Choreographing Digital Corporeality
With “The Rite of Spring” serving as the inspirational prelude of this exhibition, Digital Corporeality, different choreographed versions of “The Rite of Spring” are presented to explore the following four themes on digital corporeality:
1. Future Body through Critical Lens;
2. Corporeality, Materiality, and the Other;
3. Interpassivity; and
4. AI, Big Data, and Digital Bodies, followed by Epilogue: AI and Future Choreographies, which includes a series of machine-generated choreographies that harks back to Prelude: “Rite of Spring” at the start of the exhibition.
Prelude: "The Rite of Spring" in the 20th century:
Performance Video Series Overture
In the first exhibition room, "The Rite of Spring" will be exhibited from Nijinsky, Governor Ballet (Ami version), Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Emanuel Gat, Xavier le Roy to Roméo Castellucci non-human version of "The Rite of Spring" video.
This scandalous 1913 premiere in Paris and the divided audience from the riotous night seemingly insinuated that while Europeans were attempting to establish a structure for global order, they also faced with deep ironies and conflicts inside. Rituals have not dissolved due to the advent of technology, and modern sciences have also not stripped humans of fear away from the unknowns in the universe. A significant confirmation of “resistance” and “conflict,” “The Rite of Spring" has become one of the most iconic and influential works of dance in history. For over a century, countless choreographers have been inspired to recreate their own versions of “The Rite of Spring,” forming an unfinished journey that has spanned over a hundred years on modern humanism’s exploration of the Self, the Others, and the Community.
Chapter One:
Future Body through Critical Lens
Choreographer and scholar, Susan L. Foster, argues that “choreography” is a set of cultural codes composed of gestures and movements, which reconfigures the relationship between personal identities and social memberships. Therefore, through analyzing the choreography of physical movements, corporeal epistemology can lead to the construction of knowledge production. A way to explore the relationship between social structure and personal agency through “embodied practice” is also provided via this concept. On the other hand, scholar of theater studies, Sue-Ellen Case, sees artists who engage in digital art continuing to respond to critical and theoretical issues on contemporary topics, including issues of ethnicity, gender, and colonialism. Case argues that digital performing art is a science of cultural imagination that involves psychological and emotional components, rather than just technology. Therefore, digital-ness is an embodiment and(or)representation of cultural codes, and this cultural study-oriented perspective can help the audience gain a better understanding of body politics in digital performance. Under this theme, Cheang Shu-Lea, Sun Yuan, Stelarc, and Akinori Goto are invited to explore bodies in the Digital Age, with various issues relating to desire, gender, ethnicity, moral boundary, and violence.
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Chapter Two:
Corporeality, Materiality, and the Other
The word, “corporeality,” shares the same Latin root as “materiality.” Its relationship with the body indisputably covers more than just a singular reference; therefore, considering the etymology of “corporeality” which stresses its origin of materiality, this perspective can perhaps provide a different way to imagine bodies in the Digital Age—when “human” bodies slowly disappear, the possibilities of “materiality” will become increasingly more important. The reconsideration of the relationship between technology and materiality proposed here also includes contemporary investigation on the “new materialism”, with concepts of non-anthropocentrism opted to discuss the subjectivity of materiality and also ways to communicate with other species. Under this theme, Sarah Westphal’s “The Sea Within – The See Within” presents a poetic saga about the sea, with a giant octopus shown in a dim room with reflections of rippling waves. The Cultural Measuring Instrument by Kulele Ruladen, on the other hand, appears like a bionic sci-fi spider. Departing from Taiwan’s indigenous Paiwan tribe’s myth of the red-eyed giant, the work questions how “classification” is conducted, which relates to the criticism on big data-driven detection and classification in the Digital Age and also serves as a response to current issues relating to the categorization of indigenous peoples.
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Chapter Three:
Interpassivity
“Interpassivity,” proposed by Robert Pfaller in the 1990s, is used in discussions of participatory art, a form of art that has become quite popular today. Using “act,” a root word of “interactive,” to examine the notion of “active,” Pfaller criticizes exhibitions, which have now become so-called “interactive,” are actually “interpassive.” He argues that contemporary interactive, participatory art, which appears free and advocates the concept of equality, is still constrained by structures predetermined by art museums or artists. Based on this perspective, “FreeSteps AR Yours” by HORSE redefines the ways of seeing through augmented reality (AR) and further challenges how dance is perceived. “SBx_2045 - Daily Life of Second Body,” a site-specific work created for this exhibition by Anarchy Dance Theatre, begins with constructing the existence of the “body,” and through constructing the knowledge of the “body” and learning about the composition of the “natural body,” the work explores the interpassivity between the audience and the performer in a setting where “reality” is a blend of the virtual and the real.
Chapter Four:
AI, Big Data, and Digital Bodies
American computer scientist and cognitive scientist, John McCarthy, coined the term, Artificial Intelligence (AI), in 1955, which opened up the technology world’s cultural imagination, with further insights gained on human’s future lifestyles and the possible impacts that monitoring and big data could have on people’s lives. On view under this theme are digital outputs of studies by SHARE Lab and AI Now Institute, which are known for their digital data research and investigations on data privacy and security. Using an intricate tree-diagram to analyze and deconstruct AI system’s multiplicity and to decipher Facebook’s algorithm, what is revealed is the world’s largest social media’s internal intangible production process. The work explores how algorithm has dictated the new forms of labor and exploitation carried out internally by Facebook. Also presented under this theme is Kim Albrecht’s visualization of the sensor data from common machines. The work provides insights on how AI experiences the world through seeing, positioning, orientation, hearing, movement, and touch, with the principles behind the algorithm of artificial intelligence system analyzed to reveal how social control is redefined by algorithmic principles. Further thoughts and considerations are then prompted by contrasting this concept with the choices created via big data, artificial intelligence, and algorithms under the development of contemporary technology.
Epilogue:
AI and Future Choreographies in the 21st Century
The exhibition concludes with “AI and Future Choreographies,” and amongst the presented works is a collaboration between Wayne Mcgregor and Google Arts & Culture Lab, which teaches the language of choreography to AI and presents AI generated choreography as a possibility. Also on view is Choy Ka Fai’s communication with an alternate realm through a spirit medium and digital technology. With the spirit turned into a virtual dancing avatar, imaginative images and a paranormal dance experience are presented. New possibilities with AI-generated choreographies are showcased in “AI and Future Choreographies,” which responds to “The Rite of Spring” video series presented at the beginning of the exhibition. From a human-less theatrical piece to linking AI choreography with a ghost, the opening and the finale correspond with each other, with different ways of considering digital corporeality suggested. A diversified theoretical and inquisitive foundation is offered for the current pervasive experimentation on digital corporeality.