User:Karina/thesis

jump to graduation project

jump to thesis outline

16 NOV

Questions for Adam and Earanee

mention transition of information before YouTube

do you think we can archive the experience of dance? - first & last question?
do you have a personal method / system to capture dance? to memorise dance?
what element do you think is most crucial when learning a new dance (style)? - rhythm, atmosphere, spacial awareness?

what did Frankie think was most important in dance?
what was his most common feedback?
what did he pay most attention to?
do you have any material of sessions with Frankie?
Earanee, what would you have liked to ask Frankie of Norma?
how do you think Frankie or Norma would have answered this question? (can we archive dance?)
do you think I could even get a hold of Norma?
- found a page on Facebook. Hard to tell if it's someone else writing for her (sometimes written in first person, sometimes third), not fan page though
- "Norma Miller is available for hire/travel, but serious inquires only!"
- watch documentaries with her in them to get quotes - list available on wikipedia

why does music have a universal (accepted) score system, and dance doesn't?
adam tap dances
does tap dancing have a score system?
rhythm
the way you taught us those 2 steps during the Sunday class was fantastic! - first scatting, replacing scats with movement, then implementing it to a routine
could I mention that method it in my thesis?
how did you come up with this technique? did you learn it from someone else, or did you think of it yourself? if yourself, how?
it seemed that everyone got it by the first try. why does it work so well for everybody, even if everyone learns differently?
have you tried this method with people who don't know how to dance? people who struggle to follow rhythm?

non-verbal communication, non-verbal jokes
what makes this chemistry not work? - try to break it down specifically, personal chemistry, rhythm, amount of effort from partner?
what is a specific thing you look for in a parter? best aspect?
what makes a connection delightful?

not here to archive perfect dance, but also capture human mistakes
to capture experience, mistakes need to be a part of it

16 NOV

Questions for Adam and Earanee transition of information before YouTube

do you think we can archive the experience of dance? - first & last question?
do you have a personal method / system to capture dance? to memorise dance?
what element do you think is most crucial when learning a new dance (style)? - rhythm, atmosphere, spacial awareness?

what did Frankie think was most important in dance?
what was his most common feedback?
what did he pay most attention to?
do you have any material of sessions with Frankie?
Earanee, what would you have liked to ask Frankie of Norma?
how do you think Frankie or Norma would have answered this question? (can we archive dance?)
do you think I could even get a hold of Norma?

12 NOV

Notes from Savoy Inspiration workshop with Earanee Niedzwiecki & Adam Brozowski

Exercise (absorbing / directing)

Damping momentum of partner as they walk
Switch roles - follows become leaders

Exercise

Damping momentum of partner as they triple step
Switch roles - follows become leaders
Give each other feedback during exercise

Note from Adam to improve my dancing:

Soften bounce, knees don't need to be stiff
Loosen arms, let them hang low, they don't need to keep to strict 'frame' - he doesn't like the term 'frame'

Learned 2 steps

pointing finger at partner (it's you, not you, a-hu-hu-hu, pi-ra)
pointing finger in the sky (previously taught at Swing in Rhythm)

First group repeated his scat
Slowly he merged scat with stomping and clapping
Copied his stomping and clapping

Exercise

Social dancing including new steps and absorbing / redirecting

11 NOV

About Earanee Niedzwiecki & Adam Brozowski - short bio taken from Swing in Rhythm workshop webpage

"A lover of Satchmo and Nat King Cole since childhood, Earanee grew up with an ear for jazz, studying saxophone and jazz vocals at high school. While many flock to Lindy Hop for its high energy steps, it was the swingin’ tunes that reeled Earanee into the dance world in 2010. She soon began following her love of swing dance around the globe, leaving her home in Adelaide to dance extensively in both Europe and the US. Now a seasoned instructor with experience teaching and competing both in Australia and abroad, Earanee has won titles at numerous events including The Mooche, ILHC, and Lindyfest."

