{"id":4299,"date":"2024-03-16T21:20:54","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T19:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2024-03-18T20:43:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-18T18:43:51","slug":"paula-strunden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/paula-strunden\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhetorical Bodies: An XR Dance Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paula Strunden<\/span><\/h3>\n

Meta.Morf 2024 \u2013 [up]Loaded Bodies \/ V2_<\/a> \/ September 19 \u2013 October 13 \/<\/span>
\nCurators: Zane Cerpina, Boris Debackere, Espen Gangvik, Florian Weigl.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rhetorical Bodies: An XR Dance Performance (2023)<\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Rhetorical Bodies<\/em> is a collaborative extended reality (XR) installation by Paula Strunden that transcends the boundaries of physical and virtual reality. Through the use of inflatable wearables tracked in real-time, it bridges the gap between two dancing bodies, translating their movements into sounds and transforming their physical forms into interactive embodied synthesizers. This fusion of physical movements with auditory expression invites immersants to explore the profound impact of sensing their material bodies in the virtual realm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Drawing from Strunden\u2019s research in embodied virtuality dating back to the 1990s and inspired by numerous female pioneers in the field, including Brenda Laurel, Char Davies, and Rebecca Allen, \u201cRhetorical Bodies\u201d challenges conventional notions of bodily boundaries, inviting immersants to navigate the fluidity of identity and venture into the realm of their virtual selves.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thirty years ago, the American architectural theorist Karen A. Franck asked, <\/span>\u201cWhen I enter Virtual Reality, what Body will I leave behind?\u201d<\/span><\/i> Her essay, published in the Architectural Design Magazine Architects in Cyberspace (1995), starts with a detailed depiction of how it feels to place a virtual reality (VR) headset on her head, slip a pair of gloves over her fingers, put on a motion capture suit, take a first step, and reach into virtual space. To act in virtual space and interact with virtual objects is disclosed by Franck as an inherently physical undertaking. Franck insists on needing her<\/span> \u201ceyes and ears to do the seeing and hearing; my arms, hands, legs, and feet, (…) to do the moving.\u201d It is not the physical body, she explains, that is left behind, as \u201cwithout it, I am in no world at all.\u201d<\/span><\/i> Rather, her body\u2019s capacities to interact, respond, and attune to a new environment with different sets of laws enable her to experience new ways of \u201cbeing-in-the-world\u201d. Instead of detaching from her body, Franck speculates how her embodied self would feel in an immersive virtual environment freed from the limitations and physical constraints of the material world.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the same vein, the American literary critic N. Katherine Hayles proclaims in her essay <\/span>\u201cEmbodied Virtuality: Or How to Put the Body Back into the Picture\u201d <\/span><\/i>published in Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments (1996): <\/span>\u201cIf it is obvious that we can see, hear, feel, and interact with virtual worlds only because we are embodied, why is there so much noise about the perception of cyberspace as a disembodied medium?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Building on this notion of embodied virtuality, Strunden\u2019s work fosters a profound sense of connection and cultivates new forms of intimacy, enabling immersants to engage with each other\u2019s bodies and gestures in real-time while being physically apart. As immersants immerse themselves in this networked XR experience, their movements are augmented and made visible to one another in real-time while their bodies take the shape of fluid, flowing, soft blobs, blurring the lines between their visually perceived and felt bodies. Through the use of hand and full-body motion tracking, the installation creates a dynamic interplay of movements and sounds, in which immersants can merge and bind with their surrounding spaces and bodies, blurring the distinction between self and other and revealing the inherent ambiguity and dynamic plasticity of bodily boundaries.<\/span><\/p>\n

The intimate act of stepping into each other\u2019s bodies, touching, moving, and merging with each other\u2019s fluid shapes evokes the paradoxical sensation of feeling without feeling, sensing without being able to understand the sensation. Instead of experiencing the physical within the virtual, this XR installation allows immersants to experience and enact their virtual selves physically \u2013 with and through their bodies. While experiencing being \u201cyou\u201d and \u201cme\u201d simultaneously \u2013 not as a static middle, but as a fluid and dynamic link between the realms \u2013 \u201cRhetorical Bodies\u201d invites immersants to embrace the interconnectedness of self and otherhood and embrace the fluidity of identity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Credits<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Sound Design: Daniel Helmer; Soft Bodies: Ivan Isakov; Networking: Joelle Galloni (Studio VRij); Inflatables: Schultes Wien; Dance & Choreography: Tu Hoang.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRhetorical Bodies\u201d has been collaboratively developed within the framework of \u201cNo Dancing Allowed\u201d (22.06.2022-20.11.2022), curated by Bogomir Doringer at Q21 MQ Vienna and \u201cHybrid Tales for Hybrid Times\u201d (05.05.2023-27.08.2023), curated by Angelique Spaninks at MU Artspace Eindhoven. The installation is part of Paula Strunden\u2019s design-led Ph.D. research, supervised by Angelika Schnell at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, as part of the project \u2018Communities of Tacit Knowledge (TACK): Architecture and its Ways of Knowing\u2019, funded by the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 program under the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie grant agreement No 860413.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Paula Strunden<\/strong> (DE\/NL) is a transdisciplinary XR artist with a background in architecture. She studied in Vienna, Paris, and London and worked at Raumlabor Berlin and Herzog & de Meuron Basel. Since 2020, she has been conducting her design-led PhD as part of the Horizon 2020 European research network \u201cTACK: Communities of Tacit Knowledge – Architecture and Its Ways of Knowing\u201d at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
\n<\/span>Her work specializes in embodied and multisensory virtuality, exploring the intersection of architecture, spatial computing, and human experience. Her performative XR installations have been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts London, Nieuwe Insituut Rotterdam, MU Art House Eindhoven, and Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, as well as nominated for the Dutch Film Award \u201cGouden Calf\u201d in 2020 and 2023. <\/span><\/span>Paula is co-founder of the educational initiative <\/span>Virtual Fruits<\/span><\/a> and leads workshops and summer schools at public universities and cultural institutions as part of her associate position at Store Projects. Through her internet platform, www.xr-atlas.org, she advocates for an interdisciplinary historiography of virtual technologies and furthers the recognition of female pioneers in the history of VR, and thought at the Architectural Association London, Bauhaus University Weimar, Academy von Bouwkunst Amsterdam and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

www.paulastrunden.com<\/span><\/a> | <\/span>www.xr-atlas.org<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Header graphics: “Online”, courtesy of the artist \/ \u00a0Portrait photo: Caendia Wijnbelt.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paula Strunden<\/b> (DE\/NL)
Through the use of inflatable wearables tracked in real-time, it bridges the gap between two dancing bodies, translating their movements into sounds and transforming their physical forms into interactive embodied synthesizers.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-v2_"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4531,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions\/4531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metamorf.no\/2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}