States of Being Interactive video and audio installation, 2022 – 2023

See descriptive statement below, as well as more video documentation and photos.

States of Being 4: Dancers in order of appearance are Wyeth Walker, Rion Taylor, Tao Stone Leduc, Christine West, Simon Lemire. Music by composer Jesse Stewart.

States of Being 3: Dancers in order of appearance are Jocelyn Todd, Kenneth Emig, Frithjof Lutscher, Shara Weaver, Laura Taler, Elizabeth Winkelaar. Music by composer Jesse Stewart.

The States of Being interactive video and audio installation reimagines the possibilities for expressive self-representation in the internet age. Instead of the online identities that we perpetually craft and perform via social media platforms, avatars, and video calls, States of Being offers an alternative, experiential and experimental mode to enact virtual creations of ourselves, while straddling both real and digital worlds. The installation expands the artistic potential of interactivity by inviting dancers and the public to engage with it.

The video and music components are mapped spatially to respond to peoples’ movements. Participants navigate and synthesize the evocative videos and rhythmic audio tracks through their actions, determining which of the paired videos appears within their moving body silhouette and which in the background of the projection, as well as how the musical layers build up into a soundscape.

Projected video imagery evokes fleeting sensibilities: built environment and vast natural space, rushing speed and slow contemplation, immediacy and distance, isolation and freedom, past and present. The resulting immersive video and sound compositions uniquely express our precarious human condition amidst the fluctuating states of being we strive to balance.

Four pieces, or sets of audio-visual content, are each configured to react differently to peoples’ movements in space. In States of Being 1, the paired videos switch between the silhouette and background of the projection when a participant crosses a front/back boundary. In States of Being 2 and 4, the videos switch when a left/right boundary is crossed, and in States of Being 3, when participants cross a height boundary.

Composer and musician Jesse Stewart contributed the musical tracks in the installation. Custom software was developed by Jean-Claude Batista.

Several short stand-alone videos explore specific themes based on the interactions that individual dancers developed during their time experimenting in the installation during my residency at Digital Arts Resource Centre. See excerpts from these works here.

Additional information on found imagery and sound in States of Being 4

States of Being 2: Dancers in order of appearance are Shara Weaver, Kenneth Emig, Frithjof Lutscher, Laura Taler. Music by composer Jesse Stewart.

States of Being 1: Dancers in order of appearance are Jocelyn Todd, Shara Weaver, Kenneth Emig, Frithjof Lutscher, Elizabeth Winkelaar. Music by composer Jesse Stewart.