IN THE SECRET GARDEN: Dance as a way of knowing nature
Programme Note
"Of course the dualism of the modern mind is reductive and misleading. Of course we are all deeply interconnected and communicate in experiential, subjective ways – with each other and with the non-human world as well." (Weber (2016)
In a sense this work is somewhat auto-biographical as it reflects inner experience, and relationship with the environment. Through exposing our emotional inner world, immersed in nature, presencing and attuning to the surroundings, sensing and responding to the landscapes through embodied, felt inner experiences, I loosen the intellectual ego and move towards feelings of awe and wonder. feelings that transcend time, and nature.
In dancing outside, nature supports my creative flow. I connect to nature on a deeper level, and in noticing the patterns of transformations of natural living systems, I recognise myself. Through dancing and encoding internal experience, depletes the ego, and presents the benefits of being present in nature and interpreting the environment as in constant flux. This phygital experience demonstates a web of infinite/ durational choreographic scores to serve as frameworks to enable a shared felt experience within nature for audiences. The enquiry has resulted in more questions about how we can cultivate experiences that enable attentiveness to nature, corporeal feeling, sensorial experience to lean into feelings of connectedness to nature, and increase awareness of the inseparable networks of ecological functioning.
This work allows for audience members to shape the work through their active participation. The framework of the phygital experience aims to enable subjective embodied experience, sensory and tactile exchange with nature, and to present ideas that our humanity connects us with life. This piece reflects "Poetic Ecology", a term coined by Weber (2016). Close (2022) states that "Ecology looks at how species and individuals relate in order to create new life. Poetic ecology looks at these relations from the perspective of subjectivity and meaning. So it's not about the cause and effect; instead it's about the expressiveness of a living reality whose creative process is constantly bringing forth a multitude of fertile relationships."
Processes of attuning to aliveness in relation with various ecologies to explore feelings and notice synergies between myself as a sentient being and the relational mirroring of nature. The creative process cultivated a deeper understanding that there are synergies between mycorrhizal networks under our feet, our digital ecology of algorithms and our human nervous system or brain networks. Through processes that immerse the researcher in nature, more synergies unfold, embracing the notion "I am because we are." Through exploring the relational nature of diverse systems, boundaries of separateness blur and feelings of connectedness unfold. As an embodied, feeling and sensing sentient being, part of nature, Lauren aims to explore nature as part of a greater whole and find ways to give this phygital experience open- ended orientation that exhibits themes of 'connection'.
Literature highlights that Nature fosters creativity and wellbeing. In my own experiences, connecting with and dancing as part of nature, cultivated a greater sense of connectedness with nature and human empathy for living beings, and our ecosystems. The phygital experience seeks to cultivate a holistic approach for studying ecosystems and moving towards 'ecological freedom'.
"The individual can realise itself only if the whole can realise itself. Ecological freedom obeys this form of necessity. The deeper the connections in the system become, the more creative niches it will afford for its individual members." (Weber (2016)
Dancing Choreographer: Lauren Tucker
Music: Alexa Voice using Text to Voice, Unkle- Track 1- Ronin I (instrumentals), Unkle- Out of The Light, Brockley- Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Islas Canarias - Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (This track couldn't be edited through iMovie or Garage Band so for the filmed version of the work has been replaced by A Walking Embrace- Nils Frahm.
Edited by Lauren Tucker
Film Footage Captured by Sam Ryley, edited by Lauren Tucker
"Of course the dualism of the modern mind is reductive and misleading. Of course we are all deeply interconnected and communicate in experiential, subjective ways – with each other and with the non-human world as well." (Weber (2016)
In a sense this work is somewhat auto-biographical as it reflects inner experience, and relationship with the environment. Through exposing our emotional inner world, immersed in nature, presencing and attuning to the surroundings, sensing and responding to the landscapes through embodied, felt inner experiences, I loosen the intellectual ego and move towards feelings of awe and wonder. feelings that transcend time, and nature.
In dancing outside, nature supports my creative flow. I connect to nature on a deeper level, and in noticing the patterns of transformations of natural living systems, I recognise myself. Through dancing and encoding internal experience, depletes the ego, and presents the benefits of being present in nature and interpreting the environment as in constant flux. This phygital experience demonstates a web of infinite/ durational choreographic scores to serve as frameworks to enable a shared felt experience within nature for audiences. The enquiry has resulted in more questions about how we can cultivate experiences that enable attentiveness to nature, corporeal feeling, sensorial experience to lean into feelings of connectedness to nature, and increase awareness of the inseparable networks of ecological functioning.
