that slowly fade to nothingness, like trails

Fig. 1. Simon Penny, renderings, screen shots and documentation of performers inside Simon Penny's Traces, CAVE installation, 1999 (in its
three modes) and using the Traces Vision System in other installations. (? Simon Penny. Layout: Nathaniel Stern.)

Stem, The Implicit Body as Performance 235

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 of ephemeral bricks behind each flick evolution. He goes on to argue that con that behave independently of their hu
|M^||B ering action. These traces of our bodies temporary artists' "varied use of digital man interlocutors." This "performance,"
ipUM look and feel like "volumetric and spatial media has pointed the way toward an she goes on, is "registered by the user
IjgjiB acoustic residues of user movement that introjection of technics into embodi visually and also kinesthetically as she
Kliii slowly decay" [22]. Penny describes this ment" [26]. In other words, digital art moves energetically within the space to
interaction as dancing a sculpture. When enables us to bring and incorporate the generate the entities of the Active and
EHH tne software crosses into its "active" trace surrounding world, the technologically Behaving Traces." It "makes vividly clear
IIPllll mode, the small cubic voxels no longer mediated world, into our processual that the simulated entities she calls "her
BoH fade at a standard rate. Instead, partici embodiment?what he calls, following body" and the "trace" are emergent phe
H| pants' movements seed 3D cellular au Merleau-Ponty, the body-schema. nomena arising from their dynamic and
" B tomata characteristics: Each voxel may Hansen asserts that Traces "demon creative interactions." Hayles contends
shift to any number of varying colors, for strates that the disclosive power of the that Traces "enacts a borderland where
any amount of time, before it disappears. body schema is an essentially techni the boundaries of the self diffuse into the
In the final, "behaving" trace, perfor cal power" and that, "in the end, it immediate environment and then differ
mances in the CAVE initiate animal-like emerges only through the technology entiate into independent agents" [31].
flying statuettes that move in Reynolds that makes it possible in the first place." Hayles argues that
flocking patterns in and around the Traces allows us to literally encounter a
viewer. These user-spawned 3D anima "body-in-code"inthatourbody-image ("self Traces bespeaks the playful and creative
possibilities of a body with fuzzy bound
tions?playfully called Chinese dragons representation") is "indiscernible from
aries, experiences of embodiment that
by the artists because of their segmented a technically generated body schema" transform and evolve through time,
spherical appearance?follow complex, ("enactive spatialization"). He argues connections to intelligent machines
that enact the human-machine bound
interactive and generative behaviors that the difference between the two
that make them swoop and flock and "has been entirely effaced.'" Our experi ary as mutual emergence, and the joy
that comes when we realize we are not
tease. ence of our "body proper" does not, in isolated from the flux but rather enact
Traces responds to our bodies, but over other words, take the form of a repre our mind-bodies through our deep and
time we must also be more responsive to sentational image but rather "emerges continuous communion with it [32].
it. What begins as embodied exploration through the representative function of the
becomes a physical investment in inter data of body movement" [27]. Hansen For Hayles, body and world co-emerge,
active and generative creation through in fact goes so far as to say that in Traces, and like Hansen she asserts that Traces
flicks and jabs, running and jumping, as in the world at large, "the entire body supports an understanding of the body
swiping and diving. A thematic read schema?the coupling of body proper schema, of embodiment, of relationality
ing similar to that of Utterback's work, and environment?is generated by the and emergence.
above, suggests that there is a dialogue? technical system" [28]. Here I argue that My approach to embodiment and in
what Jean-Luc Nancy [23] might call a despite his careful reasoning around the teractivity is itself not dissimilar to the
corpus?between Body and Language. co-evolution of body and technology/ one proposed in Hayles's text, and im
These two things (which are precisely code, Hansen winds up privileging the plicit body thematics are not completely
not things) are per-formed, performa latter. unlike her "modes of relation." However,
tively given both material and meaning, In Hayles's nuanced and self-critical I maintain that both Hayles and Hansen
together. treatise on relationality and the co start with a distinct artwork/technology
Hansen and Hayles [24] often turn emergence of technology/signification and discrete participant before refigur
to art in order to grow their technology with the body, she argues that interac ing their inter-active dynamics. I am
based philosophies of embodiment. In tive artworks are spaces that "make vividly not arguing for an extant body that can
counterpoint, I am asking for an un real the emergence of ideas of the body "diffuse" into its environment and then
derstanding of philosophy and art, of and experiences of embodiment." Hayles "differentiate" again, an embodied and
embodiment and interactivity, together. puts forward three "modes of relation" artful "communion" or "connection"
The subtle difference is in the articula for interrogating such work: "relation of with, for example, the "boundary" of
tion: I treat art and philosophy, like body mindbody to the immediate surround technology?words that unfortunately
and world, as transductions of, and as ings," which she calls enactment; "rela suggest the two as a priori, despite Hay
co-emergent with, one another. This ap tion between mindbody and world," or les's argument for "mutual emergence"
proach better enables the language and perception; and "relationality as cultural [33].
meaning and concepts in and with Traces construction," or enculturation [29]. My approach takes the per-formance
to manifest from its inherent coupling Hayles states that these "by no means of body and world and technology to
ivith embodied enaction. Here the frame exhaust the ways in which relationality gether as given. Here technology and
work?which is informed and supported brings the mindbody and the world into the artwork are not acting as catalysts
by Hansen's and Hayles's theories?of the realm of human experience, [but] or glue that entwine two extant entities.
fers insight into how Traces, amongst they are capacious enough in their dif Body and world are not, I argue, pre
other embodied performances, amplifies ferences to convey a sense of what is at formed things. Rather, interactive art
and helps us better understand the rela stake in shifting the focus from entity to intervenes into entwined relationships
tion of flesh and discourse [25]. relation" [30]. that are always already emerging, which
One of Hansen's key arguments in Bod Hayles places Traces within her mode are necessary?and in fact the very pre
ies in Code is that humanity and technol of "enactment": the relation of "mind condition?for being(-with). Interactive
ogy evolve together. He says that human body" to its immediate surroundings. art such as Traces creates potentialized
embodiment and experience?which She states that Traces "occupies a middle contexts that amplify the fundamentally
are, he asserts, always technically medi ground between avatars that mirror the relational process of embodiment.
ated?are the primary factors in our user's motions and autonomous agents The implicit body framework thus

