The Choreography of Things

Gallery residency by Choy Ka Fai

Part of arebyte 2014 programme The Body and Technology

4 January – 2 February 2014

Choy Ka Fai (Singapore) works on his latest project The Choreography of Things and a continuation of his two previous projects ‘Prospectus For A Future Body’ and ‘SoftMachine’, all investigating choreographic processes, from the technicality of conditioning the body to the cultural-social aspects of dance and choreography.

The Choreography of Things is an exploration into the neurological narratives of our body and the things that condition us. The project investigates perception of movements and memories of our body, inquiring into the body and mind paradigm with a pseudo scientific aesthetic. The project is a series of experiments in the various forms of speculative scenario, workshop, demonstration and performances. This period allows Ka Fai to develop his project towards a solo show in June 2014. Following Ka Fai’s project we feature a project by Fabio Lattanzi Antinori (Italy). Between the 27 January to the 2 February 2014 both artists share the gallery and find a place where the two practices meet and can contribute to one another.

Choreographers had always been fascinated by concept of the mind and the body. Many had explored this relationship through dance, text, emotions, sound and images. Some works were mesmerizing; while some were inherently abstract in the way they negotiated the complexity of our neurological paths.

Can we explore the mind body paradigm with emerging technological means?

Is it possible to scientifically measure the neural impulses of our choreographic mind?

The human brain is the single more fascinating and enigmatic organ of our body, and together with the body itself, they form the most complex ancient technology we had yet to explore. The project plays with the various appropriations of emerging neuro-sensing technology in contemporary art and visual art practice. Historically, many artists had engaged with neuroscience in their work and most commonly explored into the visualization and sonicfication of the brainwave data. However, with today technology, neuro-sensing had been made commercially available to artist, and we are able to gain more insights on how our brain perceives movement and making choreography at the same time.

The project seeks to research, archive and experiments on artistic methodology, kinesics studies and the neurological narratives of our body in the present future.