"Adam Brozowski is a celebrated voice in the international community, and has been Lindy Hopping since the age of 10. Adam grew up dancing in the energy of the late 90's having had the honor to learn directly from some our greatest legends like Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Jean Veloz, and the late great Dawn Hampton. Music and history play a huge influence on his perspective as a teacher, while creative expression and individuality are the hallmarks of his dancing. In his classes, Adam strives for a graceful balance between these two beautiful concepts. Adam hopes to inspire others to find the joy and freedom that swing music and dancing can give."

Notes from Musicality and Solo Jazz movements in Lindy Hop workshop with Earanee Niedzwiecki & Adam Brozowski

Each dancer is a musician
50/50 role
Follows should also be playful and initiate
"Your arms are your ears"

Exercise (focus on simple rhythm)

Leads lead for 8 counts
Follows lead for 8 counts
Leads lead for 8 counts
Follows lead for 8 counts

Exercise (focus on solo jazz & rhythm)

Leads lead for 8 counts
Follows lead for 8 counts
Leads lead for 8 counts
Follows initiate solo jazz for 8 counts

Exercise

Initiate solo jazz whenever you want

Exercise (creating music)

bass / high hat in couples

Exercise

Creating rhythms along the room

Exercise (rhythms during social dancing)

Leads keep constant rhythm
Follows play around with 'high hat' effect

Exercise (rhythms during social dancing)

Follows keep constant rhythm
Leads play around with 'high hat' effect

Exercise (rhythms during social dancing)

Either / both follow or lead plays around with rhythm during social dancing

9 NOV

Meeting with Marloes

Intro

why it's relevant? - doesn't have to be too strict
make empathetic - oh that also applies to me!
drive of society to capture everything
- include own thought on that
- teaser

Reasoning why I'm interested

can start small / personal, and enlarge scope
don't have to mention personal health if don't want to
As a dancer: "a dance I love almost disappeared"

Dance as a Language

include in intro
it's tangible
compare to other intangible / un-archivable things

Bergsonian / Newtonian as footnote

"this concept explored further in.."
possibly drop Alan Kay - if text is too long, discussion will be too long / off-tangent
anecdotes and dance explanations are more interesting

augmented reality inside printed thesis publication - to show video / play sound

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form chapter names as questions
poetic tite will come later

should I explain process of theory and experiments, or just let experiments flow into text?

no need to explain methodology
can mention in into that experiments were made to challange research question and theory

put experiments in appendices

short intro and conclusion in text
thesis isn't the project itself, it's a reflexion of the experiments backed up with theory

should I explain the difference in archiving / documenting / preserving?

yes, explain what aim in research Q is
explain what archiving is to me

8 NOV

Meeting with Anna
Reviewing Thesis Outine

Memory
"hippocampus / MRI scans / loss of memory / retrieving memory"

vital part, do put it in there
reasoning why I’m interested
add to the beginning

Documentation in form of notation

explain rant why swing almost died, video sucks
sounds more like an intro

Memory

good to have more experiments
make more
doesn’t have to be so academic

Capturing an Experience

make experiments

Dance as a Language

feels a little disconnected
maybe add to different chapter / personal story
possibly add to the beginning

“some tangibility in intangible experience” segway to Documentation in form of notation
if you can describe it, you can capture it. difficult in smell for example

How to present thesis?

