Subway - Brunel University Londonpeople.brunel.ac.uk/dap/Quitmeyer_Subway.pdf · Subway Subway:...

SUBWAY Activist Performance through Mediation Artaud Forum 3: Theatre and

Resonant Politics -Brunel

Artaud Forum 3: Theatre and Resonant Politics -

Brunel

Ava Ansari Andy Quitmeyer Michael Nitsche

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Hello, My name is Andrew Quitmeyer, and I am here to present the project, Subway: Activist Performance through Mediation

Subway

Artaud Forum 3: Theatre and Resonant Politics - Brunel Subway: Activist Performance through Mediation - Quitmeyer, Ansari, Nitsche

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Subway is a multi-located activist art project. It breaks down an original dance performance into component frames for safe reenactment in Iran, through a custom android app

Subway


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Through the affordances of digital and mobile media, it allowed participants in New York, Atlanta, and Teheran to create a shared dance performance and also participate in digital activist art.

Subway

Subway: Activist Performance through Mediation - Quitmeyer, Ansari, Nitsche Third International Conference on Arts and Technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yopjU58Y9z8&feature=player_embedded

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I would like to start by showing a brief video documenting the project, so you have a better feeling of what we are talking about

Background

The Back Room Ava Ansari Molly Kleimann

DWIG: Georgia Tech Digital Media - Project Studio Nitsche Quitmeyer

Anonymous Iranian participants


Presenter

Presentation Notes

I will show you the results of this project later in the presentation, but now I would like to more thoroughly set the context and background from which this project arose. This is a collaboration between an Iranian Performance artist named Ava Ansari, and a Project Studio group at Georgia Tech’s digital media program, the Digital World and Image group headed by Dr. Michael Nitsche

Digital World and Image Group

Explore situated digital performance and craft


Presenter

Presentation Notes

We consider interactions as performances in physical and digital spaces. Our goal is to improve the creative use of these spaces and reclaim them for their inhabitants. To achieve this, we experiment with creative media and digital performance. We draw our inspiration from works like Alan Kaprow’s happenings, the writings of richard schechner on “actuals”, and the ideas of Matt Ratto and Lars Spuybroek on critical making and and craft


Explore situated digital performance and craft


Presenter

Presentation Notes

We consider interactions as performances in the virtual as well as the physical space. Our goal is to improve the creative use of these spaces and reclaim them for their inhabitants. To achieve this, we experiment with creative media and digital performance. We draw our inspiration from works like Alan Kaprow’s happenings, the writings of richard schechner on “actuals”, and the ideas of Matt Ratto and Lars Spuybroek on critical making and and craft


Paint Pulse


Presenter

Presentation Notes

We draw our inspiration from works like Alan Kaprow’s happenings, the writings of richard schechner on “actuals”, and the ideas of Matt Ratto and Lars Spuybroek on critical making and and craft


Ducks Feed People


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Talk about space interventions


Mark Your Territory


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Talk about space interventions

Ava Ansari

Iranian performance artist


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Ava Ansari is an Iranian performance artist and curator. Who currently works at Aperture. She has presented original works at Dixon Place, La Mama, and Eyebeam among others, and is the co-director of The Back Room, a pedagogical and curatorial group collaborating with artists, curators, and writers between Iran and the United States. She uses performance art to bring people together. And she sees this ability in Subway, where we were able to playfully get around and satirize a strict and patriarchal law.

Subway Dance

Gestural dance illegal in Iran


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Ava did a series of these improvised dances performed in the Times Square subway station in March of 2011, The choreography of “Dancing by myself in public” incorporated pedestrian movement and basic dance forms that could be easily re-performed by individuals without dance training, wearing clothing that could safely be worn on the streets of Ansari’s native Iran, while purely exploring gestures and actions that would be considered illegal there. [iii] Ansari explains that the dance was both an attempt to translate the sonic environment of the Times Square station into her movement and an exploration of “gestures and interactions that would be illegal” in Iran.

Challenge

Allow participants in Iran to engage with Ava’s performance


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Our project emerged when Michael met Ava and Molly Klienman at a workshop they put on through their organization, The back Room with Richard Schechner at Eyebeam in NYC. From this meeting michael invited AVA and molly to join our project studio for a class. Here they posed a challenge for us. How can she share the work and dances she’s been doing in NYC with those in Iran, where not only would it be illegal to enact such performances

Challenge

Allow participants in Iran to engage with Ava’s performance


Presenter

Presentation Notes

but to simply show the video recorded of the performance could get people in trouble with the law due to its supposed “pornographic” nature. They wanted to see if our approach to digital media could provide a viable solution to this problem

Alternative Proposals


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Presentation Notes

Our group meditated on this idea and discussed many designs with Ava and Molly, coming up the following artistic goals and values for the project

