In this project, the documentary trace, "fingerprint", is a cipher of social control [and] becomes a trace of the televisual body or hybrid live representation that actively engages relational processes with other bodies. The fingerprint, the criminalizing identifier, becomes a gestural tool, anonymously contributed from multiple input points to a performance space as dynamic scenery for dancers. Anonymous live participants generate through physical/digital traces in a reversal of their documentation. A social/performance event is created by these documented and undocumented bodies. ~Sarah Drury, 2009 http://www.subtle.net/empyre/
Biometrics
The relevance of the project is reflected in current public and private affairs where identity has been abstracted into a series of numbers, passwords, x-ray images, fingerprints and other types of data. Mixed Body looks at the experience of the "body as data" in the center of a narrative recounting how measurable and collectable aspects of corporeality is utilized to establish and legitimize a person's identity. Participation in the project will foster reflection on the implications of this physical phenomenon.
Interaction
A multi-touch table created by Patzer, Rueda, and Vecchio, is used to capture participant's fingerprints. The table uses FTIR, Frustrated Total Internal Reflection to create brilliant spots of light where the finger touches the glass table top.
A face recognition booth is set-up at a remote location where people can participate in the live performance from afar. Observers are invited to sit in front of a camera that detects when two eyes, a nose, and a mouth are present. The camera then starts capturing the image and processes it in real-time.
Exhibitions
Mixed Body premiered at Conwell Dance Theater at Temple University in 2009. The documentation of the performance was later showcased in several guest lectures and instructional trainings at various universities.
Artists
Lisa Marie Patzer
Co-Director, Producer, Programmer, Video Effects Coordinator
Marcelo Reuda
Co-Director, Choreographer, Sound Producer
Chris Vecchio
Engineer
Gregory Holt
Dancer
Stephen Holt
Dancer
Daniele Paloumpis
Dancer
Lindsey Martin
Face Recognition Booth Performer
Manuel Gamboa
Composer
Sponsors
Temple University's Provost's Commission on the Arts, Film and Media Arts Department, Dance Department, and Conwell Dance Theater
