Wired 2

The Searching Mind…(film) and Wired 2 (installation) are outputs from a practice as research project exploring how we kinesthetically engage with movement qualities. The project focusses on viewer’s response and how it can be elicited and/or disrupted.
Research Aims:
1. Use improvisation as a practice to embody different movement qualities
2. Explore collaboration with different art forms (music, creative coding) as a means to affect the viewer
3. Using digital technology as an affective device, investigate dance as a means of communication
The research is phenomenologically framed using the concept of kinesthetic empathy and the specific relationship to spectator’s response to dance on screen. Kinesthetic empathy can be loosely defined as the sensation of moving whilst watching movement, where the viewer can sense, as Ivor Hagendoorn (2004) points out, the ‘speed, effort, and changing body configuration’ of the dancer, as if performing the movement themselves.
The creative team explored the possibilities of using physiological information to create the works that disrupt and inform the viewer’s experience. For example, the dancer improvised wearing EEG and HR sensors and the frequencies recorded from this Wayte then used to compose the sound score of the film. These same frequencies were used to explore, with improvisation, movement qualities in the research and development phase in the dance studio which were then taken on location to film.
In summary, the project explored ideas of creatively using physiological information, kinesthetically engaging the viewer with dance on screen, collaborating with other art forms in the process of making and using digital technology as a driver to create the product.
This work has been shown at FACT Liverpool, TURN Dance Festival at Contact Theatre Manchester, Artsfest at Arena Theatre Wolverhampton, Introducing… dance platform at Vivid Gallery Birmingham and was supported by Arts Council England, Manchester Metropolitan University MIRIAD residency, Cornerhouse Microcommission, Manchester Dance Consortium, FACT Liverpool.