Seminar Research Dossier

Seminar one:

In seminar one, I was intrigued by William Forsythe’s project of “Black Flags”. He

stripped the work of the traditional human role as performer and presented the
choreography by transmitting the kinetic energy of the robot arm to the flags, which
interacted with the air. I had a discussion with my group members about how to define
“performance” and “performer”. Who is the “performer” in this work? Is it the flag or
the robot arm or both? I gave my opinion following.

I think that a movement that is manipulated with a specific will and intention is a
“performance”, regardless of whether people are involved or not. For example, the
unconscious movement of the robotic arm in “Black Flags” is driven by the coding of
the subjective will of the author. In terms of “performer”, I suppose that it is defined
by audience’s different perception. The flag and air are performers to me. Robot arm
is mere a tool rather than a performer in this project, existing to provide power to the
flag and air. This project is talking about de-anthropocentrism, and any material can
be choreographed to perform. In this project I concerned about the interaction and
movement between air and flag, they are like a couple of performers in front of
curtain. While the robot is like a staff. The robot participates in the performance but it
is not the performer.

Black Flags
 William Forsythe’s other relevant work

Reference:
1. OnChoreographicSpaceKeynotePaper.
2. SheetsJohnstone-ImaginativeSpaceDance-2015.
3. William Forsythe. Black Flags.
4. William Forsythe. ANALOGON.

Seminar two:

In seminar tow, I attempted a storytelling interpretation of artist Maja Smrekar’s work

“Hybrid Family”, mimicking Donna J. Haraway’s narrative approach by constructing
a symbiotic human named “elimac” to tell the story from “his” point of view:
Iterations and futures of elimac. Elimac scent-melded, hunted, and fed with the
wolfdogs, bringing it closer and closer to the pack until, in the fourth generation, the
fusion of the human and wolfdog cells ultimately created the final “elimac”. I
envisioned two paths for “his” future: elimac could choose to remain in this symbiotic
state and continue to reproduce, or “he” can choose to symbiose with other species or
inorganic matter, iterating to become a new symbiote. There is a great question to be
explored here: is human-led symbiotic behaviour also a form of anthropocentrism? In
this project, Maja Smrekar used artistic expression of human-animal symbiosis to
question human’s domination of the planet and the self-evident nature of the human
mindset. I see "symbiosis" as a way to better understand and empathise with other
species. Since humans have lived in anthropocentric environments for so long,
perhaps symbiosis can help people to understand nature, animals, plants, organisms or
inorganic beings, and even life beyond Earth.

Generation 1

Generation 2
 Generation 3

Generation 4

Reference:
1. Donna J. Haraway. Staying with the Trouble_ Making Kin in the Chthulucene 1.
2. Maja Smrekar. K-9_topology.
3. Maja Smrekar. I Hunt Nature, and Culture Hunts Me.
4. Maja Smrekar. Hybrid Family.
5. Maja Smrekar. ARTE_mis.

Seminar three：

In seminar three, I was inspired by Usman Haque’s project of“sky Ear”. The
atmospheric space, which was thought to be natural, is in fact full of man-made
products - electromagnetic waves. This got me thinking, what is “nature”? Anything
we think of as “natural” is actually full of human control and traces, while we have no
sense of the environment we live in.

I have found some examples of such works, all of which stimulate people’s perception
of their surroundings through artistic means, reacquainting them with the “novelty” of
their usual environment, so that they can reflect on some neglected issues. For
example, in the project “Rain Room”, under the control of the machine, the everyday
visible “rain” loses its tactility, leaving behind only artificial smells and sounds. “Rain
Room” successfully explores how the relationship between human and nature can be
more regulated by technology and make people be aware of this ignored situation; as
in Eliasson’s “Weather Project”, it is only in this man-made nature that people re-feel
the importance of nature and the climate, as well as the insignificance of their own
selves.

Sky Ear
 Rain Room

Weather Project
Reference:
1. Gordon Pask. A comment, a case history and a plan.
2. Usman Haque. Sky Ear.
3. Random International. Rain Room.
4. Ólafur Elíasson. Weather Project.

Seminar four：

In seminar four, I was inspired by Von Uexkull’s literature “Foray-introduction”. He

explores the differences between animal and human perceptual mechanisms. He
mentioned that “without the living subject, there would be no time and no space.
Biology will emphasise the decisive role of the subject through the natural sciences.
Each subject, like the spider's silk, unfolds its relations to certain things and weaves
them into a solid web which carries its being.” While the world we live in is rich
beyond measure, the perceptual stimuli that act on each subject are limited and
different. With this perspective I have a new sense of Christine Sun Kim’s project of
“face opera”. In this performance, for the Deaf community without hearing, “sound”
is an ineffective “perception signs” for them, and on the contrary, visual perceptions
such as facial expressions and gestures become the most important perception signs,
which combine to build up their “environment”. For the group with sound perception,
auditory and visual perception carry the same importance. “just as a gourmet picks
only the raisins out of the cake, the tick only distinguishes butyric acid from among
the things in its surroundings. We are not interested in what taste sensations the raisins
produce in the gourmet but only in the fact that they become perception marks of his
environment because they are of special biological significance for him.”Although the
two groups are in the same space and time at the same time, their "environments" are
completely different because of their different perception signs.
 Face Opera

Reference:
1. Jakob von Uexkiill. A FORAY INT O THE WORLDS OF ANIMALS AND
HUMANS.
2. Christine Sun Kim. Face Opera.