Body-based metaphors inhabit our everyday language; for example, “watch your back”, has an idiomatic meaning that is rooted in the spatial design of our bodily form. Mechanical systems share this embodiment; for example, phrases like “wedge yourself between two entities”, shares intuition with the functioning of a simple machine, like a wedge. By leveraging algorithms to generate our soundscape and incorporating both visible and invisible connections, our piece, arubina, allows audience members to experience this invisible world as it intersects our bodies. A soundscape of body-based phrases generated live by a computer, with projected code, that alternate between familiar and unfamiliar, probing our embodied ways of understanding, drives a library of actions enacted by the performers.
The seeming contradiction of “being close in space” but “disconnected”, is developed in the work. The performers begin in a tight circle, wearing earbuds. The result is that the performers are moving in a shared space but are disconnected and unengaged, technology changing the experience of the shared space. Later, a rope is used, connecting the performers as they stand inside. They are spread out to the farthest space allowed by the rope and the environment, and yet are fully engaged and connected, both physically in space through the rope itself and a common auditory environment. Thus, the paradox of proximity and connection in relationship to technology fuels the exploration.