This work allows for audience members to shape the work through their active participation. The framework of the phygital experience aims to enable subjective embodied experience, sensory and tactile exchange with nature, and to present ideas that our humanity connects us with life. This piece reflects "Poetic Ecology", a term coined by Weber (2016). Close (2022) states that "Ecology looks at how species and individuals relate in order to create new life. Poetic ecology looks at these relations from the perspective of subjectivity and meaning. So it's not about the cause and effect; instead it's about the expressiveness of a living reality whose creative process is constantly bringing forth a multitude of fertile relationships."
Processes of attuning to aliveness in relation with various ecologies to explore feelings and notice synergies between myself as a sentient being and the relational mirroring of nature. The creative process cultivated a deeper understanding that there are synergies between mycorrhizal networks under our feet, our digital ecology of algorithms and our human nervous system or brain networks. Through processes that immerse the researcher in nature, more synergies unfold, embracing the notion "I am because we are." Through exploring the relational nature of diverse systems, boundaries of separateness blur and feelings of connectedness unfold. As an embodied, feeling and sensing sentient being, part of nature, Lauren aims to explore nature as part of a greater whole and find ways to give this phygital experience open- ended orientation that exhibits themes of 'connection'.
Literature highlights that Nature fosters creativity and wellbeing. In my own experiences, connecting with and dancing as part of nature, cultivated a greater sense of connectedness with nature and human empathy for living beings, and our ecosystems. The phygital experience seeks to cultivate a holistic approach for studying ecosystems and moving towards 'ecological freedom'.
"The individual can realise itself only if the whole can realise itself. Ecological freedom obeys this form of necessity. The deeper the connections in the system become, the more creative niches it will afford for its individual members." (Weber (2016)
Dancing Choreographer: Lauren Tucker
Music: Alexa Voice using Text to Voice, Unkle- Track 1- Ronin I (instrumentals), Unkle- Out of The Light, Brockley- Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Islas Canarias - Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (This track couldn't be edited through iMovie or Garage Band so for the filmed version of the work has been replaced by A Walking Embrace- Nils Frahm.
Edited by Lauren Tucker
Film Footage Captured by Sam Ryley, edited by Lauren Tucker
Process
Reflective writing
Dance as a way of knowing nature.
Immersing myself in nature enables a deep dive to feel a sense of oneness with the environment as I move. I feel present, whole and connected. The balance feels restored through engaging with these studies in the park setting. The process can at times feel imbalanced through a deep focus on developing an understanding of working creatively and collaboratively with AI. However almost instantly as soon as I begin sensing and responding to nature, outside, I feel embedded within the natural world and a sense of freedom, through grounding, presencing, a heightened awareness and a regulated nervous system. I turn to nature to remind myself that I am part of a much bigger dance of life, a larger network, a tremendous ecosystem that includes human life, wild life, nature, digital ecosystems and the intelligence and wisdom of these vast and complex systems. I am reminded of the cyclical processes of living through observing a caterpillar moving on the bark of the tree, in such a fascinating way. I sit, I observe and I am reminded of changing states, times and places. I look up through the branches of the tree, the blowing leaves, and instantly the world seems bigger, bigger than me. I notice the squirrel clambering up the tree, and the butterfly moving past me. Ouch! I’m bitten by a mosquito. In this stillness, I have no impulse to move. This is unusual for me. How will I create this hybrid phygital experience? In the desire to find something, I look to nature. A butterfly captures my attention. I try to catch it on film, it flys away. This fleeting moment inspires me. I think about how we are on the brink of change- and the evolving nature of human to post human. It all feels tricky to articulate with words. However, to communicate it, I look at the shifting states of various metamorphosis processes. I refer back to my earlier choreographic investigations and shifting entities within the ai experimental prototypes.
I improvise a simple score arriving, changing, hiding, emerging, transcending and freedom. This metamorphic climax process supports my desire to look to nature for answers leading to a concluding question: how can nature, technology and human life co-exist? Is this time of change, the human to post human movement a time of human metamorphosis?
This adds another dimension to my sense of the psychological theorising going on behind the scenes of the dance. Dance has always been the natural way for me to make sense of the world. Often in retrospective reflections, I begin to understand how the dance communicates personal meaning or perspectives.
