Dialogues

Dialogues explores re-presentation of past, site-specific dance-theatre performances through graphic design using existing documentary material. This design research project considers the re-presentation of fleeting performed works as unique performances in their own right. It considers the role of performability and spectatorship in generating communication that moves beyond artifact into experience and in doing so also explores the boundaries of graphic design.

Sasha Waltz uses the Dialoge to explore the interaction between dancer, spatial environment and audience or viewer. In a similar manner in Dialogues I explore visual communication within spatial environments and the participation of audience in generating a communication experience through a series of investigations.

A unique aspect of Waltz’s artistic portfolio is the interdisciplinary project called the Dialoge and it is these powerful investigations of intensive encounters between musicians, artists, and dancers that provide the material for this investigation. The Dialoges occur in very specific locations, making the architecture an important protagonist in the resulting performance. These encounters are a form of research: an open investigation; a dialogue into which audience are invited.

‘Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance’
Peggy Phelan

During this research project I have taken documentary material from each of the three Dialoge performances and considered its re-presentation. Aiming to communicate the essence of the past performance while also understanding it becomes a new performance in it’s own right. Leading up to the final work, Dialogues, there were seven iterations: Dialoge 09—MAXXI, Performing Architectures—ERA21, Dialogues—PQ; Stage Space, Performance Arcade, Gallery C1, Staircase, and Staircase 2.

Dialoge 09 — MAXXI
The first re-presentation of the site specific performance that took place in the MAXXI National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Rome, explores methods to re-present performed works that have been recorded through photographic images. 

Performing Architectures — ERA21
In contrast to the purely visual response of Dialoge 09—MAXXI for this iteration I chose to explore the representation of the Sasha Waltz Dialoge through the written word and a limited image sequence. The resulting text and images were published in the architectural journal ERA21 as titled: Performing Architectures.

Dialogues — PQ
I was invited to contribute a ‘visualization of contemporary dance and architecture’ that would become part of the Media Tower located within the Architecture Section of the PQ Festival shown alongside international contributions such as; Herzog and de Meuron’s Birds Nest in the Beijing Olympic Games opening (Switzerland/China), Frederic Flamand’s collaborations with star architects (France), Alternative strategies: artists who reject theatre architecture (Mexico) and Performative technological architectures of CITA (Denmark).

Three short films explored aspects of each of the Dialoge performances that took place between 1999 and 2009 in the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Neues Museum in Berlin and the MAXXI National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Rome. The films were projected simultaneously on two sides of the Media Tower. The audience was able to view the films while they walked around the exhibition space from various locations. Typography integrated into the films aided narration and helped the audience notice similarities between the various performances—a key feature that I wanted the audience to discover.

Dialogues—Stage Space
Six vertical stations were arranged on the illuminated acrylic stage offer glimpses at the three Dialoge performances. The stations provide the viewers with intimate enclosed spaces in which to experience the films. The enclosures also provide a means to control the acoustic spill from the installation while combating the environmental ambient noise and lighting situations over which I had no control.

Dialogues—Performance Arcade
Referencing the old fairground where audiences naturally engage with performance and thereby often enhancing the works with their presence. The six stations from the Stage Space installation were exhibited within a single container resulting in quite a different experience to the open space provided at Wellington International Airport.

Dialogues—Gallery C1
The film material used in the previous iterations was re-edited into twenty-one small film-clips focussing on a specific element of each of the three Dialoge performances. These film-clips ranging in length from fifteen seconds to a minute and a half were presented in an area within a larger environment. The film clips were presented on individual viewing boxes arranged in a random manner within the space.

Dialogues—Staircase
For this iteration the video boxes were arranged in a transient place, an in-between space, where individual journeys could be interrupted by the installation. The staircase in Te Ara Hihiko, the Creative Arts building of Massey University, provided a site with varying viewpoints, layers and access points.

I have embraced the idea of the ‘narrative space’ as described by Uwe Brückner: The narrative space is not an illustration or decoration of contents. … It enables the visitor to participate and allows him to become part of the created setting.

Nollert explains: Installation artworks are participatory sculptural environments in which the viewer’s spatial and temporal experience with the exhibition space and the various objects within it forms part of the work itself.

Drawing on the experience made in Old School—New School cheap twelve millimetre thick plywood sheets provided the basis for the screens,. Used full format (1200 x 2400mm) the sheets were mounted between the ceiling beams and the floor using vertical battens fabricated from eighteen millimetre plywood. The battens were secured to the ceiling joists using quick release clamps and the sheets either secured with clamps or screws for a more permanent fixing. The visual aesthetic of untreated plywood and the quick release clamps made a clear statement that this installation was not precious, it was temporary and could be rearranged easily.   

Dialogues—Staircase 2
Dialogues—Staircase 2 is an evolution of Dialogues—Staircase and draws on design aspects from the preceding Dialogues iterations as well as other design projects. Dialogues—Staircase 2 is again set within the staircase in Te Ara Hihiko, uses film material developed for Dialogues—Gallery C1, video boxes developed for Old School—New School, aspects of typography explored for Wayshowing for Te Ara Hihiko, and mountings used in the investigative Space Programme. A system of video boxes constructed on a thirty centimetre module enables the installation to be inserted and arranged within the architecture.