236 Stern, The Implicit Body as Performance

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puts emphasis on movement, on inter the body, emerge from the (outside/in 2. Camille Utterback, <http://www.camille
utterback.com/untitled5.html>.
action itself. It first studies how people side) space of relationality, and together
literally move and are moved and then they produce meaning. 3. Evelyne Jouanno and Mathieu Briand. "Mathieu
Briand. Hacking Contemporary Reality (Interview),"
iterates through a multiplicity of poten The relationship that the work of Flash Art, October 2004, 114-116.
tial relations and co-emergences within Traces frames is between/with, explicit
4. Marilyn Strathera, "One-Legged Gender," Lucien
that movement. Implicit body thematics and implicit, construction and consti
Taylor (ed). Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from
are not merely "modes of relation" but tution, body and sign. Its significations VAR, 1990-1994 (London: Routledge, 1994), pp.
sensible concepts that are themselves and symbols are inscribed, in real time, 242-251.
emergent and in relation; they are used through our incorporating practices and 5. Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement,
to examine an embodied investigation of simultaneously take on a symbolic life of Affect, Sensation (Durham: Duke University Press,
a continuous embodiment "with" x (with their own, informing how we perform 2002), p. 4.
x, with x, with x, ad infinitum). before, during and thereafter. Acting 6. Massumi [5] p. 27.
In the passive trace, performers tend together, body and language emerge
7. Massumi [5] pp. 4-5.
toward slow investigative gestures: swoop together, in what Nancy would call "ex
ing arms, a dip and wave-making slip of scription', [37]. We come to sense, to 8. Massumi [5] p. 103.
the leg, explorations of the magical fades mean, to be-with.
9. Massumi [5] p. 57.
of the voxels in their avatars. In the ac How does such a reading add to the
tive trace, when images begin taking discourse of interactive art? 10. Massumi [5] p. 98.
on characteristics of their own, viewers' First and foremost, the implicit body 11. Massumi [5] p. 83.
performances become more erratic; they framework's detailed descriptions of in
12. Richard Schechner, Essays on performance theory
try to control the images around them teraction place emphasis on movement 1970-1976 (New York: Drama Book Specialists,
by ineffectually waving them away, slow itself. Here, interaction is not a concept 1977), p. 1.
ing their movements then unexpectedly behind the work but the activity and per
13. See Phillip Zarrilli, "Review: Toward a Definition
lashing out, flailing and failing at their formance of the work-with-us. Traces, in of Performance Studies" Theatre Journal, Vol. 38,
attempts to have exacting control over other words, does not support a philoso No. 3, 372-376 and No. 4, p. 493-496 (1986) and
Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduc
the environment/embodiment/3D im phy of embodiment, as Hansen and Hay tion (New York: Roudedge, 2002).
age (and its meaning). In the behaving les implicidy aver, but rather shows how
trace, they tend to stop trying to control the work exscribes both embodiment 14. Nicole Ridgway, "In Excess of the Already Con
stituted: Interaction as Performance," Owen Kelly
everything in the space but instead flick and (its/our) philosophy. (ed), New Media (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, Forth
and kick their arms and legs in short mo Second, the implicit body framework coming) . Hyphen added for emphasis; in Ridgway's
tions, in order at least to command the does not assume a singular-yet-coupled original text, this is written as jterformance.

