 BACKGROUNDER |
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BACKGROUNDER |
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Written and Conceived by Steve Gibson.
Programmed by Steve Gibson & Jonathan Griffiths.
Performed by Steve Gibson, Jonathan Griffiths, & Bert Deivert.
Based on an Original Idea by Steve Gibson & Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.
TELEBODY is conceived as a large-scale piece for three music and video "performers." Using digital music instruments, the players have real-time control over not only an audio environment, but also images of two entire bodies--one male, one female.
The central theme of TELEBODY revolves around man-machine relations, and the interface between machines and the human body. Digital image capturing, 3D scanning, and effects processing of the human figure provide a metaphorical description of a potential digital human. In TELEBODY the performers act as metaphorical bio-geneticists, perfectly controlling and manipulating images of the human body.
Technique
In TELEBODY, whenever the performers strike a key on the keyboard or hit a note on the guitar, something happens both in the visual and the auditory realms. The images in TELEBODY are limited to those of the naked human body (one male, one female) in classic poses (Christ, DaVinci, etc.). The performers control one body or body part at a time, and may switch body parts between the models, or apply effects in real-time.
In TELEBODY, the sound sources used are generally associated with a classic audio definition of "human": male and female solo voices, boys choir, etc. These sounds are presented in both original "natural" form and in manipulated "digital" form. To emphasize the manipulation of the human body, we have also very carefully sifted through hours of sci-fi films and snatched a number of samples relating to the body and its perfectibility through cybernetics. These samples provide "narrative" continuity as they unfold during the course of the piece.
BIOGRAPHIES
STEVE GIBSON is a Canadian composer, multimedia artist, and theorist. He completed his Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo, where he studied music composition with Louis Andriessen. He also completed postdoctoral research in media and technology with Arthur Kroker at Concordia University in Montréal. Since 1997, he has served as Senior Lecturer and Director of the Multimedia Program at Karlstad University in Sweden. He has recently been appointed Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at University of Victoria.
Simultaneously deeply involved with technology and deeply suspicious of its effects, Gibson’s musical, multimedia and virtual reality work celebrates both the liberation and paranoia of techno-fetishism.
In 1991 Gibson was resident composer with multi-media ensemble PoMoCoMo, and in 1993-94 he was resident artist at the Banff Centre, in their Art and Virtual Environments program. His Book/CD collaboration with Arthur Kroker, SPASM was released in 1993. In 1996 he released a new CD, Hacking the Future in collaboration with Arthur and Marilouise Kroker and David Kristian.
Steve Gibson’s installations and compositions have been performed in such venues as: Ars Electronica; the Whitney Museum of American Art; the North American New Music Festival; the Banff Centre for the Arts; Festival International Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville; the International Computer Music Conference; the European Media Arts Festival; ISEA; Interface3, Hamburg; Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Nürnberg; the San Francisco Art Institute; 4CyberConf and 6CyberConf.
JONATHAN GRIFFITHS is a British new-media designer and programmer currently residing in Sweden, where works at the University of Karlstad. He is also involved in a research project in collaboration with the Swedish Interactive Institute in Malmo, exploring new ways to document interactive theatre on DVD-ROM.
Jonathan has worked on and produced several projects within the realm of new media art, making use of his talents in digital imaging, video-editing, 2D and 3D-animation, sound designing and Lingo programming. Examples of Jonathan's work have been featured at such distinguished establishments as: 6CyberConf, the Arvika music festival, EMAF '98, The Innovatum Science Museum in Trollhattan, the Malmo SHOOT video festival and World Expo 2000 in Hannover.
BERT DEIVERT was Senior Lecturer and
head of Film Studies at the University of Karlstad, Sweden between 1992-1997. He is a
consultant for multimedia and interactive computer programs, a composer and a musician. He
has completed several films, many of which have been screened or distributed
internationally:
1995 - LAMENTATIONS IV: BLACK KRISTIAN film chosen for screening at International
Symposium on Electronic Art in Montreal at ISEA 95. Prizes and merits for film DEJA VU
1971 - 3rd prize Connecticut Student Film Festival held at Yale University.
1971 - 1st prize Experimental Class at Tulsa National Student Film Festival.
1971 - shown at New York Erotic Film Festival with jury of Gore Vidal, Andy Warhol, and
others, and toured with a package of films from the festival in the US and Canada -
distribution by New Line Cinema, New York.
Another of his films, AUTO-AMERICAN DREAM, was distributed internationally by Multi Media Resources, San Francisco.
He has recently released a book called "FILM and VIDEO on the Internet" and several music LPs and CDs.