ITP Thesis Week 2009
Monday, May 4 - Friday, May 8

Artifacts

Theresa Ling

A structure for presenting live performance “artifacts," in this case, a dance piece.

itp.nyu.edu/~tcl268/artifacts



Dance is a field that suffers from a lack of a tangible product, which inspired my desire to create "performance artifacts." I define performance artifacts to be the residue of a performance that, as much as possible, mirrors the experience of viewing the performance in space and over time. To achieve this goal, I developed and recorded a short dance piece with two dancers. The dance is rear-projected onto six panels suspended in mid-air at different depths and heights. As the piece progresses, the most recent phrase moves forward in depth on the panels, representing the passage of time spatially. The recordings of the dance were taken at different angles and perspectives to better mirror the different perspectives an audience might have on a performance depending on their seating and focal point. In transferring the performance experience to a place outside of the theater and outside of a single 2-dimensional viewing plane, I hope to better express the experience of viewing a performance, which by nature is an experience of time and of space.