birth of Chinese dragons and engage in emergence as given. Following the 15. Jean-Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural, Translated
an ongoing play. above thematic understanding of Traces, by Anne O'Byrae and Robert Richardson (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 27.
In the final interactive mode, "user I would utilize the same (though per
body movements spawn" inter-active haps extended) detailed descriptions 16. Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Perfor
mance (London: Roudedge, 1997) pp. 1-3.
agents that are somewhat "autonomous" of activity in order to re-read the work
[34], "cultural artifacts that exhibit" their several times over. A multiplicity of sen 17. The full-length manuscript I am currendy work
own "behavior" [35]. Said behaviors sible concepts are per-formed with Traces, ing on, tentatively tided The Implicit Body in Interactive
Art: Performance, Embodiment, and Media, makes this
respond to participants' position and and each deserves explicit attention. Ev argument at length, and provides in-depth analyses
movements in space, and in turn their ery iterative reading deepens our under of work utilizing the framework it proposes. This
grows out of my doctoral research, which can be
movements respond to these images: standings of the piece, of interaction, of viewed at the Trinity College Dublin library.
shorter and harsher, static then erratic, the body and of the world with which we
karate chops and Butoh. Here the work emerge. 18. Lizzie Muller and Caidin Jones, "Between Real
and Ideal: Documenting Media Art," Leonardo Vol.
is not simply, as Penny and others say, a 41 No. 4, 418-419 (2008).
"point at which [a] computational system
and the user make contact" [36]. The Conclusions 19. Massumi [5], pp. 89-90.

"work" is the relationship that emergesThe implicit body framework gives po

20. Collaborators include Jeffrey Smith, Phoebe Sen
and that we emerge from. With Traces, gers, Andre Bernhardt and Jamieson Shulte.
tential modes of explicating embodied
bodies and images are enacted through action and thinking through interactive 21. Mark B.N. Hansen, Bodies in Code: Interfaces with
their performed interactions with one art as relational and performed. It proDigital Media (New York: Routledge, 2006) and N.
Katherine Hayles, "Flesh and Metal: Reconfiguring
another, guiding and birthing, tracing poses thorough descriptions of physi the Mindbody in Virtual Environments, " Configura
and transforming, feeding back between cal activity and careful readings of thattionsVol. 10, 297-320 (2002).
what we do, what we see and what each which is sensibly conceived. All this takes
22. Simon Penny et al., "Traces: Embodied Immer
means in and through and to and with is time: time spent interacting with art, sive Interaction with Semi-Autonomous Avatars,"
the other. Convergence: The International Journal of Research
time spent describing those interactions
into New Media Technologies Vol 7 No. 2, 47-65
Here we see and read what we perform in detail and time contemplating, writ(2001), p. 47.
and make, together. Bodies interacting ing and iterating through our multiple
in trace-space contribute to the construc 23. Jean-Luc Nancy. Corpus, Translated by Richard A.
unfolding, infolding and co-emergent
Rand (Bronx, NY: Fordham University Press, 2008),
tion and constitution of the image-world relations. pp. 53-56.
in the VR environment with which they
24. Hansen [21] and Hayles [21].
are interacting. Since Traces does not re References and Notes
present the body but rather the body's ac 25. As with Utterback, Penny's work would equally
tivity, the images that participants make, Unedited references as provided by the author. benefit from being read through a multiple number
of thematics.
read and respond to are precisely proces 1. David Rokeby, <http://homepage.mac.com/
sual and per-formed. These images, like davidrokeby/vns.htmlx 26. Hansen [21] p. x.

