Doing.

Doing is a 2-screen immersive video installation depicting a dance performance [choreographed by Yael Flexer] which has taken place in a theatre and includes the events which have lead up to that performance. In Doing the viewer's motion, as they pass through the installation, actively causes the projected media to play in reverse, their movement being dynamically linked to the video playback mechanism. As the viewer moves, their activity draws the projected video further and further into the past delving deeper into the history of the events portrayed on the screens. Thus, the viewer literally walks through the memory of a performance. This investigation can be seen as an extension of the Phenakistoscope introduced by Joseph Platea in 1832, a precursor to the Lumiere brothers' Cinematographe. Whilst the Lumieres established what we understand to be the modern cinema format: a passive audience watching active media, Platea's invention, a device where the viewer had to physically turn a disc in order to animate a series of images, required active spectatorship. Doing takes this principle of dynamic exchange and extends this involvement beyond hand movement to encompass whole body interaction. The piece develops on previous work by Nic Sandiland such as Remote Dancing (2004-7) as an investigation into new technological interfaces which aim to extend the physicality of the body and create a visceral dialogue between live and mediatised movement.

Previously presented: University of Chichester in 2007