The aim here is to dance the transcending journey of form, physical and psychological states, and to identify common ground for dialogue rather than to make any statements. In acknowledging the changing times, and social and cultural dimensions of today’s society, a conversation is required to look at the dance between humans co-exisiting with natural and artificial life.
For a deeper understanding, I turn to the literature. To find out how metamorphosis is defined and to link this understanding with my explorations, with some critical underpinning.
“To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present.” The author states that ‘climate change is an agent of metamorphosis and shifting geographical boundaries.’ “It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it.” (Beck, (2016)
In my own life, it feels like I have experienced tremendous change that could be defined as an experience of metamorphosis. My entire world view took an entirely different perspective due to an accumulation of life events, and monumental change. I have a memory of receiving life altering news, and lying on the ground looking up to the vast and ever changing sky. I’ve looked at the sky a million times before but now everything around me seemed completely differently and the light touched my skin in ways that I needed it to. This is just one of the moments in my life where I have felt nature’s embrace.
Orientation around this idea propels me in to a series of movement explorations around different ways to navigate the site.
I found excitement in the fact that I could find aerial based and movement based ways to explore the environment in a holistic way. This opened up lots of ideas and possibilities.
I finished the study with some reflective writings sat on a bench.
I then google searched and found some interesting reading by Latour (2021) After lockdown: A Metamorphosis
As previously outlined in choreographic practices module, there is a growing and emerging phenomena about how to navigate entanglements between nature, science and art to understand social- ecological processes. It is the intersection that I am interested in, and it is fundamental that through my practice as research I keep returning to the connectedness with nature, to understand the social fabric and ecological webs of my own lived experiences, and connect them to real world politics. It feels like an organic and complex topic to navigate.
When overwhelmed, intellectually stimulated, it is important that I connect to my breath, and take a few mindful moments in nature and return to the initial feelings of calm, presence and noticing my surroundings. In bogging myself down with thought I could counteract the feelings that initially led me to creating a site specific phygital experience.
The interplay of dancing as a way to know nature, to feel part of it, and aligned to the systems that I am choosing to engage with, allows me to surrender to the happenings in nature to inspire new directions, questions or tasks. It feels like a space with so much potential and possibilities. I feel boundless creativity, and streams of physical play emerging from these reflections and contemplating a site with awe and wonder.
Dance as a way of knowing nature.
Immersing myself in nature enables a deep dive to feel a sense of oneness with the environment as I move. I feel present, whole and connected. The balance feels restored through engaging with these studies in the park setting. The process can at times feel imbalanced through a deep focus on developing an understanding of working creatively and collaboratively with AI. However almost instantly as soon as I begin sensing and responding to nature, outside, I feel embedded within the natural world and a sense of freedom, through grounding, presencing, a heightened awareness and a regulated nervous system. I turn to nature to remind myself that I am part of a much bigger dance of life, a larger network, a tremendous ecosystem that includes human life, wild life, nature, digital ecosystems and the intelligence and wisdom of these vast and complex systems. I am reminded of the cyclical processes of living through observing a caterpillar moving on the bark of the tree, in such a fascinating way. I sit, I observe and I am reminded of changing states, times and places. I look up through the branches of the tree, the blowing leaves, and instantly the world seems bigger, bigger than me. I notice the squirrel clambering up the tree, and the butterfly moving past me. Ouch! I’m bitten by a mosquito. In this stillness, I have no impulse to move. This is unusual for me. How will I create this hybrid phygital experience? In the desire to find something, I look to nature. A butterfly captures my attention. I try to catch it on film, it flys away. This fleeting moment inspires me. I think about how we are on the brink of change- and the evolving nature of human to post human. It all feels tricky to articulate with words. However, to communicate it, I look at the shifting states of various metamorphosis processes. I refer back to my earlier choreographic investigations and shifting entities within the ai experimental prototypes.
I improvise a simple score arriving, changing, hiding, emerging, transcending and freedom. This metamorphic climax process supports my desire to look to nature for answers leading to a concluding question: how can nature, technology and human life co-exist? Is this time of change, the human to post human movement a time of human metamorphosis?
This adds another dimension to my sense of the psychological theorising going on behind the scenes of the dance. Dance has always been the natural way for me to make sense of the world. Often in retrospective reflections, I begin to understand how the dance communicates personal meaning or perspectives.