Stern, The Implicit Body as Performance 237

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27. The above quotations are all from Hansen [21]
pp. 48-49.
28. Hansen [21] p. 47.
29. She draws parallels between these and Don
Ihde's work, where Human-Technology-World
relations are also broken into three categories:
Human+Technology in relation to the World, or
"embodiment relations"; Human in relation to
Technology+World, "hermeneutic relations"; or Hu
man in relation to a Technological World (such as
Second Life or the Internet), or "alterity relations."
Don Ihde, Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to
Eden (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana Uni
versity Press, 1990).
30. Hayles [21] pp. 304-305.
31. Hayles [21] p. 308.
32. Hayles [21] p. 309.
33. Hayles [21] pp. 308-309.
34. Penny et al. [15] p. 50.
35. Simon Penny, "Fugitive 2," <http://ace.uci.edu/
penny/stuff/index.htmlx
36. Simon Penny, Phoebe Sengers and Jeffrey Smith,
"Traces: Semi-Autonomous Avatars," <http://www.
infosci.cornell.edu/cemcom/papers/ traces-semi
autonomous-avatars.pdf>, p. 5.
37. Jean-Luc Nancy, The Birth to Presence, translated by
Brian Holmes (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1994).
Manuscript received 23 July 2010.
Nathaniel Stern is an artist, writer and
professor of art at the University of Wisconsin
Milwaukee. His current book project is ten
tatively titled The Implicit Body in Interac
tive Art: Performance, Embodiment, and
Media.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Artists and Scientists on the

Cultural Context of Climate Change

Leonardo explores the ways in which artists and scientists are addressing climate change. As contemporary
culture grapples with this critical global issue, Leonardo has documented cross-disciplinary explorations by
artists, scientists and engineers, working alone or in teams, addressing themes related to global warming and
climate change.

Partial list of Leonardo articles and projects concerned with global warming climate change and related issues:

George Gessert, "Gathered from Coinci
dence: Reflections on Art in a Time of
Global Wanning," Leonardo 40, No. 3,
231-236 (2007).
Julien Knebusch, "Art & Climate
Change," Web project of the French
Leonardo group Leonardo/Olats
(l'Observatoire Leonardo pour les Arts et
les Techno-Sciences), <http://www.olats.
org/fcm/artclimat/artclimat_eng.php>.
Julien Knebusch, "The Perception
of Climate Change," Leonardo 40, No. 2
(2007) p. 113.
Andrea Polli, "Atmospherics/Weather
Works: A Spatialized Meteorological Data
Sonification Project," Leonardo 38, No. 1,
31-36 (2005).
Andrea Polli, "Heat and the Heartbeat of
the City: Sonifying Data Describing Climate
Change," Leonardo Music Journal 16 (2006)
pp. 44-45.
Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore, "TV.
April 16, 2006," LMJ16 CD Contributor's
Note, Leonardo Music Journal 16 (2006),
pp. 71-72.
Janine Randerson, "Between Reason
and Sensation: Antipodean Artists and Cli
mate Change," Leonardo 40, No. 5 (2007).
Ruth Wallen, "Of Story and Place: Com
municating Ecological Principles through
Art," Leonardo 36, No. 3, 179-185 (2003).
Angelo Stagno and Andrea van der
Straeten, "0-24 Licht: A Project Combining
Art and Applied Research," Leonardo 40,
No. 5 (2007).

238 Stern, The Implicit Body as Performance

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