Thoughts.com Blogs - SWAP/Exchange Archive May 25th 2008

View Blog

SWAP/Exchange Archive May 25th 2008

This item has been flagged as inapproriate content. Are you sure you want to view it?
Yes, I want to view it!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Christina Gesualdi 5/25

Please share any thoughts/questions for Christina Gesualdi here. This is for people that attended the 5/25 SWAP session. Please include your name when posting any comments.

2:07 AM - 2 Comments

Christina

Hey SWAPers...Its Christina. Thanks for the feedback on the power point Sunday. I realized I forgot one question that I was definitely curious about. Who was the narrator of the whole thing?...how did you picture him/her?

I guess that is a way more content based question than the stuff we were talking about Sunday. I have been thinking about the concept of how this type of piece would actually be shown. I like the idea of it as an installation that really small groups of say3-5 people could watch together. Or at least something where maybe one person in the audience could control the timing of the slides. That would set up a weird dynamic in that one person would feel (and actually be) responsible for not screwing up other 2-4 people's viewing experience. The stakes would seem high in that there would be no option to go back to a previous slide and they wouldn't know about the repeat slides at the end. That might bring them to actually say, "ooops" or "sorry, you weren't done?" or "brown couch" or "ya good?" or ,in attempts to be polite, the viewers may just bite their tongues and try to get through the shared viewing even if they aren't always able to finish a slide or if they feel like they are constantly waiting in between slides. But then I also like the idea of the slide timing eventually controlling itself. Maybe at first it is subtle and fairly synced up with about the actual time a normal person would take to read the slide...so by the point of "weirdoes" it is transitioning through visibly slower preset timings. And then as that goes into the rapid fire repeat slides, it is even more obviously out of the control of the person with the remote.

I'm not sure if I still would want the people crowded around a laptop...I like the idea of them crowded around something and watching, but I don't really like how the I-Book or whatever kind of comments on itself (yes...like every other slightly artsy twenty-something that frequents coffee shops...I have an I-book...let me show you how hip I am (or am not) as you watch my power point) ....ehhh not sure if I want to send that message. lol Sometimes I envision it being seen through one of those old-school View Finder things that I had as a kid (but that would make the experience personal, not shared.)

Oh and lastly, I was browsing around with the thought of text and dance performance in mind and came across Ishmael Houston Jones' site with his The End of Everything text that he used as the text for a piece he did in the 80's. It is pretty amazing, and I am super curious if he spoke it, or how it was incorporated into the performance. Here is the site: www. ishmaelhj. com. The piece is called The End of Everything! Woa.

Well, that's it. Any thoughts about anything, let me know. Thanks! later!

Posted by Christina on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 at 10:32 AM

Danielle

hey christina. sorry it's taken me so long to respond. lots of information here.

as far as an "envisioned narrator", i didn't really think that deeply into it at the time. it wasn't like i thought
"this character is male or female, or in their 30's, or from this specific social bracket" etc etc. i was more interested in how the story telling was unfolding to us. the timing of it. that it was not linear and that we sometimes didn't have time to read the whole thing. that we were crowded/huddled around this small viewing space and how that changed the way we watched and related to the work and to each other. a slight discomfort. the content of your story was very much imbedded in relationships - how people relate or don't relate - awkwardly, humorously, tragically. i guess it made me more aware of what was happening between the people that were actually in the room reading this thing together. the relationships or fictitious characters that we were reading about somehow seemed secondary to that experience.

also, as far as your questions about timing - who will control/or not control the switching of slides - i think it's really hard to guess how it will work out. you just have to try it a bunch of different ways and get more feedback. show it again and again!

i do get what you're saying about the MacBook thing. not sure how to resolve that. probably (again) just trying things out. many versions. the view finder idea could be cool, but i think that you're right about it shifting to a personal rather than shared experience. then again, i recently went to at Dance Theater Camp showing for the Zoom In workshop where they merged the two seeming conflicting experiences nicely i thought. they gave binoculars to three audience members at a time to watch a performance down the very narrow hallway of the Parlor. the rest of the audience members watched the binocular folk watching the performing from the lobby area- by watching these personal responses of the binocular viewers - audience members in the lobby got to have a preview/or remember their own experience if they had already gone. the the personal experience became a shared experience. pretty cool, right?

last but not least - That's Sooo great that Ishmael contacted you and gave you some useful info. he's amazing - THANKS ISH! it means that these blogs are really doing what they should be doing - which is totally exciting. if you want, it would be cool to know what ya'll discussed. sharing information yeah yeah - i totally dig it!

danielle

Posted by Danielle on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 3:32 AM

Monday, May 26, 2008

Meg 5/25

Please share any thoughts/questions for Meg here. This is for people that attended the 5/25 SWAP session. Please include your name when posting any comments.

2:06 AM - 0 Comments

Monday, May 26, 2008

Zornitsa 5/25

Please share any thoughts/questions for Zornitsa here. This is for people that attended the 5/25 SWAP session. Please include your name when posting any comments.

2:04 AM - 1 Comments

map dance collective

hey z. fyi: i think it's safe to say that you can have at least 30mins to show at the next SWAP on June 15th. use the time how you like...if you wanna only do online feedback, that's totally cool. you could state any questions at the actual SWAP as food for thought and then post them here for people to respond.

xo.
mappers

Posted by map dance collective on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 3:46 AM

Monday, May 26, 2008

Christina Zani 5/25

Please share any thoughts/questions for Zani here. This is for people that attended the 5/25 SWAP session. Please include your name when posting any comments

1:03 AM - 1 Comments

Danielle

hey christina. lovely job at 'evening of duets' this past weekend. was thinking how much you duet has changed since you showed at SWAP (we've talked some about this already). thought that it might be helpful to open it up to those who saw the work this weekend. to talk about how those changes resonated with them. i know that both meg and christina g were at both SWAP and 'evening of duets'. thoughts anyone?

also just to make public some of the one on one thoughts we've shared:

i felt -

taking out the beginning walking section and replacing it with the setting of the tomatoes - gave more weight to the tomatoes. a kind of importance to them. took me longer to get into the "relation-ality" of the piece without that beginning section b/c your first image was less about you and je moving with/playing off of one another and more about just the function of setting up those tomatoes. so then since it took me longer to get into how you were relating to one another, it also took longer for the words of the song to dissipate as they had done before.

also, the placement of the table. 1st night all the way stage left and very downstage - audience on house left got a very different viewing than those people on house right. 2nd night, table set up in same location at beginning but then moved to center stage when time to eat tomatoes. you had said that you liked the idea of the table not being central. wonder if you just set it up still on stage left but a bit more upstage (maybe even close to midstage left) , the whole audience would have a better vantage point and then you wouldn't have to relocate it and it wouldn't be totally central. also, you and je stay mostly in the same area throughout the chunky meat section, so you wouldn't have to worry about running into it if it were set up slightly more upstage. maybe something to try when you have more eyes on it again. and when je is back in philly of course. damn i miss that lady.

danielle

Posted by Danielle on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 3:33 AM