Gravity Shift (2010)
Overview
Gravity Shift is a video installation that looks at how we might read gravity through witnessing another body. It aims to decentre the viewer's relationship to the installation through presentation of a dancer whose movement is affected by a moving pull of gravity.
Further Details
Variation of Gravity
The direction of gravity perceived by an audience remains a constant downwards in live dance and performance. Though there are countless theatrical techniques that try to defy this (aerial flying wires, balletic techniques etc), performers are inevitably subservient to omnipresent attraction exerted by gravity. In live performance both audience and performers experience this pull creating a universal sense of “down” both on and off stage. This shared sensation aids to create a sense of stability or centredness within the viewer’s mind as the effect of gravity witnessed on stage concurs with their own local sensations.
Post-modern art, particularly installation art has frequently sought to question assumed stabilities through a shifting of the viewer’s perception.
This installation aims to create a situation that decentres the viewer’s physical awareness through presentation of human movement where the pull of gravity has been dynamically distorted.
Techniques for adjusting the perceived direction of gravity
Video inherently separates the space of the viewer from the space of the performer. For video the performance space is the frame rather than the shared physical arena and its orientation is defined entirely by the viewpoint of a camera operator not the audience. The project exploits this property in order to change the perceived direction of gravity.
In practice this involved the creation of an automated dance floor which could pivot in conjunction with a video camera. From the point of view of the camera the dance floor would always be aligned to the camera’s frame.
Video Documentation
Presentations
2010 Brunel University DRHA conference
2010 Otter Gallery, Chichester University
2011 Digital Futures in Dance Conference, Pavillion Dance, Bournemouth
2011 Cinedans festival, Amsterdam
2011 The Lightbox Gallery, Woking International Dance Festival
2012 British Dance Edition, Stratford, London
Credits
performers
Andrea Buckely
Aya Kobayashi
Carrie Whitaker
Luke Birch
Saju Hari
Gary Stevens
Guy Dartnell
Chris Copland
artistic director
Nic Sandiland
choreographic adviser
Yael Flexer
MotionBase team
Keith Parker
Alan Dobbie
Software Programmer
Sam Wane
stage construction
Simon York, Miraculous Engineering
funding and in kind support from
CueSim
Landsdown Centre for Electronic Art
Staffordshire University
Arts Council England