Dr Caterina Albano

Quartet: Musical Moves, A real-time exploration that plays across the senses of the human body (Feb. 07)

Evaluation of the historical, art/science components

In the historical setting of the Great Hall at St Bartholomew Hospital, Quartet brings together a violinist whose movements and auditory perception as she plays are translated through sensors in digital data and sound that inform the movements of a virtual female figure; and a dancer who controls a robot that replicates her movements through the sensor transmission of locomotion data. Both the use of robotics, virtual components and the human body are well-established elements in art practice and live performance. Most notably, the work of the Australian artist Stelarc focuses on the relationship between the artist?s body and technology incorporating in his works medical imagining, prosthetics, robotics, virtual systems and internet interaction creating meta-bodies that investigate the conditioning and external prompting of bodily functioning. The integration of virtual environments in dance performances is also a growing area, as testified by Metapolis -Project 972 (2000), a collaboration between Charleroi Dance Company, the choreographer Fr?d?ric Flaman, the architect Zaha Hadid and digital technologists to explore the interrelation of body, movement, real and virtual spaces. Quartet locates itself at the interface of different art practices in the exploration of the relations between real and artificial bodies, and live experience of interactivity for the audience. The artist Margie Medlin consistently explores in her work the relation between dance and imaging, and her work Miss World using a virtual dancer was the origin of the current collaborative project as a development of its interactive components in relation to real life performance.

Historically, already in the Renaissance, the study of human anatomy led to the conception of life-like models and automata. Notably, Leonardo da Vinci sketched a robot based on the structure of an armour to be set in motion by internal mechanisms (1495 c.), Fabricius ab Aquapendente conceived a mechanical body (exoskeleton) also based on a medieval armour as illustrated in his Opera Chirurgica (1620) and Ambroise Par? similarly developed artificial limbs, precursors of modern prosthesis (Les Oevres, 1575). These early modern attempts to translate the anatomical and physiological knowledge of the time in mechanical simulacra of the human body is telling of an ongoing interest in exploring the physical boundaries between the real and the artificial, the human and the machine. Three-dimensional anatomical models added to the construction of life-like figures. Indeed contemporary virtual figures, as in the case of Quartet?s female virtual dancer, bear strong aesthetic and conceptual similarities to 18th century wax models. In comparable ways, virtual design relies on a transposition of real human proportions on an ideal grid of bodily relations to draw the silhouette of the virtual figure, often based on real models, that confirm bodily cannons and gender stereotypes. The external surface of the virtual figure is smooth and shiny, as that of earlier models. The layering of internal muscular and skeletal structures, as suggested by the virtual dancer in the section ?Framebreak Solo virtual dance?, is also visually reminiscent of early modern and modern anatomical representations, rather than of more recent X-rays and digital imaging. It is worth underlying that the field of body imaging is one of ongoing interface between art, design and science, and draws attention to the visual connotations that inform choices in medical images as well as in art and design. The visual choices made for Quartet?s virtual dancer implicitly alerts us to broader issues related to the making of images in art as well as in medical science through new technologies, of modes of reflecting and departing from a visual tradition and cultural standards of representations of the human body. Early anatomical images and models, however ? unlike the contemporary virtual counterparts ? were fixed in a pose that only hinted to motion and sensory capacities.

Not unlike today?s digital technologies, the addiction in the 18th century of movement to artificial figures did not happen in the field of medicine as such, rather in that of technology in the creation of mechanic automata for entertainment. These were also based on the careful study of the human body with movable mechanisms that corresponded to its physiological structure. Worth mentioning in relation to Quartet because of the musical content are Jacques de Vaucanson music players (1730s), including a flute player whose sound was obtained by varying the amount of air blown into the flute controlled through a moveable metal tongue, a mandolin player that taps the foot while playing, and a piano player that moves the head and simulates the breath; and Pierre and Henri Louis Jacquet-Droz organ player (1780s), a female figure that simulates breath, gaze direction, and movement of the hands.

Although 18th century, anthropomorphised and clothed mechanic figures of minute proportions are far removed from contemporary digital figures and metallic robotic structures ? as the spine-like one in Quartet - analogies can be drawn on the attempts of imitating bodily movements through mechanic actions by reading the body in terms of physics; mechanic systems in the 18th century related to network systems in the 21st. This coincided, in the 18th century, with a growing interest in the nervous system and the brain in relation to sensation, with a focus on the interaction between the nerves and the senses in terms of perception and emotional responses that echoes contemporary analogies in the neuro-physiological understanding of the brain?s sensory capacity as a communicating network system. The replication of bio-mechanism of 18th century automata resonates with Quartet?s central tenet of exploring bodily movement through sensory perception in real time producing an interactive sensory and emotional landscape for the audience. Perhaps, even beyond of the expectations or aims of the artists involved, Quartet reflects current theories on the constant integration of sensory data, neuronal transmission, and movements, also as involuntary imitation, external prompting and conditioning, thus creating what may be described as a synesthetic experience for the audience.

Using the structural relationship of the quartet, Quartet develops in three movements that variously explore the interaction of the player and dancers (including the robot) through solos, duets, trios and the final coming together of the whole quartet. Central to the piece are the modes of interaction between the members of the quartet, and the audience. The well-choreographed duets between the dancer and the robot unfold through an almost eerie closeness as the robot?s structure acquires visual plasticity according to the dancer. A camera on the robot also captures the visual field of the dancer projecting it on a screen. This creates a subtle reciprocity of growing intensity during the performance conflating movement and points of views, the subject and objects of sensory perception, that ultimately converge in the visual and acoustic experience of the audience. The sound also resulting from the transmitted data of the violinist?s movements as she plays, convey the sensory qualities of the physical processes of making and hearing sound. Improvisation adds to the interactive unfolding of the performance. On the whole, Quartet creates a visual and acoustic environment, which not only enhances the senses but most interesting renders us aware of the sensory feeling that pervades any motion. Sensory and digital technologies have the potential of expanding normal sensory experiences enabling us to feel what is like to see, what is like to hear, what is like to move. The synaesthetic context developed by Quartet enabled the exploration of such experience almost suggesting a poetic of technology, and vision of the inherent process of sensing. This is a complex and rich field for original collaborations in the arts, technology and bioscience, with potential for broader developments for Quartet itself.