The Shinkansen Collection.

Co-authored and compiled with Debbi Lander. As co-founder and artistic director for shinkansen, I have overseen and archived more than 750 hours of audio and video recordings, themselves produced under my direction, and now compiled for the British Library Sound Archive. My research enquiry, articulated in the archive itself, concerns the means to represent effectively a range of expert, mixed-mode practices. The resulting records bring together work from over a 15 year period, involving shinkansen's engagement with the emerging synergy between performance media technologies and body-based arts practices. Records of 800 events, animated by shinkansen under my guidance, represent the work of, and practitioner-perspectives specific to, more than 6000 artists. These include:
1. moderated discussions with artists such as Merce Cunningham and collaborators, Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar (for his seminal work Biped); 2. recording of seminar series from Munich Dance 2000, involving discussions of intercultural arts practices with artists including Lin Hwai Min, Director of Cloud Gate Dance Company;
3. full video documentation of Philip Jeck's 'Vinyl Requiem', at the Union Chapel (1993);
4. the 'Bare Essentials' dance season at the ICA; 5. the 'Voice Over' festival of the human voice; plus performances, festivals, debates and workshops.
Through the resulting material I aim to communicate the importance of the live event - that is, of 'liveness' and 'eventicity' themselves - and I ask how these might, in apparent contradiction, be recorded as such. The archive aims to make available complex traces, to those who similarly enquire, via such traces, into the history of the event of artistic production (as distinct from the product). The Shinkansen Collection can be searched online, at url: http://www.connectivity.org.uk. In terms of research dissemination, access is free of charge by appointment with the British Library.