from http://twitter.com/LinziMclagan
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Finishing a paper like …. 🤓🤔 Hmmmmm interesting #mscedc http://pic.twitter.com/20DkU5ajHS
— Linzi McLagan (@LinziMclagan) March 15, 2017
Holocaust + Selfie Culture = 'Yolocaust'
Selfies and yoga poses are not the way to honor the memory of 6 million dead Jews.
Posted by AJ+ on Tuesday, 7 March 2017
This Facebook post caught my attention as it highlights the extent to which individuals have let their addiction to recording their every moment on smartphones. We have become a culture that explores, experience and captures life through a lens to record the memory rather than be present in that particular moment of time and space. All in the attempt to create a post or an image via social media that may attract a high volume of ‘likes’ and validation from followers. The selfie phenomenon has made us ignorant to our surroundings. Here the post describes why selfies and yoga poses are not the way to honor the memory of 6 million dead Jews. #mscedc
@ClareThomsonQUB I smiled too 😜
— Linzi McLagan (@LinziMclagan) March 15, 2017
“We came into our algorithm planning meeting not really having any ideas and unsure of where to start. For about a half hour, we bounced ideas around but couldn’t decide how to execute anything. Then, one of our group members mentioned the idea of doing a dance.”
I LOVE this idea and it particularly resonates with Kozinets (2010) description of the interaction between technology and culture as a complex dance alongside Williamsons (2014) description that software is code and that it is fundamentally performative. Could dance algorithms create new ways to teach online?
References:
Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40.from Pocket http://ift.tt/2mZjhpx
Williamson, B. (2014). Governing software: Networks, databases an algorithmic power in the digital governance of public education. Learning, Media an dTechnology, 40(1), 83-105. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.924527
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“Philippe Pasquier, a professor in artificial intelligence and a researcher at Simon Fraser University, is merging art and science to create systems that can understand and produce human-quality movement.”
Here Pasquier is using a resource called  XSEDE, which can train some of most complex movements within 24 hours.
Creative tasks, particularly movement, is complex and information and code can be hard to produce manually as well as difficult to interpret. Human expression needs to look authentic for the machine to replicate a human like product. The body and mind move simultaneously resulting in an overwhelming amount of muscles, bones, tissue, hair and fibres moving at the same time.
As the article highlights, dancers have an individualised style of movement. The platform iDanceForm provides software that can help many choreographers create and explore movement when there are facing space and financial limitations and have a lack of dancers. If we were to create teaching resources could we use algorithms to produce sequences online for our online students to replicate or would we need the high tech systems like this article. The thought of a computer turning movement into data seems possible but can we create data and algorithms that will transpire into online movement for learners to decode and interpret?
https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/-/a-dance-with-algorithms
When you go to the shops to get a birthday cake and come back with a virtual reality scope… https://t.co/VIoz06N3YK pic.twitter.com/s1UapCYQIn
— Linzi McLagan (@LinziMclagan) March 15, 2017
In the run up to the Digital Dance season at Scottish Ballet I managed to prepare with a ‘Virtual Reality Scope’. I have been researching movement available online and observing 360 degree videos through holding my smartphone with the use of my extremities. I am excited to try this device out as my visual stimulus will provide information and full body function and kinaesthetic learning.
"A seemingly perfect couple living in luxury reveal the emptiness and regret behind the façade" https://t.co/oLaZI7Nulu #SBDigital pic.twitter.com/cJzZbwIhq3
— Scottish Ballet (@scottishballet) March 15, 2017
The premiere of “The Perfect Place’ is exciting in that I can enjoy the duet from the comfort of my own home. I have been a frequent member of the audience since I was a teenager. I always appreciate the value of  ‘live’ performance as it can be inspiring for young dancers whilst entertaining and exhilirating  for the novice or amateur dancer. Every year I take my pupils to experience live dance, as it allows them to appreciate the technique and qualities of the performer and the complex analysis of the choreography. While in the audience your body responds to the music and movement of the dancers. Your muscles twitch as muscle memory or inner creativity wants to take over but you are restrained by the chairs and the environment of the theatre. However, in the comfort of your own home you can perform alongside the dancers or indulge in the movement as you enjoy in privacy. The dissemination of the repertoire reaches a larger widespread audience as restriction of time, location and personal boundaries are removed.
