School of Communication

CANTOS DEL HAIN, a project by Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc & Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld

The project received the scholarship for Artistic Creation Abroad Gas Natural Fenosa 2015

Texts:
-Reintegrating what belongs to us: The fuid body as epistemic tool, by Luisa Fuentes Guaza
-Hain, the rite of initiation of the Selk’nam from Tierra del Fuego, by María Estela Mansur
-The photographic fantasy of an ethnographer. Construction and assembly of an imaginary, by Margarita Alvarado
-The magical and the subjective. Three Selk’nam chant recordings 1907/1923/1966, by José Luis Espejo

Cantos del Hain is an expanded documentary on the Selk’nam people,
a “native” community from Tierra del Fuego (the southernmost tip
of South America, divided between Chile and Argentina) who were practically wiped out by the white man at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Selk’nam did not possess a writing system nor were they great creators of images, but their rituals, dances and songs had a great performative wealth. The people’s main cultural expression was the Hain ceremony, during which the men dressed up as spirits and re-enacted the Selk’nam mythology of the world for the women and children, who did not know that the spirits were in fact the men in disguise and watched the performances in awe. The Hain was the ritual that legitimised male power and placed man at the peak of the social organization.
Cantos del Hain is a recreation of the ceremony, re-enacted by archaeologists, abolitionist feminist activists, experts in ethno-aesthetics, folklore dancers, a student choir, an adolescent feminist group, descendants of the Selk’nam, Mapuche and Aimara peoples, Chileans, Argentineans... and two blonde Europeans whose grandparents escaped from war-torn Europe.
In this Hain there are no dressed-up men and no terrified women. There are two fake blondes, two colonial choreographers assisted by a whole team of spirits. The masks become pixels, the painting become filters and the voices are turned into vocoders. The spirits are transformed into stage sets, into FX, into VR, into MP3. The blondes are in control but they do not believe their own orders. The dancers outwardly obey because in fact they are following their own ancestors and dance and sing for them.
But everybody believes in what they are doing. In the intuition that runs in the blood.

SPANISH
CANTOS DEL HAIN, un proyecto de Federico Vladimir Strate Pezdirc & Pablo Esbert Lilienfeld
Beca de creación artística en el extranjero Gas Natural Fenosa 2015

Textos:
-Reintegrar lo que nos pertenece: El cuerpo  fluido como herramienta epistémica, de Luisa Fuentes Guaza
-El Hain, ritual de iniciación selknam de Tierra del Fuego, de María Estela Mansur
-La fantasía fotográfica de un etnógrafo. Construcción y montaje de un imaginario, de Margarita Alvarado
-Lo mágico y lo subjetivo. Tres grabaciones del canto selknam 1907/1923/1966, de José Luis Espejo

Cantos del Hain es un documental expandido sobre el pueblo selknam, comunidad «originaria» de Tierra del Fuego (región de Chile y Argentina) que fue prácticamente extinguida por el hombre blanco a principios del siglo xx. Los selknam no poseían un sistema de escritura ni eran grandes creadores
de imágenes, pero sus rituales, danzas y cantos poseían gran riqueza performativa. La principal manifestación cultural era la ceremonia del Hain,
en la que los hombres se disfrazaban de espíritus y narraban la cosmogonía selknam a las mujeres y los niños. Estos desconocían que los espíritus eran en realidad hombres disfrazados y contemplaban las performances atemorizados. El Hain era el ritual que legitimaba el poder masculino y colocaba al hombre en la cúspide de la organización social.
Cantos del Hain es una recreación de la ceremonia, protagonizada por arqueólogos, activistas feministas abolicionistas, especialistas en etnoestética, bailarines folclóricos, un coro estudiantil, un colectivo adolescente feminista, descendientes selknam, mapuches, aimaras, chilenos, argentinos... y dos rubias europeas cuyos abuelos escaparon de una Europa en guerra.
En este Hain no hay hombres disfrazados y mujeres aterrorizadas. Hay dos falsos rubios, dos coreógrafos colonos asistidos por un completo equipo de espíritus. Las máscaras devienen píxeles, las pinturas se convierten en  ltros y las voces en vocoders. Los espíritus se transforman en escenografía, en FX, en VR, en MP3. Las rubias mandan pero no se creen sus propias órdenes. Los bailarines obedecen de soslayo porque en realidad siguen a sus propios antepasados y danzan y cantan por ellos.
Pero todos creen en lo que están haciendo. En la intuición que les da la sangre.