Goals

Sharing Expression Activism Subversion Human Focus Specificity


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Presentation Notes

Sharing: The entire project should be based on this original premise of ava’s stifled desire to share her performances with those in her home country. We sought a methodology which would enhance her expression and enable it to effectively reach those in Teheran Activism: In order to do so, our project, through its design would need to combat what we felt were unjust laws Subversion: but while also carefully subverting those laws to protect the participants, and still allowing them to take part in tiny rebellions. Focus: at the same time we wanted the technological aspect to be more of an enabling factor, and to not distract from the shared interactions between the people and the richness their environment. We hoped this would promote a more critical design of an activist technology which is separated from the uncritical, technological determinist view that you can create free societies strictly through access to technology like the internet. Specificity: Many actlivst technologies (like the I’m getting arrested app) are powerful due to their Generalized utility. However, there is still much that can be done in the field of technological design for very specific demonstrations. With Subway we were hoping to investigate this territory. By designing an android app for one particular dance, broken down in one particular way, we could thoroughly explore the interactions and tailor the project directly to our participants desires and the project’s goals

1. Decompose Dance 2. Implement in Iran 3. Reconstitute in US

Elected Design


1. Rotoscope the dance 2. Enumerate Unique Frames 3. Distribute on Custom Android

Camera Phone App 4. Pairs capture poses 5. Recollect Iranian frames 6. Reconstitute the new “dance”

Design Core


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Presentation Notes

After further discussion, our concept crystalized to the following overall design for the performance

Constraints

Unpredictable Distribution Methods

Participant Safety Balance between structure and

freedom


Presenter

Presentation Notes

1. Internet access would change with the politcal climate. Good days, google hangout 2. Along this line, we tried to be overly cautious and protect the participants identities and safety as much as possible. 3. Ava was also adamant that we be not entirely forcing our own wills onto the participants. We didn’t want to tell them, “come celebrate your freedom, BY DOING EXACTLY WHAT WE TELL YOU TO DO.” this led to the creation of an alternate, ”Freestyle” mode which the program would shift between during the apps’s use

Development

Analog-to-Digital Conversion


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Presentation Notes

From the original video we needed to rotoscope and extract ava’s body from the noisy background. This was accomplished through a lot of tedious work in After Effects.

Development

Pose Extraction


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Presentation Notes

After we had the poses, we were informed by ava, that it would not be a wise idea to keep the poses as actual photographic representations, because a phone showing these images in public might still get someone in trouble. Thus careful design effort was needed to distort her physique into a less representational form which still provided physical cues for bodily arrangements of appendages in 3D

Development

Pose Obfuscation


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Presentation Notes


Development

Pose Extraction


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Presentation Notes


Development

Pose Extraction


Presenter

Presentation Notes

After we had the poses, we were informed by ava, that it would not be a wise idea to keep the poses as actual photographic representations, because a phone showing these images in public might still get someone in trouble. Thus careful design effort was needed to distort her physique into a less representational form which could still provide physical cues for bodily arrangements of appendages in 3D

Development

Pose Obfuscation


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Presentation Notes


Development

Quick Initial Prototype Android Camera API Android 1.6<


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I immediatley start working on a quick initial prototype. Android was chosen for its open-source nature, and most importantly multiple modes of distribution

Centralized Android Market

Self-Contained Package Hosted Email Physical Hand-off

Distribution Design


Interaction Design

Iterative Testing


Presenter

Presentation Notes

At various stages in the apps life, we did iterative physical prototyping, testing, and evaluation of the interactions. The scenarios in this type of research forced us to consider unforeseen problems which can arise when using the app in various environments and social configurations.

Freestyle Mode

Multiple Contexts


Presenter

Presentation Notes

At various stages in the apps life, we did physical prototyping, testing, and evaluation of the interactions. The scenarios in this type of research forced us to consider unforeseen problems which can arise when using the app in various environments and social configurations. We also tested our distrubution and recollection methods, and performed tests with the freestyle mode

Freestyle Mode

Unguided Response


Presenter

Presentation Notes

and performed tests with the freestyle mode, where, between every shot with matching poses, partipants could offer their own unguided poses in the environment, as dance responses for ava’s use in a secondary aspect of the project. Thus, we provided a means where the iranians could reply back to ava in the same dance language and not just be parroting

Launch

Present Concept


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Finally we held a small workshop virtually in iran, explaining the project, and demoing the app, and answering commons questions or criticisms.

Launch

Demo App


Centralized Android Market

Self-Contained Package Hosted Email Physical Hand-off

Distribution Design


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Presentation Notes

Eventually we were luckily able to accomplish all our needs via multiple emailings

Reception

Initial Presentation at Eyebeam’s Activist Technology Demo Day 2012


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We originally unveiled this concept to the Public as part of Eyebeam’s Activist technology demo day, though we did not reveal the location where we were releasing the app until after the participants were finished

Results

Third International Conference on Arts and Technology Subway: Activist Performance through Mediation - Quitmeyer, Ansari, Nitsche

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkeK8jl4ams&feature=player_embedded

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Over 3-4 months, many people then used the app, and when we got around 99 percent o f the original frames returned, we produced the following video visualization of the results of this transformative performance A black bar was added to obscure the participants identities, in a way that also promoted the persistance of vision between frames of very different backgrounds

Participants’ Sentiments

Feeling Strong and Powerful Having fun in group activities Feeling Free Connectedness Gaining understanding of what

we are capable


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Participant reaction was largely positive, they developed a resonant politics that promoted novel thinking about models of being together.