Anna's idea: hand crafted pop-up children’s book
tracing paper, layering information on top of one another

6 NOV

Meeting with Aymeric

Q: can we archive dance? (specify social dance?)
break apart dance (layers? or larger topics: notation; social; memory)

this yes..
this not really..
this only if..

conclusion might be:
some info is lost, only so much can be transformed to another medium

project: attempt to solve Q

go crazy
different medium / different systems (don't try to make a system that captures all aspects)
multiply different way to capture same thing (notation + sound + video of rhythm)
show failure too
'capturing' is interesting, but too much for entry point
respond through theory and practice

Jung mystic.. ask Aymeric for reference
incorrect source, review of review?

transpose data into..
show culture too
culture though interviews / graphics

make Q playful
"endless work"
watch Brainstorm - sci-fi from 1983

very cheesy
ridiculous
touches upon topic of capturing experience, and successfully translating / showing / decoding it to someone else

Q: can we archive dance?
A look into capturing (choose 3 things: technique; rhythm; notation; culture) in social dancing

5 NOV

how does your brain recall memories?
how comparable is a brain to an archive?
how does your brain compare to an archive?

translating
coding
decoding
transposing

Reminds me of my previous practise with Dutch proverbs, Decode from 2015

Also reminds me of Speak Italian by Bruno Munari

Attenzione!
They say that a gesture is worth a thousand words, and when it comes to speaking with your hands, the Italians speak volumes. This quirky handbook of Italian gestures, first published in 1958 by renowned Milanese artist and graphic designer Bruno Munari, will help the phalange-phobic decipher the unspoken language of gesturesa language not found in any dictionary. Charming black-and-white photos and wry captions evoke an Italy of days gone by. Speak Italian gives a little hand to anyone who has ever been at a loss for words.

3 NOV

How can we better approach capturing complex experiences through archiving?

three actors of interactions:

own experience (Self)
experience in dancing with others
experience of audience

2 NOV

1 NOV

Meeting with Michael

how to revisit experience?
not about observing
perception of performer, not audience

can you gain sense of sight again?
one of the few tangible aspects in dance: contact with parter

buzzing suit in Todays Art from 2014
could try out to open up joysticks, buzz rhythm on legs (not feet) to get audience to feel rhythm

Brian House
Janet (mixable realities, gives bigger depth when hearing her previous audio recordings)

experiments / tests

record the sound / rhythm in footsteps
record dance body cam
buzzing rhythm

talk to blind dancer, see their point of view
talk to elderly from Dans Paleis

Ted: Alone Together by Sherry Turtle
look at both past and present views

replaying my experience in somebody else's body
keep in mind, not same experience (bias)
not even for future self (reinvent memory)

dance becomes abstraction, becomes dance again
real -> symbolic -> real
breaking complex into layers (look at Michael's notes)

Swing in Rhythm exercise with Becky
lead / follow during swing outs
not tugging, but softly placing one hand above the other (almost levitating)

notes from that class (26th October)
Issues to be aware of in swing outs:

followers being too early at 4
not being too far away at 8
followers coming forward too early at 1
leads pulling
keeping arms relaxed and low
chests facing each other

breaking elements
guttorngard?

set game - create a set that is either:

all the same
all different

30 OCT

Vox: Why this awful sounding album is a masterpiece

I love the explanations and supporting visuals to Vox's Earworm podcast by Estelle Caswell. I've added her videos numerous times on this wiki page. All 6 videos available here

Here is another that I missed:
Vox: How a recording studio mishap shaped ’80s music

how to transcribe this video?
try voice to text technique using Google Docs

Meeting with Andre

dance as a system
constants, patterns

mathematical / scientific
formula behind pop songs / jazz songs
generative music, computer write sonata

David Burn (Bob Wilson - Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
Vox relation

notation is not the work, it's the blueprint / a score
Florian - context?

what separates dance and music with resource of score?
music has a way of transmitting score. score is accepted in music, but not in dance - why?

what is this important to you?
look at practitioners that look at memory
search on jstor key terms: dance & memory

Steve Paxton & Trisha Brown
'Material for the Spine'

main problem: not approaching the matter in a way I could deal with

SongSim looks only at one element (lyrics)
easy to encapsulate structure
macro view

can you quantify dance by anything?

write / express BPM differently - shorter distances between lines, show faster BPM
make own notations on Labanotation