The aim here is to dance the transcending journey of form, physical and psychological states, and to identify common ground for dialogue rather than to make any statements. In acknowledging the changing times, and social and cultural dimensions of today’s society, a conversation is required to look at the dance between humans co-exisiting with natural and artificial life.
For a deeper understanding, I turn to the literature. To find out how metamorphosis is defined and to link this understanding with my explorations, with some critical underpinning.
“To grasp this metamorphosis of the world it is necessary to explore the new beginnings, to focus on what is emerging from the old and seek to grasp future structures and norms in the turmoil of the present.” The author states that ‘climate change is an agent of metamorphosis and shifting geographical boundaries.’ “It is creating an entirely different way of conceptualizing the world and our chances of survival within it.” (Beck, (2016)
In my own life, it feels like I have experienced tremendous change that could be defined as an experience of metamorphosis. My entire world view took an entirely different perspective due to an accumulation of life events, and monumental change. I have a memory of receiving life altering news, and lying on the ground looking up to the vast and ever changing sky. I’ve looked at the sky a million times before but now everything around me seemed completely differently and the light touched my skin in ways that I needed it to. This is just one of the moments in my life where I have felt nature’s embrace.
Orientation around this idea propels me in to a series of movement explorations around different ways to navigate the site.
I found excitement in the fact that I could find aerial based and movement based ways to explore the environment in a holistic way. This opened up lots of ideas and possibilities.
I finished the study with some reflective writings sat on a bench.
I then google searched and found some interesting reading by Latour (2021) After lockdown: A Metamorphosis
As previously outlined in choreographic practices module, there is a growing and emerging phenomena about how to navigate entanglements between nature, science and art to understand social- ecological processes. It is the intersection that I am interested in, and it is fundamental that through my practice as research I keep returning to the connectedness with nature, to understand the social fabric and ecological webs of my own lived experiences, and connect them to real world politics. It feels like an organic and complex topic to navigate.
When overwhelmed, intellectually stimulated, it is important that I connect to my breath, and take a few mindful moments in nature and return to the initial feelings of calm, presence and noticing my surroundings. In bogging myself down with thought I could counteract the feelings that initially led me to creating a site specific phygital experience.
The interplay of dancing as a way to know nature, to feel part of it, and aligned to the systems that I am choosing to engage with, allows me to surrender to the happenings in nature to inspire new directions, questions or tasks. It feels like a space with so much potential and possibilities. I feel boundless creativity, and streams of physical play emerging from these reflections and contemplating a site with awe and wonder.
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
Audio Reflections
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
Audio Reflections
Audio Files for Listening to in nature
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO FILES FOR LISTENING TO IN NATURE
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
AUDIO REFLECTIONS
Dancing towards a "Poetic Ecology"
Literature highlights that Nature fosters creativity. In my own experiences, connecting with and dancing as part of nature, cultivated a greater sense of connectedness with nature and human empathy for living beings, and our ecosystems, it cultivates a holistic approach for studying ecosystems.
I have become increasingly interested in how working in nature enables a more mindful, flow state to allow creativity to flourish. At this stage in my life I am able to shift between critical thinking and flow state through a disciplined approach to my practice.
However I feel more inspired when I work in nature, more connected and more free.
The material is partly improvised due to feeling in to and attuning to the changing nature of the performance site. Disturbaces become part of the performance as we move away from the notion of separation and towards connection. Every feeling, in response to every situation within the environment is part of the dance with nature. This piece is always deconstructing, rebuilding and becoming.
It depends on the people in the space to enable opportunities for encounters and moments of connection.
When I have been working solo, I never feel alone when I am working in nature. I feel part of a greater whole.
I have moved in response to and in relationship with and part of nature, and tested AI prototyping. The environment for working with AI, restores the equilibrium in comparison to coding, and playing with software at a desk. I feel alive.
Attuning to aliveness is important in my practice of metamorphosis. Sensing and responding to the natural environment through a range of perspectives, heights, view points, times of day. I have worked with my climbing frame in both indoor and outdoor settings. Outdoors I feel the breeze, and feel deeply connected to the sky. It feels more freeing and vast. Proximities open up and transcends the spatial and temporal qualities and possibilities. The feeling of limitless, boundless, infinite space and networks are palpable.
