Something specific?

Harriet's encouraged me to post my ideas on my blog. In my current state of too many ideas in my head, and the nagging little perfectionist voice, I resisted at first, but see that it could be useful!

This is supremely rough, but getting clearer. I welcome any questions. I would also just love to hear what thoughts spring to mind when reading through this. Free association welcome! About your own practice, what you have seen in mine, other artists, other critical thinkers....

I am also still working out the right balance and hierarchy of these ideas to make sure I emphasize the pieces that are more relevant to my work at this stage and don't dwell on exciting, but less relevant ones.

I need some perspective....opinions, thoughts, that might help unclog the mass of interesting thoughts in my head!

Finally:
**What is the obvious question I haven't asked that is in plain sight after reading this entry?

---

What is the question?
1) multiply identified, dispersed subject - The Techno/subject in performance
- good position as a multi-media artist
- I don't feel that this notion has really hit the public consciousness even though the idea's been around for over a decade at least

2) can technology be used as a bridge between the different levels of embodiment?
2a) is technology a barrier or a bridge to live performance?
- this is where my initial proposal left off. It seems unfinished, but possibly still relevant and interesting if paired w/ #1?

3) As a performer, how do you extend your sense of embodiment to your audience?
3a) "stretching your skin" across different media; collapsing time/space/identity/reality boundaries?
3b) bringing them into the process when it's still a process instead of a final product?
- I'm going to be asking this over and over as I develop my practice regardless of whether it manifests itself this literally in the research proposal or not.


Pieces that might fit into the puzzle and flesh out the argument:
a) revisiting layers of embodiment that I explored in original proposal draft from January.

b) post-modern/techno theorists in 1990s recurring theme - boundaries between self/human body and animals/nature and technology are eroding. there's a resistance and fear of this, but also an opportunity to re-cast notions we hold of the Self or Individual
- Vivian Sobchack "technologies such as the computer have profoundly changed the temporal and spatial shape and meaning of our life-works and our own bodily and symbolic sense of ourselves."

c) virtual reality vs. reality
- Mark Poster article section "Reality problematized" - "'virtual reality' is a more dangerous term since it suggests that reality may be multiple or take many forms."

d) it's just a tool. learn it. use it well.
- Laurie Anderson, Pamela Z, Piplotti Rist, Janet Cardiff: artists who are comfortably working with high tech tools but don't overstate the importance of the technology/tools that they use to create their work.
- example: Laurie Anderson says her work has backed off from the big multimedia extravaganzas. However, her performances are still highly technology-reliant: microphone, synths, violins. Stripped down aesthetically, so that it becomes more "invisible" and doesn't overwhelm the content, but it's still very integral to the creation of her work.

e) free software movement/electronics hacking like Dorkbot
- de-mystifcation of technology through building your own tools, taking apart existing technology and seeing how it works. How you can change it to do something else
- I see a total link to the resurgence of the DIY/craft movement.
- open source de-emphasizes authorship and de-centralizes the creation and dissemination of the technology, creates a community of people who want to keep ideas free and open (like blogging about potentially 'proprietary' thoughts like I'm doing right now.)

f) Amelia Jones - why her as key critical thinker to my research
- explicitly links dispersed, multiple subject to performance and technology
- using technology explicitly to break with notions of fixed Self and extend beyond constructed boundary of the skin (ew! messy!!!)
- the contemporary subject is already technologized and therefore same rules don't apply because no longer simply "human"(ist?)
- from this point of view, the reason for an artist to place their own body/Self in their artwork shifts: - Jones "This mediated, multiply identified, particularized body/self proclaims the utter loss of the "subject" (in this case the fully intentional artist) as a stable referent (origin of the artwork's meaning)
- Body/Self - sense of Self is not lost, just redefined in connection to the layers that make you up and surround you, including the intangible, "virtual" ones

Bringing it back to my practice
- processing a live feed means I can interact with my own images moments later and an audience can witness the full creation of this (embodiment through relation of performer's physical body with the virtual body, physical form of the video technology, proximity of audience members's physical bodies, most likely projection of audience's bodies on the screens with performer's virtual body, journey together through creative process instead of audience simply witnessing a final product)

- even though there are multiple, simultaneous projections of my image, I am part of a larger
system. The video projections allow a more literal manifestation of this idea

- thinking about my practice as a performing art appeals to me because theater/performing arts have always created a space for me where I can explore modes of expression that might otherwise be suppressed in day to day life.
- primordial? expression. pre-verbal: Lisa Gerrard, Meredith Monk.