This practice-based thesis investigates the four key qualities of 'liveness’, ‘feltness’, ‘embodiment’ and 'presence' in mobile media performance, in order to shed light on the use qualities and sensations that emerge when mobile technologies are used in tandem with wearable devices in performance contexts. The research explores mobile media as a non-verbal and visual communication tool that functions by repurposing the mobile phone device and its connection to a wireless network, not only for communication but explicitly for the expression of ‘emotion’ in the form of a video file representing an interpersonal connection shared over distance. The research aims to identify and supplement existing scholarly discourse on the nature of these four key strands of kinaesthetic philosophy made ‘live’ in the online network, applying knowledge gained through the practice of enhancing participant experience of the use of simple ubiquitous mobile tools with bespoke biofeedback sensors and an online repository for the playback of users’ visual expressions. This enhanced toolkit enables participants to share personal relationships and social interactions in an immediate way, with collaborators at a distance. The selected methodology of active research using kinaesthetic tools in live performance seeks to identify and clarify new ways of simulating or emulating a non-verbal, visual exchange within a social participatory context, with particular attention paid to a sense of ‘feltness’ as an element of ‘presence’ or ‘liveness’, and with attention to the experience of a sense of ‘co-presence’ arising in real-time collaborative mobile performances at a distance.

To best explore these concepts as well as the bodily sensations involved for participants, the thesis analyses original data gleaned from a larger R&D project (conducted in tandem with this thesis project, sponsored by the BBC) as its major case study. The project, called MINDtouch, created a series of unique practice-based new media performance events played out in real-time networked contexts. The MINDtouch events were framed as a means for participants to simulate dream exchange or telepathic thought transfer using mobile phones and biofeedback devices, linked to a bespoke video file protocol for archiving and sharing visual results. The corporeal, non-verbal forms of communication and visual interaction observed when participants use such devices within participatory performance events is examined by way of demonstrating the impact of specific live encounters and experiences of users in this emerging playing field between real-time and asynchronous, live and technologised forms expressing liveness/presence/distance. The thesis benefits from access to the larger MINDtouch project and its original data, providing this research with a set of process-based evidence files both in video and transcript form (contained in the thesis appendices). By analysing this unique data set and applying the theoretical contexts of kinaesthetic philosophies where appropriate, the thesis demonstrates both the practical and the critical/contextual effectiveness of the media facilitation process for the participants, and shares their senses of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ (of themselves and of others) when using technology to externalise visual expressions of internalised experiences.

This thesis makes an original contribution to scholarship in the fields of Performance and New Media, with additional contributions to the cognate fields of Philosophy and Technology, and locates its arguments at the locus of the fields of Performance Art, Mobile Performance/Locative Media, Philosophies of the Body and Communications. The thesis uses methods, practices and tools from Phenomenology, Ethnography, Practice-As-Research, and Experience Design, bringing together the relevant aspects of these diverging areas of new media research and media art/performance practices. The research demonstrates that there is a need for new technological tools to express viscerally felt emotion and to communicate more directly. It is hoped that this study will be of use to future scholars in the arts and technology, and also that it may help to demonstrate a way of communicating rich emotion through felt and embodied interactions shared with others across vast distances (thus supporting political movements aimed at reducing global travel in the age of global warming).

If you could share and exchange your dream imagery, feelings and sensations with your friends and loved ones, how would you do it? If could not only share and exchange, but remix and collage them, what would it look like or feel like? How would it work? Explored through the new media performance project, MindTouch, uses biofeedback sensors and mobile media phones in live, staged events. MindTouch is a BBC R+D sponsored PHD research, to connect people remotely through the mobile phone, allowing them to re-engage with each other and with the world, affectively and expressively in new creative, non-verbal/non-textual ways through mobile video performance events. The aim of this article is to discuss current practice-based PhD research underway at the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute’s UK base at the University of East London, under the direction of Professor Lizbeth Goodman. The MindTouch project involves the pursuit of a better understanding and facilitation of the individual’s mode of expression in relation to the collective experiences of liveness and presence, as observable and ‘capturable’ within the virtual ‘space’ of a live mobile performance event. This article reflects on meta-concepts of this research and on past video collection workshops completed in the first phase of the project, including observations from these workshops, and the on-going practice, development and technical issues involved. It discusses practical processes and concerns (such as methods for encouraging people to connect remotely, that are allowed to re-engage each other and the world affectively using the mobile phone), both in and through participants’ bodies, and through a range of expressive, creative, non-verbal/non-textual means, through networked performance activities.

The aim of this media art research has been to uncover new understandingsof the sensations of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ that may emerge inparticipatory networked performance, using mobile phones and physiologicalwearable devices. To practically investigate these concepts, a mobile media performance serieswas created, called MINDtouch.

This performance series resulted in a collaborative live visual collage, made with mobile and wearable devices during in-person and remotely accessed telematic events. The live eventswere organised for participants to engage in through improvisation andexperimentation using mobile video and generative VJing (video mixing)activities. This essay describes the methodological approach taken within thismedia art research.

The mobile media performance project, MINDtouch
is based on a vision of theexchange of dream imagery and embodied sensations through mobile media,wearable biofeedback sensors and participatory, collaborative, networkedactivities as live media performance events. This telematic, physical-virtualevent-system is intended as a simulation of synaesthetic and embodied dreamexperiences or to mimic a telepathic affective exchange, creating a paradox in the notions of liveness/presence and of feeling/being-there.

The use of live bodydata as a medium to mix concurrent streams of mobile video, in a multi-thread,non-linguistic conversation creates a collaborative, visual dialogue, intended toenable a more embodied and meaningful, personalised exchange betweenpeople.

This paper will discuss new research repurposing the mobile phone from a textual and voice device to a more multi-modal, synaesthetic, tactile, expressive, and gestural device. ‘Tactile Video Love Letters’ seeks new modes for individuals to express themselves intimately, visually and non-verbally––akin to remote ‘touch’, immediately and intuitively understood in a pre-conscious sense––direct and tactile route to interpersonal communication.

This paper will discuss the progress of the project, and its early outcomes the European Commission funded project, FET-Art, which will not be completed until May 31st and all the analysis and reports on outcomes will not yet be delivered. It will discuss some early findings and outcomes of the events and collaborative residencies of the project, which could contribute to the workshop discussion on the on-going issues of Art-Tech collaboration. The paper will discuss the rationale and aims of the FET-Art project, its event activities, the methods of bringing the artists and technologists together to make new projects, the proposal selection process, and the early outcomes of those selected collaborations.

This paper will discuss the use of open-source, custom interfaces and live coding in artworks and performance practices, using emerging devices that focus on revealing hidden, intimate and sensuous code of the body for manipulation and play. This paper review the new landscape of open-source artworks, with recent examples of such artworks, as well as one by the author, resulting in a new performance aesthetic that uses ‘hacked’ commercial, mobile and gaming devices for live coding, performance and interactive artworks. It discuss how dancers, live artists, musicians and others are participating in the DIY and ‘Maker’ movement, to create exciting wearable electronics and mobile applications for performance enhancement. The author will consider the possibilities of playful, expressive, gestural, and live coding, as well as using the DIY Maker ethos in multi-sensory participatory performances with new devices. The author’s own artistic research has involved re-combinatory practices and hybridisations of participatory performance, mobile media, wearable biofeedback sensors and live database interaction in a recent performance project MINDtouch. Her new collaborative work Hacking the Body, is about making participatory performances and interactive dance pieces that expose ‘code’ of the inner body.

Hacking the Body is a new collaborative research project that explores using the concept of ‘hacking’ to re-purpose and re-imagine internal signals from the body. The project is two-fold: (1) it explores how internal physiological data can be gathered and harnessed to understand the experiential states of the body, and then (2) how we as artists will ‘hack’ to explore new methods for creating artworks, using sensing systems and audiovisual technology. This will result in works such as site-specific performances, mobile installations, and participatory performance experiences.
A much-misused term (Jordan, 2008), hacking is typically incorrectly connected to controversial technical practices of ‘cracking’ into systems and causing damage or stealing financial or sensitive information. However, traditionally the hacker has referred to a technical elite whose prowess has been displayed through the imaginative re-purposing of consumer electrical equipment and computing that is the more accurate definition of hacking. Once feared for its lack of adherence to social norms (Soderberg, 2008), the hacker open, hands-on ethos is increasingly finding favour in all manner of creative collaborations.
We term our proposed artistic outcomes as hacks partly because we will be deliberately repurposing existing technologies as part of the technological innovation (biofeedback sensors with mobile computing devices), but also because we understand the human body as an essential component in the global communication network, with its own internal network to be hacked. Our objective is to explore ways in which human physical states can be meaningfully exposed in the network and repurposed, thereby 'hacking the body'. By exploring the use of mobile technologies and the states of the body, new communications technologies practices and artistic work are created.

This chapter broadly addresses the activities and revelations resulting from the author’s coordination of the European Commission funded project, FET-Art from September 2013 to June 2014 as they pertain to the CHI 2014 workshop April 2014 on Curating the Digital: Spaces for Art and Interaction theme of “fostering collaborations between artists and technologists via Catalog”. This chapter covers some of the findings and outcomes of the EU funded FET-Art project, which included performances, exhibitions, and artist-technologist matchmaking events, which led to collaborative residencies around Europe during an intensive 9-month period. These outcomes, and the author’s experience in coordinating the artistic dimension of this project, were to contribute to the workshop discussion on the issues of Art-Tech collaboration for the CHI workshop. The chapter reviews the rationale and aims of the FET-Art project, its activities, the approach used to bring the artists and technologists communities together from around Europe, efforts to develop updated methods to facilitate art-tech collaborations and study them, as well as some of the outcomes of those selected and initiated during the project.

With the MINDtouch project I sought to explore embodied, non-linguistic [1] interaction through the use of wearable, biosensing devices and mobile phones. These served as the "interfaces" to remotely connected media experiences within performative social events. My aim was to investigate how people "connect to each other" through technology, in unconventional (non-verbal/non-textual) ways, in a simulation of synesthetic dream exchange. With this project I sought to understand how bodily sensations, perceptions and responses might be meaningfully utilized to find unique ways to visualize body/mind activity and to experience that activity in a collaborative performance environment. I propose the mobile videophone as a means to communicate non-verbally, visually and sensually across distance. In this project I explored notions of ephemeral transference, distance collaboration and participant-as-performer as means to study the experience of "presence" and "liveness" through mobile technologies within real-time performance contexts.