Remote dancing

Sandiland explores the nature of human movement in intermedial spaces, hybrid areas where immediate and virtual space overlap, using interactive video installations. A large project, funded through ACE's Capture fund (£20,000), this was the outcome of research collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Lee (ResCen). It has toured 10 venues in UK and Europe so far. Research methods: The installation sets up an evolving dialogue between real and virtual dancer, as when improvising in a duet in the physical world. It explores the linear relationship between two moving bodies in space: a member of the public and a “virtual dancer”. Using motion-tracking and real-time video scratching, the viewer's movement affects the movement and proximity of an on-screen dancer. The nature of this composite choreography is at the centre of Sandiland's research and forms part of his PhD studies. Whereas Jeffrey Shaw, Thamas Waliczky and others tend to focus on visual experience, Sandiland examines the somatic relationship between real and mediatised spaces in two respects: 1. Viewer to media: unlike most installations, detection here embraces subtle movements of the interactor (the “small dance of the body” S. Paxton 1977), central to many contemporary dance practices. 2. Media to viewer. Using video footage of real dancers the physical empathy of the live interactor is explored, drawing from neurobiologal research into how the brain processes images of another moving body and maps or relates these motions to the subject's own body movement (the brain's “mirror neurons” discovered by Giacomo Rizzolatti in 1980/90s). A new phase of the research is using qualitative responses from interviews and comments books collected from all the venues. Other grants: Royal Festival Hall commission (£40,000 in 2004); touring grant from ACE in 2006 for £50,000. The Guardian (9/8/2004) awarded 4 stars out of 5.

2004 ICA, London
2004 Lyric Hammersmith, London
2004 Metropole Galleries, Folkstone
2004 Royal Festival Hall, London
2005 Spring Dance Festival Utrecht
2005 Nott Dance, Nottingham
2005 Bunker Arts, Slovenia
2006 Quay gallery, Isle of Wight
2006 Centre National de la Dance, Paris
2007 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales
2007 New Moves festival, Roubaix, France
2009 Noorderzon festival, Groningen, Netherlands