William Forsythe: choreography as a reflection of social spheres
"In his installation performances such as Human Writes or Heterotopia, to which Forsythe has dedicated an increasing amount of his time in recent years, choreography becomes a social practice. Forsythe's installations are controlled test arrangements in which all the participants can observe themselves, their bodies and their movements together. When a performance like Human Writes deals in substance with the difficulties surrounding universal human rights, it becomes clear where the potential of dance and movement can lie. After all, it's not abstract universal laws alone that guarantee our co-existence. It is much more our physical actions, our daily movements that create and shape the community. Herein lies the political meaning of Forsythe's notion of dance. He creates spaces where he places people in a new, unknown relationship to themselves so that they reflect differently on their (social) spheres and in so doing explore their own potential scope for action."
(Gerald Siegmund, May 2008, Goethe-Institut)
Fig.3 Dominik Mentzos, "Human Writes", performance-Installation by William Forsythe and Kendall Thomas [http://www.theforsythecompany.com/pressphotos/humanwrites/].
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Brian Dettmer: book autopsies
"In this work I begin with an existing book and seal its edges, creating an enclosed vessel full of unearthed potential. I cut into the surface of the book and dissect through it from the front. I work with knives, tweezers and other surgical tools to carve one page at a time, exposing each page while cutting around ideas and images of interest. Nothing inside the books is relocated or implanted, only removed. Images and ideas are revealed to expose a book's hidden, fragmented memory. The completed pieces expose new relationships of a book's internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception."
(Brian Dettmer)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
PaperScope: a tool for graphically representing reference and citation chains
"PaperScope is a tool for graphically exploring the Astrophysics Data System (ADS) which is a database of published astrophysics papers. PaperScope is extremely useful for identifying the citation/reference relationships between papers, and enables the user to visualize these relationships to make locating papers of interest easier. Use it for constructing reference or citation chains, as well as identifying common references/citations between several key papers. It is a tool designed to simplify the process of searching for relevant papers to an astrophysics researcher whether they be a professor, post doc, or student."
(Mark Holliman, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
I Want You To Want Me
"I Want You To Want Me chronicles the world’s long-term relationship with romance, across all ages, genders, and sexualities, gathering new data from a variety of online dating sites every few hours. The system searches these sites for certain phrases, which it then collects and stores in a database. These phrases, taken out of context, provide partial glimpses into people’s private lives. Simultaneously, the system forms an evolving zeitgeist of dating, tracking the most popular first dates, turn-ons, desires, self-descriptions and interests."
(Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar, 2008)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Love Connection: 1980s dating game hosted by Chuck Woolery
"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Love Connection was an American television game show, hosted by Chuck Woolery. In the show, singles attempted to connect with a compatible partner in what was a reversed and modernized variant of The Dating Game. I say reversed, because instead of the whole point of the show being the meeting which would lead to the date, in Love Connection, they had already had the date and you get to see the after effects."
(The Retroist, 15 February 2012)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
