Corpus Projecti

In this performance, the live female body becomes a matrix of stories, accessed through human bodily touch. To hear a story, a user must make continuous physical contact with the performing body. In real time, the user will see cellular growth projected before them, directly caused by the transmission of the story. This cellular growth illuminates a biological, rather than mechanical, connection between user and data.

As an interactive piece, the user may access any, all, or only one of the stories, in whatever order they choose. Some of the stories may seem to oppose one another, others may only be metaphor, but each story is a small expression of a larger narrative that inhabits the body as a whole.

corpus projecti: the body projected… into space, into time, into story. My body is a site of story, it is an interface where memory is received, stored and transmitted. If you touch me, you will experience a moment of that story. Listen to my words and feel the memory beneath your hand. Listen to each moment, or only one. Together, these moments are a hurricane; alone, they are but one raindrop. And you decide how long you want to stand in the storm.

My research for this interrogation is situated between body art practices of the latter 20th century, the articulation of the technobody in art, embodied performance, feminist performance, postmodern aesthetics, and communication through information technologies.

The target audience is anyone interested in performance, installation, body art, techno art, liveness, and/or storytelling.

Visitors enter a room, and see a woman in the center. They touch her body in designated locations and she speaks to them—she tells them a story. There are a variety of stories (up to ten), none more than a minute long, and each inspired by the body part that the visitor is touching. Each of these stories is a moment in a larger narrative. Users can listen to all of the stories to hear the full narrative, or they can listen to only a few of the stories for a more impressionistic experience. Based on the speed of and volume of the performer's voice, cellular growth is rendered in real time in OpenGL using Jitter. The cells change color, change size and dance around with the sound of her voice. She only speaks for as long as the visitor’s hand is making contact with her body. This is performed in a room with a door that can close completely because it is necessary that the room is silent. There are two other people to assist the project- one inside the room, to help visitors, and one outside of the room to instruct them before they go into the space.

The piece requires one (1) live human performer, one (1) wireless microphone, one (1) Max patch running on one (1) Macintosh G4 powerbook, one (1) projector and one (1) white wall as a projection site, all housed in one (1) quiet room.