Future Developments

Flipbook Dialogue Dance


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So you have seen our one visualization, but we are also working on other ways or sharing the recreated performance.

Flipbook

Focus on rich details of every frame


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Presentation Notes

One thing ava felt was missing from the video demonstration, was while, you were able to recapture the reconstituted original movement, you missed out on the rich context of the photography created by the performance. Thus she came up with the idea of a flipbook –style engagement, where readers can see the motion, as well as examine invidual frames. There is a deli style restaurant in the background and the word written on the shade in front of the entrance is Jegar or Liver, which is one of the common foods in Iran. Jegar is the most wanted part of the sheep so the word is also used to describe a beautiful or desired person usually referred to a woman. Driving motorcycle is illegal for women in Iran.

Flipbook



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Presentation Notes

Iran’s Subway has separate sections for women and men and a mixed section. People can choose if where they prefer to be. On the glass—which separates the two section is written specifically for Sisters. Sister is a term in the language of the government, which comes from the religion Iran and is used in signs instead of ladies.

Flipbook



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Presentation Notes

Title: Subway Ghalamchi One of the most moneymaker jobs in Iran is private teaching and programming for the Iranian University Entrance Exam known as the Konkoor. The stand of the black man in this picture is the logo of Ghalamchi, the biggest education and Konkoor preparation institution in Iran, who is pointing at the youth future. About Ghalamchi Ghalachi is known to be the biggest and the most powerful education center in Iran. Almost every person including the artist herself-- who is getting ready for the conquer exam—at some point has considered/did registering for Ghalamchi. Ghalamchi offers a union study program for all the participants and claims that if you follow the designed structure you will pass the Konkoor exam. About Konkoor Konkoor national university entrance exam is the sole criterion for student selection in public (Dolati/Sarasari) universities in Iran. MORE INFO.

Dialogue Dance

Ava choreographs a response dance from freestyle images


Conclusion

Design for Transformation and Collaboration


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Presentation Notes

A key element of Subway was the use of technology not as addition or amplifier of existent art practice, but as a transformative force in a collaborative art piece. We tend to believe less in the of digital media’s inherent abilities for activism, and focus more on its carefully designed and applied use for such ideals.

Conclusion

Technology as a subversive mutagen


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Presentation Notes

Ansari’s original piece embodies a cultural performance banned in her home country by specific arbitrary laws. Digital media was used as a force for mutating a specific performance into a form beyond the perceptional abilities of the law.

Conclusion

Gateway between contexts


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Presentation Notes

In this way, digital elements can be designed which do not distract from the human interactions with space, but instead modify the situations to permit a broader range of human involvement between previously exclusive contexts.

Conclusion

Mutually Enhanced Expression


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Presentation Notes

Ultimately the project harnesses the unique expressive abilities of both situated human participants and mobile digital technology for mutually enhanced performance

We would like to thank: Molly Kleimann Jian Yi, Kitty Quitmeyer, Taeyoon Choi, DWIG Group 2012 And most of all: the anonymous,

brave Iranian performers.

Acknowledgements


Presenter

Presentation Notes

This project was dedicated to, and made possible only through the courageous help of numerous, anonymous Iranian performers. Additional help was given from Molly Kleimann, Jian Yi, Kitty Quitmeyer, Taeyoon Choi, and the members of the Digital World and Image Group.

Contact [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

www.thebackroom.org http://dwig.lmc.gatech.edu/

Questions?


mailto:[email protected]

http://dwig.lmc.gatech.edu/

http://dwig.lmc.gatech.edu/

Future Developments

Automated App


Presenter

Presentation Notes

One elegant thing about designing for very specific situations and contexts is that through the development process, you are constantly aware of the boundaries and constraints affecting either the general process or your particular demonstration. This can simplify a later generalization of the utility and maintains a firm understanding of what aspects will be lost or modified through such a transition. Thus one development that could arise from our process is the creation of an automated app. With our type of performance in mind from the beginning, dances like Ava’s original could be captured in front of Green Screens or Kinects to automatically obtain pose information. Apps such as our original could be auto-generated and dispersed to many different locations

Future Developments

Continuous Dance Evolution Installation


Presenter

Presentation Notes

Another alternative would be an installation where the Iranian’s dance plays on a continuous loop and whose single frames can be updated and replaced in real-time from persons using a version of the app from other locations in the world. Approaching interactors could also offer their bodies’ poses This would create an endless, continually evolving performance united people through the initial performative seed of ava’s original dance. Such a system would require a centralized repository however, which could limit or jeopardize the contributions from individuals in restrictive situations without further focused design.

Subway - Brunel University Londonpeople.brunel.ac.uk/dap/Quitmeyer_Subway.pdf · Subway Subway:...

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