Reading Cityscape

Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement (English: the art of movement) is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body. It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment—from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls—and can be practiced in both rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are referred to as traceurs, or traceuses for females.

Founded by David Belle in France, parkour focuses on practicing efficient movements to develop one's body and mind to be able to overcome obstacles in an emergency.

Choreography in Altered States of Gravity

For several years now, Kitsou Dubois has been developing a process of experimental movement performed in an environment of altered gravity conditions.

She intervenes in the domain of art and science, creating an insight into the rapport between humans and their environment. By appropriating the new spaces created by space travel, she has contributed to the emergence of a new artistic space. From this new relationship with movement she brings out references, such as, the establishment of a subjective verticality, continuous flow motion, the actual existence of an "in-between" space… and this in water, on a trampoline and in a state of weightlessness aboard a parabolic flight.

These experiments have engendered a poetic domain where the video image is always present as a trace for memory. That ingrained fear of falling is overcome by the freedom apparent in the floating movement and by the release of a body no longer weighed down. Here, one can experience empty space where survival does not depend on keeping one’s balance; where one can establish an identity with no other reference but the unknown in all its instability. In Kitsou Dubois’ choreographic and visual process, the weightless body seems like the symbolic scene for the discovery of new spaces , enabling a rediscovery of the self, giving another meaning to weight and gesture.

Through dancing and working at constantly re-appropriating the body, Kitsou Dubois raises the issue of its place in our communication systems: is it a spirit, an imagination no longer confined by corporeal boundaries, or is it a physical entity which can redefine itself through the exploration of infinite time and space?

The different stages of research into altered gravity environments are all part of the very process of creation. The work is impregnated with them.

The aim is to confront different attitudes, all of which relocate the limits of the body, by taking risks – the rather abstract ones of dancers and the more practical ones of circus artists – and in the space/time approach of image and music.

Her choreographic approach puts the performers in bodily states similar to those felt in zero g. flight and defines a natural or staged milieu providing them with supports conducive to the emergence of proposals which will lead to the final choreographic style. This is an atypical one and is akin to what we call “dance in an environment”. The incessant to-and-fro from inner to outer perception takes on a theatrical form which gives the spectator the impression of weightlessness.

The lines of force which induce the tension required for the performance are the result of random situations. They have a decisive effect within the common structures engendered by experiment and research on perception.

http://www.spacearts.info/en/db/get_artist.php?id=49
http://www.orbit.zkm.de/?q=node/307
http://www.artscatalyst.org/projects/space/SPACEkitsou.html

Dry Translator

Dry Translator, a sculptural installation piece, is built in response to new trends in ‘smart architecture.’ Smart technology is being created for enhanced human interaction and control of one’s work and home environments. Interestingly what excites many is not the necessarily the enhancement of control, but really more the idea of intelligent responsiveness and heightened personal connection with the rooms they inhabit.

Dry Translator is taking this idea of responsiveness to an exaggerated degree. The idea is to create an environment so sensitive to human presence that a touch to its walls sends resonant vibrations throughout the bodies of its occupants. Whereas normally people acknowledge the presence of walls in a building as merely types of boundaries or surfaces, this piece allows them to engage with walls in newly intimate ways such as touching, patting, scratching, talking to or yelling at, and even ‘playing’ the walls as instruments. And, it also allows them to use the walls as sorts of touch messaging devices.

The piece includes two custom designed audio vests (which gallery visitors are invited to put on) and an interactive wall. Essentially what occurs with this piece is that when a participant touches the wall in the gallery, they hear the sound of their touch not locally where their fingers hit the wall, but actually on their own torso (via the vest). Inside of the wall there are several wired tentacles (picup mics) that act like stethoscopes. These are able to pick up the slightest vibrations within the drywall material. Sounds from participants touch on the wall are greatly amplified and transmitted wirelessly to the vests. The wall consequently becomes a skin-like extension of the participant’s own body. In touching the wall, their touch is mirrored back onto their torso. Participants may also record a series of touches or gestures on the wall via an interactive consol and thereby leave a message for the next participant to play back on the vest.

by Sabrina Raaf

NASA has a new tool to study the physiologic effects of microgravity

NASA

Mobile Fun

By John Kormeling

Round-about House

Freestanding row house rotating on a roundabout. By John Kormeling

Neuroaesthetics of Architecture: cognition of space

"When someone traverses a space, their brain produces an oscillating, rhythmic pattern," Hugo Spiers (neuroscientist at UCL) explains. "We tried to realize this abstract understanding into an everyday reality."

As for architecture, altering space can have a large impact on brain function. Changing the dimensions of an animal's enclosure causes grid cells to alter their scales accordingly, such that the periodicity of their firing, which is observed as the animal moves across a space, increases or decreases. Surprisingly, negotiating a corridor in opposite directions elicits completely different patterns of place-cell activity, so the same space is apparently encoded as two different places. A less surprising but still important finding is that the lack of easily recognizable landmarks causes disorientation. Spiers and his colleagues are now investigating how the brain encodes three-dimensional space. While recording neuronal activity as rats negotiated a spiral staircase, they found that place cells, but not grid cells, respond to changes in height. Thus, the brain seems to encode the vertical and horizontal dimensions in different ways.

Seedmagazine