Michaela Davies and Lian Loke bring together their practices in art, dance and technology to explore the concept of the distributed body. They are interested in extending traditional Butoh dance into technology-mediated performance, through the use of brainwave sensors and electromuscle stimulation technology. The concept of the distributed body poses interesting questions. Who is controlling what? Who is dancing? What kinds of agency and bodies are created within this distributed system? The practice of Butoh works with imagery and the transformative body. How this process of image work translates onto two bodies—one person wearing a brainwave sensor on their head and the other wired up with EMS—is the starting point for their investigations.
Residency Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre, Rushcutters Bay, NSW, Australia, July 2012. Supported by the Design Lab, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney.