Danielle Garrison
Project: Aerial Kinesthetic Communication, July 2019
Installation Setting: Two Interwoven aerial fabric-hammocks approximately one meter from the
ground and distancing the two rig points at six meters apart.
Participants: One to two participants at one time.
I propose to develop a body-based installation that uses aerial fabric-hammocks,
participating bodies, and haptic feedback systems to allow individuals in the past, present and
future to develop a kinesthetic-based language that enhances/amplifies embodied
communication. This installation questions: what is the body, what are the tethers connecting
human interaction (intimate and distant), can synthetic embodied communication enhance our
post-touch state? The audience’s body is in relation to an experiential net of fabrics that they can
suspend in and explore. The intention is to research the sensitivity and complexity of synthetic
communication, distilling and questioning the essence of touch.
I will link aerial fabric, human movement and cybernetics to amplify the hidden
languages of the body to refine the sensations of communication. Through kinesthetic research I
will design an aerial fabric installation that: 1). provides a remote aesthetic encounter between
two individuals (alive, dead, imagined) and 2). creates an archival memory of touch during each
event. The fabrics will be a conduit that constructs the essence of touch, or the illusion of touch
through resistance and motion. The idea is within this installation, touch is diluted through
physical distance and reimagined via fabrics. It is simultaneously a production on disconnection
and reconnection, addressing the dissonance between what the technology is and what it does.
Could this installation fulfill a need for touch? Are the fabrics prosthetics of our bodies? Is the
body necessary? This interesting new territory could produce a more profound experience of
touch, allowing for adaptation.
The installation allows for movement experiences connecting bodies in the past, present
and future. The structure includes to the recording and storing of the movement of each
participant through on the aerial hammock through the pressure sensors embedded into the aerial
fabric-hammocks that register the weight of each participant that are interfaced to a program that
translates the movement into re-transmittable patterns. For an experience of the present time, two
audience members could move together and sensing each other’s movements transferred
between the intersecting fabrics. The interrelated fabrics tether the movements of each body and
are felt in real-time. The movement memories of each participants are stored to be experiences
by a future participant. Participants can also experience the installation alone and will feel the
movement of the previous participant.
The idea of the installation is to re-frame the world of impersonal experiences as a world
of shared, past, present and future experiences. There is a convergence between individual and
collective sensory regimes and bodies. Merging aerial arts with interactive installation is an
exciting approach to both fields, and one I have begun to explore in my MFA thesis work
(detailed on my website and portfolio). I anticipate collaboration as essential to the creation of
this project, and SBCAST is the ideal space given its resources, to develop this work.
My aerial fabric installation is inspired by and in conversation with past and contemporary
installation work, biometric researcher, and dance artists. My proposed installation is a
kinesthetic interpretation of Paul Sermon’s film installation, Telematic Dreaming. After a
residency at SBCAST, I got to know Alan Macy’s work, Campfire. Exhibited at Berkley, this
piece includes a group of individuals who sync their heartbeats through haptic feedback response
and a visual communication of the group’s heartbeat. The Tube, an installation by Anya
Hindmarch and Numen, premiered in the 2019 London fashion week. The Tube is a woven
network of ropes that form a giant playground of tubes that participants can climb around. In
terms of dance, I am inspired by Jérome Bel’s, “Gala,” which uses “non-dancers” to perform
choreography, turning the traditional dance observer into a performer. Michele Ellsworth is a
dance artist who creates installation work that invites the participation of the audience during her
performances.
Project: Aerial Kinesthetic Communication, July 2019
Installation Setting: Two Interwoven aerial fabric-hammocks approximately one meter from the
ground and distancing the two rig points at six meters apart.
Participants: One to two participants at one time.
I propose to develop a body-based installation that uses aerial fabric-hammocks,
participating bodies, and haptic feedback systems to allow individuals in the past, present and
future to develop a kinesthetic-based language that enhances/amplifies embodied
communication. This installation questions: what is the body, what are the tethers connecting
human interaction (intimate and distant), can synthetic embodied communication enhance our
post-touch state? The audience’s body is in relation to an experiential net of fabrics that they can
suspend in and explore. The intention is to research the sensitivity and complexity of synthetic
communication, distilling and questioning the essence of touch.
I will link aerial fabric, human movement and cybernetics to amplify the hidden
languages of the body to refine the sensations of communication. Through kinesthetic research I
will design an aerial fabric installation that: 1). provides a remote aesthetic encounter between
two individuals (alive, dead, imagined) and 2). creates an archival memory of touch during each
event. The fabrics will be a conduit that constructs the essence of touch, or the illusion of touch
through resistance and motion. The idea is within this installation, touch is diluted through
physical distance and reimagined via fabrics. It is simultaneously a production on disconnection
and reconnection, addressing the dissonance between what the technology is and what it does.
Could this installation fulfill a need for touch? Are the fabrics prosthetics of our bodies? Is the
body necessary? This interesting new territory could produce a more profound experience of
touch, allowing for adaptation.
The installation allows for movement experiences connecting bodies in the past, present
and future. The structure includes to the recording and storing of the movement of each
participant through on the aerial hammock through the pressure sensors embedded into the aerial
fabric-hammocks that register the weight of each participant that are interfaced to a program that
translates the movement into re-transmittable patterns. For an experience of the present time, two
audience members could move together and sensing each other’s movements transferred
between the intersecting fabrics. The interrelated fabrics tether the movements of each body and
are felt in real-time. The movement memories of each participants are stored to be experiences
by a future participant. Participants can also experience the installation alone and will feel the
movement of the previous participant.
The idea of the installation is to re-frame the world of impersonal experiences as a world
of shared, past, present and future experiences. There is a convergence between individual and
collective sensory regimes and bodies. Merging aerial arts with interactive installation is an
exciting approach to both fields, and one I have begun to explore in my MFA thesis work
(detailed on my website and portfolio). I anticipate collaboration as essential to the creation of
this project, and SBCAST is the ideal space given its resources, to develop this work.
My aerial fabric installation is inspired by and in conversation with past and contemporary
installation work, biometric researcher, and dance artists. My proposed installation is a
kinesthetic interpretation of Paul Sermon’s film installation, Telematic Dreaming. After a
residency at SBCAST, I got to know Alan Macy’s work, Campfire. Exhibited at Berkley, this
piece includes a group of individuals who sync their heartbeats through haptic feedback response
and a visual communication of the group’s heartbeat. The Tube, an installation by Anya
Hindmarch and Numen, premiered in the 2019 London fashion week. The Tube is a woven
network of ropes that form a giant playground of tubes that participants can climb around. In
terms of dance, I am inspired by Jérome Bel’s, “Gala,” which uses “non-dancers” to perform
choreography, turning the traditional dance observer into a performer. Michele Ellsworth is a
dance artist who creates installation work that invites the participation of the audience during her
performances.