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needed</title></head><body>
<div>Thanks Annelie and David for your comments. It is all very
interesting!<br>
<br>
I would just like to say one thing. Technology is just a tool, a
shell, a means towards something else. Similar to our bodies
being tools for expression, or dance technique for that matter.
That is why as dancers we must be conscious of how we choose to train
our bodies, what techniques we use to develop ourselves. We have
choices between Cunningham or Ballet, for example. Their is no
right or wrong or better way. It all depends on what we want to
say. Technology is the same way. We choose aspects of it,
learn how it works, inform ourselves of its potentials. We
control it, we guide it, we make the choices and decisions. And
hopefully it is our ideas, intentions and our imaginations which guide
us, not the technical skills. If one is using technology just to
use it (similar to moving in a certain aesthetic because that's how
one was trained), then what is being communicated?<br>
<br>
I use video because that is how, right now, I can best express my
sense of bodies and how they move. My camera is part of me like
my eyes or my arms. I accept the limitations of my camera like I
accept certain physical limitations of my body, but I challenge them.
Technically I can say I know everything about my camera, but
continually, I am surprised at what is being produced. Sure I
could make work without the camera, but it would be a different thing
altogether. It wouldn't be any better or any worse. It
would just be what it is.<br>
<br>
I guess I worry more about the days when we make technology do things
beyond our control, when it begins to take over and act for us, and
move instead of us... the days when we no longer know what is real and
what isn't.....<br>
<br>
Motria Sabat<br>
<br>
PS Thanks for the generating of thoughts<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
From: "Annelie David" <d_annelie@hotmail.com><br>
Reply-To: dance-tech@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>
To: dance-tech@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>
Subject: Re: Feedback from dancers and choreographers needed<br>
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 15:04:17 -0000<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>From: Imageimage@aol.com<br>
Reply-To: dance-tech@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>
To: dance-tech@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu<br>
Subject: Re: Feedback from dancers and choreographers needed<br>
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 03:33:22 EST<br>
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<div><br>
<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
Thank you Motria Sabat from Toronto, Canada (is there another
Toronto?) for<br>
your comments. It's always good to bounce ideas around:<br>
<br>
<<I don't agree with the statement "good work doesn't need
technology".<br>
<br>
You're right to disagree. My phrasing was incorrect. I should have
said<br>
"good<br>
work can be done without technology"<br>
<br>
<br>
<<It is somehow suggesting that technology acts as an extra
factor, a<br>
separate entity in the art making process.<br>
<br>
You're right. Actually, there cannot be any outside entities in
the<br>
artistic<br>
process. A piece of art encompasses all of its elements, transcending
them.<br>
<br>
<br>
<<To me what is more interesting is the ongoing questioning of
HOW one uses<br>
technology.<br>
<br>
Right again. But we technology-minded souls get so wrapped up in
trying to<br>
get the most out of technique that we're often satisfied with
doing<br>
something<br>
technically better than was possible before - and thinking that means
it's<br>
good.</blockquote>
<div><br>
Commend from Annelie David, Amsterdam: I wonder if this possible has
to do<br>
with the tendency in dance first to approach the technique and then
make<br>
artistic choices?<br>
<br>
The real artist is willing to throw out years of research when
he/she</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>is careful enough to notice that an
old-fashion mechanical can opener<br>
simple<br>
works better than the electric gizmo. Or even better, throw out the
can<br>
openers and the cans, and use fresh vegetables.<br>
<br>
<br>
<<The capabilities of technology now are astounding, and what
is<br>
fascinating<br>
is how it is influencing our choices and processes.<br>
<br>
Technology will make a car go faster, it will make a bomb blow up
more<br>
people, it will make it easier to do the house work. But it won't
make<br>
better<br>
art. It may make it easier to accomplish certain means for making art,
but<br>
art is made more of limitations than of possibilities, made more of
choices<br>
than of potential. If Mozart worked today, no one would be surprised
if he<br>
used synthesizers. Perhaps a computer program like Finale would allow
him<br>
to<br>
write more music, by making the notation process easier. Perhaps his
music<br>
would be different. But it wouldn't be better.<br>
I think of cinema, where the development of artificial lighting<br>
progressively<br>
allowed filmmakers to more easily create a natural-looking lighting.
But<br>
the<br>
best lighting designers in the 20's and 30's realized that they
couldn't do<br>
it - and turned the technological limitations into style.<br>
And before them, the first generation of filmmakers simply cut a hole
in<br>
the<br>
ceiling - and had real natural lighting. And today it is the
technology of<br>
increasingly-sensitive video cameras that allows us to get rid of<br>
one-hundred-years-worth of lighting technology developement - and use
a<br>
single candle as lighting - just as Caravaggio did centuries ago.<br>
Technology<br>
changes the context; it changes the given; but does it change
quality?<br>
</blockquote>
<div>Annelie David: technology makes somethings easier, yes. But
technolgy<br>
nowadays is not only making technique easier, but it changed ways
of<br>
communicating. I think that this is an interesting point about
technology<br>
and is interesting of how for example stage work communicates and
the<br>
performers.<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><<I think the days of asking
whether work should or shouldn't incorporate<br>
technology are over.<br>
<br>
It's fine if you have decided that technology is an inalienable part
of<br>
your<br>
own work (though I suspect such a premise may lead you up some
false<br>
routes).<br>
We all must make choices. But it would be silly to think that today
all art<br>
must use technology. Just as it would be silly to find that canned
food<br>
must<br>
taste better since it uses more technology.</blockquote>
<div><br>
Annelie: To me it seems so weird to talk about better or not. Or
about<br>
advantages and disadvantages. Aren't choices made by how an artists
looks at<br>
the world or looks from above onto the world and brings this
slightly<br>
different perspective into another context to the audience. So that
the<br>
spectator is having a different experience of the world we are all
living in<br>
and which we all have created together?</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
<br>
<<More importantly, we should be asking how it is affecting our
physical<br>
relationship to our world and to each other. By being conscious
of how we<br>
use technology, we will hopefully avoid falling into gimmickery and
special<br>
effects, and begin meaningful dialogues. This is where "good"
work begins.<br>
<br>
And you've just made your point using simple low-tech words. (I
suppose we<br>
could argue that language is a technology.)<br>
The fact that your words were transmitted a few thousand miles by all
this<br>
marvelous technology directly into my studio is certainly stunning.
But<br>
scribbled on a piece of paper, they would have been just as effective.
And<br>
carved into a rock, they might have been even more
effective.</blockquote>
<div><br>
Annelie: I think it is not the effect what is interesting in this<br>
discussion. The idea behind this discussion, I guess, is to see how
the<br>
technology in our society does effect our behaviour. And that the
desire of<br>
each artist - blindly or conscious - is trying to change the world a
little<br>
bit into an idealistic or even into a disastreous frame.</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
David Vaughn<br>
Dijon, France<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
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