I find it very easy to respond to feelings and quieten the mind when I am dancing, when I feel safe in my body and connected with nature. It restores my focus, which as a neurodivergent female, can be challenging to achieve and requires conditions that allow for openness and a deep sense of embodiment and connection. Processing information seems easier in nature. Moving, responding with out so much critical reasoning that is taking place within the choreographic process to ensure that I am clear in my quest to embrace 'Enlivenment' through my emotional and experiential work. From thinking to feeling... is easier when I work collaboratively and in nature. In learning this about myself, I can shape my practice as research processes accordingly. I feel alive, creative and in flow when I dance outdoors. I need to spend more time outdoors to cultivate deeper work, regardless of the wet summer we are having that seems to be preventing me from making progress. Time for waterproofs, and to embrace the elements. To meet the environment in the moment, and allow the choreography to adapt as it needs to.
"The individual can realise itself only if the whole can realise itself. Ecological freedom obeys this form of necessity. The deeper the connections in the system become, the more creative niches it will afford for its individual members." (Weber (2016)
I have become increasingly interested in how working in nature enables a more mindful, flow state to allow creativity to flourish. At this stage in my life I am able to shift between critical thinking and flow state through a disciplined approach to my practice.
However I feel more inspired when I work in nature, more connected and more free.
The material is partly improvised due to feeling in to and attuning to the changing nature of the performance site. Disturbaces become part of the performance as we move away from the notion of separation and towards connection. Every feeling, in response to every situation within the environment is part of the dance with nature. This piece is always deconstructing, rebuilding and becoming.
It depends on the people in the space to enable opportunities for encounters and moments of connection.
When I have been working solo, I never feel alone when I am working in nature. I feel part of a greater whole.
I have moved in response to and in relationship with and part of nature, and tested AI prototyping. The environment for working with AI, restores the equilibrium in comparison to coding, and playing with software at a desk. I feel alive.
Attuning to aliveness is important in my practice of metamorphosis. Sensing and responding to the natural environment through a range of perspectives, heights, view points, times of day. I have worked with my climbing frame in both indoor and outdoor settings. Outdoors I feel the breeze, and feel deeply connected to the sky. It feels more freeing and vast. Proximities open up and transcends the spatial and temporal qualities and possibilities. The feeling of limitless, boundless, infinite space and networks are palpable.
I find it very easy to respond to feelings and quieten the mind when I am dancing, when I feel safe in my body and connected with nature. It restores my focus, which as a neurodivergent female, can be challenging to achieve and requires conditions that allow for openness and a deep sense of embodiment and connection. Processing information seems easier in nature. Moving, responding with out so much critical reasoning that is taking place within the choreographic process to ensure that I am clear in my quest to embrace 'Enlivenment' through my emotional and experiential work. From thinking to feeling... is easier when I work collaboratively and in nature. In learning this about myself, I can shape my practice as research processes accordingly. I feel alive, creative and in flow when I dance outdoors. I need to spend more time outdoors to cultivate deeper work, regardless of the wet summer we are having that seems to be preventing me from making progress. Time for waterproofs, and to embrace the elements. To meet the environment in the moment, and allow the choreography to adapt as it needs to.
"The individual can realise itself only if the whole can realise itself. Ecological freedom obeys this form of necessity. The deeper the connections in the system become, the more creative niches it will afford for its individual members." (Weber (2016)
Reflections
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." - Albert Einstein
Movement in nature enabled me to feel deeply, to move with lightness and ease, and in a more mindful way.
Today after a movement exploration I have been thinking about brain networks, trees networks and ai networks. All of these networks to some extent require programming and that requires awareness, and critical thinking for these networks to be optimal. I've been thinking about connectivity and integration, and how in maximising connectivity between nature and digital skills in a creative way, I feel more whole. Working out how we co-exist, simply means attempting co-existence, and allowing each of these systems to work together. In this phygital experience, recognised as a first phase of development, it feels like the three components human, natural and digital operate separately. When I made Neverland in 2019, I wanted to explore social media, and I began to explore different realities of experience including Augmented Reality. The next phase, I was more aware that I wanted to demonstrate the distortion of events perceived through social media, and the critical thinking required to decipher what is real. In the work, the audience used their phones to interact with the performers and situations in Neverland using Social AR filters, posting them to their social media story and tagging @tuckshopdancetheatre The new augmented moving image videos were projected as backdrop in to the space to show the distorted sense of reality, and to highlight to the young people in the audience that what you see isn't always what is real. This time, I want the audience as participants to engage with AI to inform the narrative and twist the fate of the outcomes of the experience. This calls for a stronger relationship, and consequences. In spending more time researching the capabilities of ai and improving my ai literacy, there is greater scope for me to be able to express an objective. I'm not at that stage yet.
