david fodel

Still Life In Real Time

The traditional still life has been examined for the nature of its surface, and its symbolic content. In a highly technologized and mediated culture, how has our relationship to stillness changed? Has this change informed our relationships to things and to each other?

This interactive audiovisual performance presents 3 vignettes, each utilizing custom technological configurations, and incorporating live embodied interaction with the assistance of dancers from 3rd Law Dance/Theater Company.

1. Still Life And Zoom

Things “out there” are not always what they seem. Our brains construct boundaries between inside and outside, objects and their edges, sounds and their causes, movements and their natural consequences. The closer we look, our probing technologies reveal a dynamic surface upon which we perform everyday life.
Technologically, the piece used the physical objects of the Still Life arrangement as wireless controllers, manipulated in a real-time improvisation by dancers.

2. Still Life In PVS

A permanent vegetative state is a syndrome that is related to a coma. Misdiagnosis of PVS occurs on a disturbingly regular basis, leaving many “trapped inside” a seemingly still body, while continuing to experience a rich inner world of dislocated consciousness. Memory and imagination blur, distort, and drift into a remix of experience and fancy.
The interface for this piece consisted of an augmented graphics tablet and pen, and a live camera, which became a live "instrument" for manipulating sound and image in real-time.

3. Still Life With Solar Wind

We are continually bathed in shifting, invisible currents of subtle forces, even as we contemplate the possible meanings of a seemingly static object. The interference patterns that emerge in this dance of forces create a rich, dynamically
intertwined tapestry of call and response: communications that succeed and fail, connections made and missed.
In this piece, ultrasonic proximity sensors were embedded in the flower arrangement, which mimics Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Dancers move around the flowers which translates position into controller data for the audio. Real time visuals are controlled via wireless joystick, and are generated using the UniView platform's model of the magnetosphere.

Stills from the show:

Following the performance there was a reception at Object+Thought, located at 1430 Delgany (across the parking lot from the MCA). A series of mixed media monoprints titled "Stills", was generated from project studies and documentation, and were on display, courtesy of a collaboration with artist Paco Proano.

The show was free and open to the public.