Documentation
Concept
Boundaries is a projection mapping dance performance which explores social rules.The performance addresses the idea that social rules change over time but always exist as a boundary and that individuals have the agency to break them if we feel constrained. When a better option appears, rules will change, which is an ongoing process. Individuals should be flexible in their thinking about social rules, because what suits us today might not suit us in the future. With the help of the music, the choreography and the geometric shapes projected on the wall, the video presents the stages a woman living inside the boundary, and fighting against it, and finally finding herself in a new boundary and loop starts again.
Design Process
Inspiration
When I’m thinking about what story I want to tell through this project, an idea came across my mind. I was reading Michel Foucault’s article about power theory, and he thought power is not wield by anyone or any group , and power comes from everywhere. Power can be formed, diffused and also tort apart through discourse. The changing state of power is a path of finding truth. His theory made me think of social rules, which is an aspect showing how power works.
Similarly, social rules are changing over time. Take marriage laws as an example. Before my country established, ancient empire all allow man to marry more than one woman. The more women he has, the greater honor and status that represents. However, we all acknowledge Monogamy now. What’s the future of our marriage? It will still change for sure.
Precedents
Scott Snibbe’s “Deep Walls” (2002) gave me much inspiration on how projection mapping can contributes in creating an art pieces through inviting the public to become part of it. When a person walks into its projection beam, the interactive wall starts recording his shadow, and the shadows of those who follow. When the last person leaves the frame, the shadows replay within one of sixteen small rectangular cupboards, looping indefinitely. The result is that many people actually dance in front of the camera and create a huge album recording each participants’ movement.
Another installation named NOWHERE AND EVERYWHERE AT THE SAME TIME by William Forsythe (2009), who is also a famous Choreographer, also gave me much thoughts. His work shows how to engage public into an installation and turned them into dancer naturally, which reveals that choreography is everywhere.
The installation game Les disciplines du rectangle by one life remains (2016) reveals how games can become manipulation tools. Players are required to stay inside a changing rectangle on the screen and can not touch the border. They act as if they were piloted by the rectangle in the end. This game gave me much inspiration about boundaries. Using this kind of geometric shape with people’s movement can clearly shows how people are constrained by the rule of game.
Prototype1
The first prototype I made is a simple animation with just the movement of the geometric shapes. Like the concept I designed, there is a huge triangle exist as a boundary, and there is a square inside moves within the border. When the triangle get really small, the inside square jumps out of the boundary and become “free”. At the same time, a new shape appears. Although it is large enough for now to let the square move freely, it still exists as a boundary and is constraining the square inside.
I use this animation to do many play tests to see what messages can viewers get through this abstract animation. Although many people have different interpretation about the exact meaning of it, they all get the main concept of breaking boundaries. It is surprising for me to know that each people have their own interpretation, some people think it is a story about breaking constraints of selfness, some believe it is a process of seeking knowledge, some regard it as a story of finding true love that suitable of themselves. However, there is still some details that they don’t understand correctly. Also, music plays an important role in rendering emotions. The music I chose for the animation is a little bit too upbeat.
Prototype2
I spent some time composing music to define the length of the performance and also the main emotional set. Since there are 4 stages in my story, I need to use the language of music to show the difference and make each stage more intense. Besides, I want to convey the message about repetition, so the beginning and the end part of the music remain the same.
In next stage, I decided to work with the performer together and think about the choreography. When it’s done, I showed the video to some classmates to test several questions: If they can realize different stages through the changing tempo of music? If they discover the repetition of dancer’s movement in the beginning and the ending parts of the performance? Based on the feedback, I still need to work on the second question- how to make people realize that it is a loop although the dancer had already broke the triangle boundary. Right now, the choreography looks quite similar in each movement and do not have any memorizing point to make the viewer connect the points together. Another suggestion I received is that the triangle can have some interaction with the dancer, shows the flexibility of the border.