The next steps might be to look at AI vs Human or how they might dance together to support nature and regenerative action. Finding ways that these systems might co-exist, first begins with aligning the systems in the same physical environment and beginning to engage in dialogue. It feels very illogical, until I am in flow.
Ideas emerge.
Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain to change.
AI will change us and we will change AI.
Nature is always evolving.
This idea of change.
So I turn to chat GPT for a stimuli to create movement with, to sense and respond to nature as I move...
"Amidst nature's dance, metamorphosis unfolds,
A symphony of transformation, stories untold.
Neurons intertwine in a cerebral ballet,
Plasticity reigns, guiding thoughts astray.
Evolution's whispers echo through time,
From AIs inception to the sublime.
Change, an enigma, both constant and bold.
It's mysteries forever waiting to be told.
What fuels this journey, this infinite range?
A catalyst hidden, yet within our exchange.
Adaption's spark, a force to embrace,
Change blooms from the challenges we face."
Chat GPT
"In a world not too distant, AI's inception took root, a seed of ingenuity that would bear sublime fruit.
The yearning for progress led minds to unite, crafting algorithms that would shine ever so bright.
In labs aglow with screen's gentle glare,
programmers toiled with passion and care.
Lines of code flowed like streams of thought, breathing life in to machines, as imagination was sort.
At first AI's steps were tentative, unsure,
Yet with each iteration, its abilities would mature.
It learned from data, both vast and wide, evolving swiftly with each passing stride.
Tasks once complex, now conquered with ease,
AI's prowess soared, bringing humans to their knees.
It predicted patterns, it understood speech,
Unveiling secrets science had struggled to reach.
As time pressed on, AI's wings unfurled,
Creating art, composing music that twirled.
It wrote stories and poems that touched the soul,
Blurring the lines between machine and role.
Yet questions arose, as they often do,
About the future AI was leading us to.
Would it replace humans, a relentless tide,
or serve as a partner, walking by our side?
With ethics and caution, humanity tread,
Guiding AI's course, ensuring it was well led.
For the sublime outcome was in reach,
A world where AI and Humans could teach.
United they stood embracing the blend,
AI and humans, hand in hand ascend. Inception's spark had ignited the way,
To a sublime future where dreams held sway."
Chat GPT
So perhaps this iteration is the inception of a phygital experience, and the learning can inform the development of the next iteration?
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." - Albert Einstein
Movement in nature enabled me to feel deeply, to move with lightness and ease, and in a more mindful way.
Today after a movement exploration I have been thinking about brain networks, trees networks and ai networks. All of these networks to some extent require programming and that requires awareness, and critical thinking for these networks to be optimal. I've been thinking about connectivity and integration, and how in maximising connectivity between nature and digital skills in a creative way, I feel more whole. Working out how we co-exist, simply means attempting co-existence, and allowing each of these systems to work together. In this phygital experience, recognised as a first phase of development, it feels like the three components human, natural and digital operate separately. When I made Neverland in 2019, I wanted to explore social media, and I began to explore different realities of experience including Augmented Reality. The next phase, I was more aware that I wanted to demonstrate the distortion of events perceived through social media, and the critical thinking required to decipher what is real. In the work, the audience used their phones to interact with the performers and situations in Neverland using Social AR filters, posting them to their social media story and tagging @tuckshopdancetheatre The new augmented moving image videos were projected as backdrop in to the space to show the distorted sense of reality, and to highlight to the young people in the audience that what you see isn't always what is real. This time, I want the audience as participants to engage with AI to inform the narrative and twist the fate of the outcomes of the experience. This calls for a stronger relationship, and consequences. In spending more time researching the capabilities of ai and improving my ai literacy, there is greater scope for me to be able to express an objective. I'm not at that stage yet.
The next steps might be to look at AI vs Human or how they might dance together to support nature and regenerative action. Finding ways that these systems might co-exist, first begins with aligning the systems in the same physical environment and beginning to engage in dialogue. It feels very illogical, until I am in flow.
Ideas emerge.