I am interested in the creation of effective systems which facilitate the consistent composition of graphic elements within a space. The staircase offers varying viewpoints, multiple layers and various entry and exit points. It is a liminal space within the bigger construct of the building and the even larger construct of the campus and city. It is a space that people expect to pass through, to go up or down only one level; they are not expecting to encounter a different experience. One of the distinctive features of the three Dialoge performances by Sasha Waltz is the element of surprise—visitors come to the buildings and are not completely sure what to expect, they discover as they navigate the spaces that the dances unfold before them. If they have seen other works by Sasha Waltz they may well spot similarities, certain movements or pieces lifted and reset within this new space. They may stumble across a performance ending or beginning, they may feel they are watching the work in the wrong order—all these aspects have been reflected in this re-presentation. The multiple entry and exit points are also significant reflecting the fluid experience the Dialoge performances provide. The video boxes only provide short glimpses of the performances, encouraging visitors to watch and then move on, combining the parts together to generate a unique whole as Bourriaud records the French movie critic Serge Daney describing exhibitions as: ‘… disparate, zappable little programmes’ enabling the visitor to arrange their own route.’

Dialogues does not provide a complete documentation of all three Dialoge performances, it shows the visitor the similarities between them and to illustrate the time span between the performances. It achieves this by drawing on knowledge from visual communication, information design, spatial typography and scenography. The installation employs narrative concepts, found in spatial and visual communication to provide visitors with an experience that explains not only introduces itself but allows visitors to become active participants in the installation. The semiotic language of the video boxes and the mounting that secures them in the environment suggests their temporary relationship with the setting. Typographic information and sound provides an initial indication that the boxes have something to say. On closer inspection the videos are discovered and the visitor is fully engaged, bending and twisting their bodies into spaces to obtain the best view of the videos — watching and understanding by actually performing themselves. 

Alt refer to the Social Kitchen as a complete experience, in fact the artifacts that one would typically associate with a design studio are extremely minimal. In fact the aspects that are most noticeable are the sounds, smells and tastes. Above all the social interaction of the visitors with the space brings the work to life. As Alt design director Dean Poole explains: So while we have designed this Social Kitchen experience—it is the people that make it live and evolve.

Experiences can transform information into knowledge, while personal contexts, the content, and previous understandings influence how we generate this new knowledge. The quality of the experience is essential in providing a broad enough contextual model that we can find meaning in it. A rich experience that lacks context will not be effective, the use of storytelling and conversation are powerful and simple experiences for creating knowledge as interaction designer Nathan Shredroff explains:

Storytelling is one of the oldest experiences and still one of the most powerful because it organises information in a way that allows us, usually, to draw personal meaning and create knowledge.

Participation makes experience more meaningful because it taps into our desires to be creative and communicate. Whether we are merely sharing our ideas and opinions or creating and displaying our works of art, it is gratifying to almost everyone to express themselves creatively and work with others to build an experience.

During this research project I have moved from designing artifacts; Dialoge 09—MAXXI to an experience; Dialogues, that expresses itself most fully when an audience is present. From iteration to iteration there has been a process of exploration and evaluation to decide what can be carried through to the next iteration. Operating within design methodologies and processes as Bowers describes:

Each design problem is unique, yet related to other visual systems and to society at large. I have explored how video and space can be used instead of photography and the book to re-present live performances. I have shown that the enhanced spectatorship provided through the spatial arrangement and narrative contributes to an enhanced experience which supports interpretation and understanding of the content. 

In developing this project without the constraints of a specific client brief and client involvement I have also investigated the role of the ‘graphic designer’ through an exploration of solutions wider than the typical domain of the graphic designer. This research has contributed to addressing my place within design by helping me understand my design process, methodologies and their origins. 

Beginning as a book design—a typical graphic design outcome—and has moved into a broader space. Through recognition of the processes and methodologies I have used in developing this work I have expanded my thinking into areas of interaction, participation and experience. Experience and interaction should not be established as specific disciplines, or be solely located within existing fields of design such as graphic design and industrial design. The design discipline needs to be redefined to embrace experience and interaction as necessary components alongside fundamental art and design principles and the design process. The existing fields of graphic design, industrial design and spatial design to name a few, all offer valuable knowledge, practices and processes that when combined with the diverse digital media available can enable solutions to be found outside the defined spaces of current definitions of design practice.

On reflection I have moved through various design spaces during thirty years practice: typography to visual communication to graphic design to installation art to scenography back to graphic design. Often these are defined as disciplines and by affiliating with these disciplines we are often pigeonholed and thus excluded from certain potential projects. I want to be undisciplined yet at the same time very disciplined! The process of this project is like a journey connecting learnings of past projects with learnings of this project, a continuous cycle of development. This is a continuation of how I took theatre experience into my design education, my design education into working with light in the built environment, that knowledge into designing spatial communication and onto exhibition design, the cycle continues forming a never ending journey of design—design is actually the discipline. 

I learnt from the designer and academic Peter Rea that ‘design is journey’, he said it in his address to students at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication shortly before we would all graduate. At the time I was not sure what he was talking about, surely I had arrived somewhere and here he was saying we were all on a journey, when would the journey end? This idea has stuck in my mind and in those moments when I have felt that I am stepping into new territories, unknown situations or new fields it has reassured me that I can proceed on the journey.