Special Issue 02 performance was a two part outcome

a (graphical) documenting tool that I could personally use in the future
playful, slightly educational, interactive experience for the audience

this frame could be used for the graduation project too

generative systems
squared paper - each square a second
visualisation

"basing on this, this and that factor, found these variables, time is constant"
WSA - looked at language of time to measure / quantify it

Johanna Drucker - Graphesis
pervious event in NY (Sept 2017)

29 OCT

I want the audience to decode a transcribed dance language (notation)
Figure it out by doing?
Mix and matching layers

Measuring time, time perception
Measuring dance
Dance perception

Decoding the language of dance
Need to describe it to document it
Different ways to describe dance (onomatopoeias, rhythm, scatting, graphical notation, BPM)

What was Laban's aim, drive, purpose?

Impossible to fully archive experience?
I suggest tackling this by making a coding system to capture an intangible object / experience / dance

My frustration? Video is actually a shitty medium to capture dance (an experience).
Aim: propose a new system / method / medium. Hopefully can be used for more experiences than just dance

Language has a key (alphabet) and is spread through word of mouth, contact with people.
The medium to archive it / preserve it (apart from word of mouth) are audio (recordings, songs, radio), visual (books, posters) and audio-visual (plays, films, tv)

How did some languages survive when suppressed during history / wars? Why did some die out? How are they being decoded?

26 OCT

Look for podcasts here

"SON[I]A aims to be an alternative way to receive the information produced during Museum activities; audio information brought to us by characters who take part in activities in and around the MACBA."

Feedback from Marloes and Steve

1-2 lines for research question
if describe practise, what is it about?
think about reader

25 OCT

why I am so keen on documenting / capturing dance?

previously thought about project to capture the relationship between Sean and I (the urgency was in capturing us before it was too late, before we split ways and before my memory fades) - sadly our splitting came faster than expected

yet I am still focused on notation, memory, the brain, archiving, capturing an experience
what makes it so urgent, so personal?

could it be anything, subconsciously, related to my MS? I do have a fear of losing my ability to dance, of losing my memory (again), of forgetting the memories I am forming now with my new ‘dance family’

I don’t want yet another project related to my health (Mind as a Dossier and Epilepic) in my portfolio. I don’t want to be that designer / creative that always falls back on this topic, possibly showing myself as a victim to pity over. The previous 2 were uplifting, educational, eye-opening, helpful.. but do I really want that to be my thing?

small project idea:
play around with light sensitive material that makes text vanish with time
text can be read for a few seconds after contact with light, then disappears
in order to keep the content of the book documented, photos on the phone should be taken? - will that work? isn’t that more light?
comparison to memory. the book is the knowledge that you have a memory, the content is the memory itself
e.g. “I remember eating dinner last night, but I can’t remember what it was”

Look back at previous texts, The Psychology Of Time Synopsis and Time Perspectives and Cultural Diversity, which look into Philip Zimbardo's time perception. I’d consider myself future TP, always planning ahead, excited about future, sometimes worried

Past TP - focused on positives
Past TP - focused on negative
Present TP - hedonism (focus on joys of life)
Present TP - fatalism (doesn't matter, life is controlled)
Future TP - life goal oriented
Future TP - transcendental (life begins after death or the mortal body)

Anna's feedback (summary from recorded conversation)

don’t worry about it
nothing to worry about, reasoning behind the start of the project (why I am doing it?) is not evident in work that is presented
great to have personal starting point, personal things make great things
everything you're going to do is going to be some representation of yourself, one way or another
base of project can be health, go off of it, represent it so it's not read as "poor me, I'm sick"
talk about archiving dance in a more generalised sense, say what you find interesting

The full conversation will be transcribed from audio soon. Here is a snippet that followed:

A: have you tried to discover what would be the best way to gather this experience into one medium, or do you have to have multiple mediums?