Neuroplasticity is the property of the brain to change.
AI will change us and we will change AI.
Nature is always evolving.
This idea of change.
So I turn to chat GPT for a stimuli to create movement with, to sense and respond to nature as I move...
"Amidst nature's dance, metamorphosis unfolds,
A symphony of transformation, stories untold.
Neurons intertwine in a cerebral ballet,
Plasticity reigns, guiding thoughts astray.
Evolution's whispers echo through time,
From AIs inception to the sublime.
Change, an enigma, both constant and bold.
It's mysteries forever waiting to be told.
What fuels this journey, this infinite range?
A catalyst hidden, yet within our exchange.
Adaption's spark, a force to embrace,
Change blooms from the challenges we face."
Chat GPT
"In a world not too distant, AI's inception took root, a seed of ingenuity that would bear sublime fruit.
The yearning for progress led minds to unite, crafting algorithms that would shine ever so bright.
In labs aglow with screen's gentle glare,
programmers toiled with passion and care.
Lines of code flowed like streams of thought, breathing life in to machines, as imagination was sort.
At first AI's steps were tentative, unsure,
Yet with each iteration, its abilities would mature.
It learned from data, both vast and wide, evolving swiftly with each passing stride.
Tasks once complex, now conquered with ease,
AI's prowess soared, bringing humans to their knees.
It predicted patterns, it understood speech,
Unveiling secrets science had struggled to reach.
As time pressed on, AI's wings unfurled,
Creating art, composing music that twirled.
It wrote stories and poems that touched the soul,
Blurring the lines between machine and role.
Yet questions arose, as they often do,
About the future AI was leading us to.
Would it replace humans, a relentless tide,
or serve as a partner, walking by our side?
With ethics and caution, humanity tread,
Guiding AI's course, ensuring it was well led.
For the sublime outcome was in reach,
A world where AI and Humans could teach.
United they stood embracing the blend,
AI and humans, hand in hand ascend. Inception's spark had ignited the way,
To a sublime future where dreams held sway."
Chat GPT
So perhaps this iteration is the inception of a phygital experience, and the learning can inform the development of the next iteration?
How can one idea take many forms?
How can one experience become multiple entities?
The unpredictable nature of the AI feels unexplainable, as I find an input, but that is it. All control is handed over to AI for the results.
All I seem to be able to do is assess how they make me feel and compare that to the feelings associated with the danced material before it was transformed in to AI outputs. The AI outputs often take many. My physicality shifts states and form changes, but AI becomes multiple entities or avatars. I can only do this with my imagination. I don't know how to feel about it all really, I fell in love with dance as a practice as corporeal and visceral feelings, sensorial experiences, attentiveness to the physical world, and the sensate lived body. AI just doesn't give me the same feeling, however I am deeply curious about how it might evolve and how it might change us as humans. I am dancing in a curious metamorphosis to understand myself and the evolving biosphere of natural and artificial systems.
It feels like I am inviting AI to relate to nature, with no expectation or desire to control the outcomes. However when the outcomes arrive, they feel distinct from the sentience, aliveness and enlivenment that I am leaning in to through dancing with nature. It is my goal to remove schisms towards connectivity and replicate the neural networks that exist within human, natural and artificial and living systems.
"If borders dissolve, if we are nature and nature is us, then ethic becomes a very different endeavour." (Weber (2016)
Now it feels like in tuning in to aliveness, nature is reaffirming my sense of aliveness and AI feels like it is moving from a different space. AI's internal world, feels like a human world. A post human extension of myself, and yet the divergent outcomes of artificial creativity. I feel disconnected from the processes.
I wonder if a mindset shift is required, or whether this is times of metamorphosis for human creativity...
I keep going, I keep exploring, with the hope that one day I am able to enable my creative practice to co-exist with natural, digital and human beings to co-exist as I make sense of the world, and build new choreographic phygital worlds.
Perhaps the magic is that AI will never be able to dance in response to an internal feeling or perception, but it might find an abstract way to reflect the human input through artificial creativity as a differentiated medium. This is another category of separation, and the aim of this quest is to turn separation on its head. Perhaps dancing can distract me from this crisis of freedom, and disconnection, and help me to feel connected.
Maybe this quest to remain human in times of post human metamorphosis is what is capturing my attention.
As an organism with an internal world of sensing, feeling and perception...
