Locus: Exhibited at Sound/Image Colloquium, University of Greenwich

It seems like we are freed from so many tasks by computer technology but it makes us move in very limited ways in order to execute our commands successfully. Whichever kinds of controllers or sensors I used, they needed to be calibrated to adapt them to human movement. I felt we were put in a box (or I placed performers in a box) which could not be exceeded. Since there will always be a manual to use a controller, why not to focus on its readily ‘limited’ functions rather than seeking a higher and better technology?

Locus is a latin word meaning ‘room’. I have been using the hacked game controllers, Gametrak, to let dancers to interact with my audiovisual work. In a previous experiment, I asked some dancers to connect the wires of the controllers to their different parts of bodies. This condition naturally made them repeat the same movement to check how far they could move or not. This idea was discarded, because it made the dancers difficult to move freely. However, this repeated movement, which looks somewhat like physical stuttering as an error, inspired me to create an audiovisual piece which works with failure. Katerina Foti and Natasha Pantermali devised choreography for Locus under these conditions. Over time the dancers are completely entangled to limit them physically, unable to control the piece, struggling to finish their routine.