K: that's when I started looking into realities, and mixable realities, because if you just focus on one, the more you put data, the more you can express an experience.. although, as a viewer you will never have my experience, you will have your experience. Maybe if you've been to Crete before, then you could re-see what I saw. So you will never manage to get to a point where we can fully have the same experience.

A: Because that's also based on previous experiences

K: So it becomes a bias for sure

23 OCT

Feedback from Aymeric

pick one topic
one is not going to be better than the other
what do you really want to dive into?
make it concrete

notation - non-universal / language specific
mixable realities - experiencing the intangible
subculture - transmission of knowledge
archive - usefulness, temporary, making things public

how would you share / present this?
why interesting? in any other field?

documentation - graphical / video / notebook
special awareness - bird's eye view
time / speed / rhythm - structured 8-count / free-flow scatting

sharing in community

Literate programming by Donald Knuth

interest into education: what's the best way to communicate?
perception
normalise / universal method is questionable
again universal method
subtle / diverse, people are perceiving knowledge differently

thesis structure doesn't need to be scientific
experiments / content / tools / methods as text, not appendices
thesis is distant reflexion

diversity in methods

topic
applied to dance
what's the urgency to look into this topic? - reflect

cultural diversity (preserve, not normalise world)
pragmatic (interesting because truth in diversity in education. look into history of educational methods)

find manner to show collected material

22 OCT

Facebook: Living In The Moment by Jason Silva

11 OCT

Experiment idea:
learn new Lindy steps with a friend using YouTube videos created by own dance school

10 OCT

YouTube: Brain Coupling by Jason Silva

9 OCT

Feedback from Andre

start small approaches / tests / prototypes / experiments
explore small themes continuously
have 3-4 weeks to experiment
then have 3-4 weeks to reflect on annotation from afar, to narrow down question

what project could you do in 1 week?
own note: don't want experiments just conducted by me, it'll be subjective / I know what outcome I want
how do you represent your outcome? vector image / gif / sound file / sound image

use 3D glasses analogy - experience vs. data
difference in perception

Monoskop: Listening to Noise and Silence: Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art by Salomé Voegelin
sound is fleeting, not attainable
even static image is fleeting / an illusion

Cartographics: a site-specific audio-choreography by Petra Sabisch
strong effects with simple means: headphones; rooftop; mirror(?)
YouTube: Alter Bahnhof Video Walk

wikipedia: Conway's Game of Life
flow-chart-like
make choreographic description, then perform it

to do:

make one experiment during holiday
document it in blog / video / graphic notation
add woman from movement workshop last year onto 'who could help you' list

25 SEPT

Psychology of dance

Dancehub: 5 Interesting Psychological Studies Involving Dancing
(not great source, but has many links to studies related to topic)

1. Dancing Improves Your Brain Psychology Today: Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain?
more references / cited studies about how dancing can improve the brain

2. Mental Practice Can Lead To Improved Dancing
University of California Santa Clara Cruz: UCSC dance research published in prestigious Psychology Science journal

3. The Evolution Of Human Dance May Have Been A Mistake
American Psychological Association: Dance, dance evolution
not many animals have close connections between auditory and motor skills
"Psychologists’ research on the power of movement is giving us insight into why we first danced and how cultures built on that ancient impulse."

4. Dancers Can Learn Routines In Different Ways
Duke Chronicle: Research investigates the science behind dance

5. Girls Under Age 16 Have The Most Dancing Confidence (not related?)
The Guardian: Why do people dance?

---

Springer: Thinking in action: thought made visible in contemporary dance by Catherine Stevens and Shirley McKechnie

Buy entire journal for EUR 42.29
or find through HR mediatheek
download links here
link to downloaded file