Curious as to how we might emerge, anxious about implications for our futures, and the interplay of mutual transformations within our existence.
I am reminded that in future thinking mode, I am distracted. Hijacked and scattered focus. Future thinking mode depletes my energy if I spend too much time there. It is my role as practicing researcher to keep my sense of self in balance.
Dancing unfolds in the now. It is here where life truly is.
It is here, that I feel most connected, alive and free.
Dancing takes place at the epicentre of life, deeply interwoven with natural systems, and extended through time and space in digital spheres using AI. In the way that nature reminds me that I am nature, the divergent responses might reveal capabilities in AI that remind us that we are human, and we must remain regulated, conscious and connected to ourselves as living organisms, as we deepen and expand our evolving phygital networks and sense of existential reality in alignment with natural and artificial, physical and digital dimensions. Dancing to position ourself in the grand whole again.
I take a breath, I feel, I respond, I move... surrounded by so much beauty, nature, and open space. The anxiety dissolves and I instantly feel calm, at ease and relaxed... I enjoy being seduced by the digital potential, but in balance with my embodied dancing self. Leaning in to my inner experience, in relation to nature feels restorative, focussed, aligned and connected.
All I seem to be able to do is assess how they make me feel and compare that to the feelings associated with the danced material before it was transformed in to AI outputs. The AI outputs often take many. My physicality shifts states and form changes, but AI becomes multiple entities or avatars. I can only do this with my imagination. I don't know how to feel about it all really, I fell in love with dance as a practice as corporeal and visceral feelings, sensorial experiences, attentiveness to the physical world, and the sensate lived body. AI just doesn't give me the same feeling, however I am deeply curious about how it might evolve and how it might change us as humans. I am dancing in a curious metamorphosis to understand myself and the evolving biosphere of natural and artificial systems.
It feels like I am inviting AI to relate to nature, with no expectation or desire to control the outcomes. However when the outcomes arrive, they feel distinct from the sentience, aliveness and enlivenment that I am leaning in to through dancing with nature. It is my goal to remove schisms towards connectivity and replicate the neural networks that exist within human, natural and artificial and living systems.
"If borders dissolve, if we are nature and nature is us, then ethic becomes a very different endeavour." (Weber (2016)
Now it feels like in tuning in to aliveness, nature is reaffirming my sense of aliveness and AI feels like it is moving from a different space. AI's internal world, feels like a human world. A post human extension of myself, and yet the divergent outcomes of artificial creativity. I feel disconnected from the processes.
I wonder if a mindset shift is required, or whether this is times of metamorphosis for human creativity...
I keep going, I keep exploring, with the hope that one day I am able to enable my creative practice to co-exist with natural, digital and human beings to co-exist as I make sense of the world, and build new choreographic phygital worlds.
Perhaps the magic is that AI will never be able to dance in response to an internal feeling or perception, but it might find an abstract way to reflect the human input through artificial creativity as a differentiated medium. This is another category of separation, and the aim of this quest is to turn separation on its head. Perhaps dancing can distract me from this crisis of freedom, and disconnection, and help me to feel connected.
Maybe this quest to remain human in times of post human metamorphosis is what is capturing my attention.
As an organism with an internal world of sensing, feeling and perception...
Curious as to how we might emerge, anxious about implications for our futures, and the interplay of mutual transformations within our existence.
I am reminded that in future thinking mode, I am distracted. Hijacked and scattered focus. Future thinking mode depletes my energy if I spend too much time there. It is my role as practicing researcher to keep my sense of self in balance.
Dancing unfolds in the now. It is here where life truly is.
It is here, that I feel most connected, alive and free.
Dancing takes place at the epicentre of life, deeply interwoven with natural systems, and extended through time and space in digital spheres using AI. In the way that nature reminds me that I am nature, the divergent responses might reveal capabilities in AI that remind us that we are human, and we must remain regulated, conscious and connected to ourselves as living organisms, as we deepen and expand our evolving phygital networks and sense of existential reality in alignment with natural and artificial, physical and digital dimensions. Dancing to position ourself in the grand whole again.
I take a breath, I feel, I respond, I move... surrounded by so much beauty, nature, and open space. The anxiety dissolves and I instantly feel calm, at ease and relaxed... I enjoy being seduced by the digital potential, but in balance with my embodied dancing self. Leaning in to my inner experience, in relation to nature feels restorative, focussed, aligned and connected.
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