Iconographies of the Different Body – eVokability: The Walking Project

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Presentation Title:
  • Iconographies of the Different Body - eVokability: The Walking Project

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Abstract:

  • “For Duras as for Barthes, the body is not a mode of self-identity: the body is a figure of madness, not self-possession. It is not an essence or nature, but a reverse of an essence or nature; it is a name for that which provokes crisis in the realm of representation by producing irreducible difference…” – Leslie Hill, Marguerite Duras: Apocalyptic Desires

    Exploring the “irreducible difference” of the body as it disrupts cultural representation and complicates issues of self-identity and self-possession, eVokability: The Walking Project is a performance project that is concerned with “mic-ing,” amplifying, reading the body with dis/ability. The performers use their bodies as a locus of investigation at the intersection of dis/ability, performance and wearable media technologies. Each performer wears an eVokability device tailored to the specificity of her body and movement, and generates a visual/sonic/performative language of the different body “speaking.” Body difference, the notion of dis/ability as “deficiency,” sets in motion the question of the body itself – all bodies – as beyond control, governed by frailty, desire and mortality, defined by irregularities and surprises. The Walking Project engages a notion of embodiment as a dynamic resistance to representation, taking place in the space between the body and the responsive image.

    The process-oriented collaboration between project director Sarah Drury and Walking Project performers is concerned with using sensing technologies and live animations to virtualize body difference, building an iconography of movement-driven imagery. This talk explores this notion of embodied iconography through three different works with performers Cathy Weis, Lezlie Frye and Shelley Barry.

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