When Jennifer placed the video camera in my face and prompted me to respond to why I was taking this course, I responded by giving some of my reasons but not all of them. While I was listening to everyone else talk about their motives I realized my initial response was nearly the complete opposite of their thoughts. Most students mentioned their excitement in collaborating with fellow students/artists, while I discussed how I had collaborated in the past with a music technology student, Cheng-I Wang, and was more interested in becoming a more well rounded independent artist by learning how to use the technology on my own without needing a technologist. Just to clarify, I am extremely excited to collaborate with the other students in the class. Recently, in my own work, I have been seeking collaborators, i.e. musicians, technologists, and other dancers. It is more challenging to work with others, but leads to, in my opinion, more interesting work. I would hope anyone taking this course is interested in collaborating, as it seems to be a necessary and vital component. The point I was trying to make is that I am also excited about learning how to use and incorporate the various technologies that we will be studying so that I can be an even better future collaborator.
This blog, Reina’s Thoughts, was started in the spring of 2011 for another course that I took at NYU, Resources in Technology. The background for the blog, books, was chosen because of their seemingly archaic nature with the advance of new technologies. Actual books are being replaced by e-books/e-documents etc. I wrote in my initial blog post how my use of technology is limited. As a Sabbath observant Orthodox Jew, I interact with technology six out of seven days of the week. From sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night many technologies such as computers, the Internet, cell-phones, televisions, etc. are off limits. For me, actual books are not yet obsolete. The background of this blog, books, is a reminder to both my readers and me of a world that to many seems to be part of the past, but for me is still an integral part of my present.
Last semester I began working on a piece with Cheng-I Wang, which was initially presented in the Spring 2011 Internet 2 performance as well as in an Internet 2 workshop under the title “Tracing A Memory” and in its final form was performed in NYU’s Steinhardt Dance Education MA Concert under the title “Memory Trace.” The inspiration for those dances came from Mayumana’s "Momentum" (Mayumana used both live video feed and sound capture in sections of their show) and Pilobolus’s collaboration (video describing the collaboration) with Art Spiegleman on "Hapless Hooligan in 'Still Moving'" (show highlights). Over this past winter break I saw a dance piece by Zoe/Juniper entitled "A Crack in Everything," which incorporated pre-recorded video.
Towards the end of our first class, when we were being shown the various cameras, I kept on thinking to myself, I wish I had a glossary of terms. I realized after class that I had already forgotten some of the terms that were mentioned and had to look up composite in order to be reminded that the other term was not contrast but rather component. I wonder if there are other terms that I have already forgotten or, more likely, have replaced with other words...
