Overview

Action Station #2 recreates a desert environment modeled after scientific data and may be viewed both as a multi-media installation and a vocal/dance/electronic music performance. The project is a response to our current environmental crisis caused by contemporary humans' inability to reflect on our own impact to the natural world. The project is working to develop active and engaging mediated spaces which explore socio-cultural and ecological aspect of the desert Southwest.

Performances

2011: In performance, multiple treadmills are modified for remote control, allowing us to 'play' them as instruments; visual, kinetic, and sonic. This technology, functional and metaphorical, references American gym culture as well as the practice of the Australian Aboriginal walkabout. Caught in a paradox of walking without traveling, the performers enact an interface with the land, introducing the notion of a contemporary ritual to activate memory and a greater understanding of the land. A choreographed multi-media performance, ActionStation#2 - The Desert follows a fictional tribe seeking knowledge of the evolutionary future of their species.

2007: In a 70-minute journey through space and time, Grisha Coleman's performance installation, immerses audiences and performers in a fully synthetic environment comprised of audio and visual media, digital movement analysis, robotics and live performance. This setting recreates a desert ecosystem simultaneously made up of a virtual and "real" space, reflecting on how one affects the other.

Past Performances

Installation

The echo::system installation looks at the geographic, historical and cultural conditions of the U.S. southwestern desert with a dynamic, simulated walk through the landscape on "smart" treadmills. The work investigates links between large issues of socio-ecological complexity and direct embodied experience: emphasizing the importance of a self-direction, aesthetics and physical investment. Our refitted treadmill is an interactive interface that encourages a kinetic sense of navigation through abstract knowledge. This affords the user a physical, highly embodied experience to reconnect complex ecological data sets with cultural narratives. By involving the intention of the whole body in a motor-sensory experience, this work looks to create new scenarios for comprehension and contemplation of the environment.

The Abyss looks at the most current research at the ocean's abyssal layer. Elements, qualities and dynamic potentials of the ocean are identified while translating the behavior of the overall system into movement, sound and poetry.

The 40-minute, site-specific piece is performed outdoors to spectators suspended from a bridge overlooking the ravine. The Divers, work with a looping system of pulleys and ropes connected to a potentiometer receiving input sent to a digital model of an abyss. The choreography, is triggered by information received from the model. Traditional Hawaiian chants merge with strains of Jacques Cousteau to emerge as a singular vocal chant alongside the song of the deep-sea worm, the oldest living creature on earth its 'voice' re-composed for a human voice.

R&D Lab at the Banff New Media Institute, Canada, August 2002

Bridges II: International Consortium On Collaboration in Art, Culture, Science and Technology, October 2002