Articles

Trading Signals for Patterns and Ephemerality for Sensuality in Dance Studies

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Abstract

In response to the redoubling effect of “ephemerality” in performance studies and “cloudiness” in discourses framing digital databases, this article proposes a materially-driven assessment of dance after its digitization. At the dawn of ubiquitous computing and increased avenues for the conversion of dance into computerized information, we propose a critical appraisal of the information-driven epistemology that champions the digitization of all aspects of life, including movement and creativity. As such, new technological affordances for the capture and reproduction of the dancing body are contrasted and contextualized with an emphasis on the series of re-materializations that digitization produces across bodies, devices, and choreography. While this guiding premise of a materially-driven approach entails foregrounding the electric, mineral, hydraulic, petrochemical, or otherwise material resources needed for the conversion of dance into data, this premise is also framed as an invitation to renew the sensorial and sensual study of data in and of itself. By epitomizing the “pattern” instead of the “signal”, we suggest that sitting with the shape, contour, and trajectory of data points before trying to make sense of them could rekindle a sensual engagement with computers and their language. Capitalizing on this sensual detour for the examination of dance data is discussed as the fuel for any pivotal changes in the field, whereby simulation might cease to be the synonym for artificial and instead be recruited as the rehearsal of another real. 

Keywords: dance, digitization, screen cultures, datafication, new materialism

How to Cite:

Yánez, J. P. & Fewer, R., (2024) “Trading Signals for Patterns and Ephemerality for Sensuality in Dance Studies”, Documenta 42(1): 1, 3–21. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/documenta.93223