Projects

'The Reproduction’ – Is a hybrid dance and technological mashup, questioning the role of ‘the censored image’ in contemporary culture. The work is an ongoing research developed by performers and artists Madison Pomarico & Daniel Conant, who utilize pre-recorded videos of themselves performing specific tasks, which later are re-performed in real time in front of a camera; their images being overlaid onto the pre-recording, producing a ghostly effect of past and present. In this process they play with alternative choreographic timelines and illustrate two or more versions of the same narative.

An Environment that is not found, but designed, is distinct by being a product of humans; therefore it is equally as subject to natural, physical occurences as humanity is itself.

What intrinsic human phenomena can be observed by designing a hypothetical, material space, isolated from external variables? What distinguishes the way human beings interact with, and unmistakably impact a space that is not discovered, but conceived?

Human Systems of a Structure is a body of research which studies the physical interface between the material composition of a designed environment or ‘structure’, and the human interaction that facilitates the functionality of that structure. The work demonstrates how somatic movement instigates reactive material displacement of an architectural form; in turn, causing reactive behavior within the body. This recursive process results in exponential progression of both effort in physicality, and structural deterioration.

'Human Systems of a Structure - 16ft Span’ is a video installation which displays documentation of the material research conducted throughout twenty-two individual filming sessions featuring multiple performers. As a structure, the 16ft Span was designed to create spatial boundaries that delineate where interaction is functionally enabled, and physically limited. Performers physically utilizing the Span’s functionality, develop cyclical patterns of movement described by the structure’s inherent trajectory. In conjunction with the form’s ability to dictate where movement can and cannot traverse through space, its reactive, material characteristics instigate the body to recover from material fallout such as: cracking, shearing, sliding and crumbling - all products of deformation. The cumulative deterioration of the span culminates in developmental change; becoming evidential proof that this process is not one of perpetual destruction, but of continuous transformation.

In 198021, the censor became the leitmotif. Five depictions of a dystopian environment convey the manipulative power of the censor as it is reappropriated by three performers. Utopic imagery and the irony of alternative facts, alongside the intentional censoring of bodies and the destortion of text occurs in a monochromatic space, mirroring the stark ‘post-truth’ reality of digitalism in the 21st century. Here, George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is re-interpreted and retrofitted in a present day context, highlighting the parallels between fictional projections of the future, and their uncanny reality.

The Opposite of a Black Hole is a digital flaneur, an audiovisual journey through the wandering mind of a pinhole camera, exploring the clashing of old and new technologies in relation to the dancing body and the moving image.  

The film meanders through homages to old cinema romance, existential dread, and glitch-feminist fantasy, all the while paying tribute to the pioneering figure of Maya Deren. 

The opposite of a black hole is a disembodied reflection on what we are made of. It imagines the relations of dust, DNA & pixels to the human body, as well as the malleability of human flesh and voice in the digital realm. The wandering pinhole voices the pleasure of thinking as entertainment, the transformation of thinking to panicking, and the many contradictions of our times, through dreams, nightmares, and tangential distractions. 

The artists seek to enter inside the universe of their tributee, digitally penetrating the boundaries of culture and technology that prevent us from time travelling to meet our predecessors - with curiosity, humour, and reverence.

The project - ‘Somnambulists for an Ensemble’ is a 50 minute collective screendance, created as a compilation of 10 internationally selected artist teams’ 
independent segments. Each segment positions itself in relation to the experimental filmmaker Maya Deren's unfinished dance film Ensemble for Somnambulists (1951). The invitation: for the artists to create a finished version of ‘Ensemble for Somnambulists’, freely reimagined and adapted to our times.

uh·ri·thruh·fow·bee·uh: a fear of blushing