Abstract
Contemporary dance—movement deliberately and systematically cultivated for its own sake—is examined in the light of the procedural and declarative view of long-term knowledge. We begin with a description of two settings in which new works of contemporary dance are created and performed. Although non-verbal, contemporary dance can be a language declared through movement and stillness of the body. Ideas for new movement material come from objects, events or imaginings that are spoken, seen, heard, imagined, or felt. Declared through movement, the idea becomes visible. Communication in dance involves general psychological processes such as direct visual perception of motion and force, motor simulation via mirror neurons, and implicit learning of movement vocabularies and grammars. Creating and performing dance appear to involve both procedural and declarative knowledge. The latter includes the role of episodic memory in performance and occasional labelling of movement phrases and sections in rehearsal. Procedural knowledge in dance is augmented by expressive nuance, feeling and communicative intent that is not characteristic of other movement-based procedural tasks. Having delineated lexical and grammatical components in dance, neural mechanisms are identified based on Ullman’s (Ullman in Cognition 92:231–270, 2004) alignment of lexical knowledge with declarative memory and mental grammar with procedural memory. We conclude with suggestions for experiments to test these assumptions that concern thought in action in composition, performance and appreciation of contemporary dance.
check out their 60+ references

reference if want to add to own bibliography
Stevens, Catherine; McKechnie, Shirley (2005). "Thinking in action: Thought made visible in contemporary dance". Cognitive Processing. 6 (4): 243–252. doi:10.1007/s10339-005-0014-x.

Jstor: A Nonverbal Language for Imagining and Learning: Dance Education in K-12 Curriculum by Judith Lynne Hanna

20 SEPT

ABC Radio: Songlines: the Indigenous memory code
Japing Aboriginal Art: Why Songlines Are Important In Aboriginal Art
Amazon: Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation by Joseph Weizenbaum (1976)

13 SEPT

look into: scatting as a measurement of time in dance

it gives more possibilities (to distinguish the 4-'a'-5 counts)
look into history, how / why / when it originated - Harlem late 1920s?
learn to scat? what is important that may not seem obvious?

13 SEPT

Human Memory: Sensory Memory

Sensory memory is the shortest-term element of memory
Unlike other types of memory, the sensory memory cannot be prolonged via rehearsal
decays or degrades very quickly, typically in the region of 200 - 500 milliseconds (1/5 - 1/2 second)
visual stimuli is sometimes known as the iconic memory
aural stimuli is known as the echoic memory
touch as the haptic memory
smell processed in olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex
smell is strongest as olfactory bulb and olfactory cortex are nearest to the hippocampus

Meeting with Steve
Before starting PZI I was planning to look into digital publishing, interactive PDFs, change in technology and publishing, print vs digital. My thesis would have probably been an analysis of a section of publishing.
At the moment I feel that would be too simple. I'm more interested in creating something I might not get a chance to in the future: a large-scale installation / experience. This would not use a traditional publishing method as a means of communicating my research.
Do I stick to a topic that interests me and use publishing as a means, rather than analyse publishing itself?

dance notation is a form of communication / publishing
experiments as research method
look at Victor's (fine art) thesis - diagrams
editorial: how will yo present experiments (event? publication?)
discrete things & how they come together?
my practise addresses this, this and that
these things create chapters, which allow for development

literacy / non-verbal communication
Sean v.s. new dance partners
being a good lead or follow. listening communicating signs / signals. communicating by touch
notation as a means of instruction

aim: what am I doing? what do I want to make out of it?

Next steps:

look through previous experiments
where will they take me? what experiment will flow next? don't stress, it'll flow
- experiment 1: time perception
- experiment 2: rhythm and notation
- experiment 3: flow
- experiment 4: memory and senses?
- experiment 5: archive?

7 SEPT

Memories are stored in different senses.
We see, hear, smell things that remind us of things. Smell is able to bring very powerful flashbacks.
Can a movement reminds us of something / anything?

Contact

Het Danspaleis
dr Mol / dr Donselaar (Maasstad)
dr Bert Aldenkamp (Kempenhaeghe)
therapists?
bravo europoort - psychiatry specialists / memory tests