Isabel Valverde | Universidade de Lisboa (original) (raw)

Books by Isabel Valverde

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Textos Universitários das Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Lisboa, 2010

A minha dissertação propõe um quadro teórico com o intuito de contribuir para a organização de um... more A minha dissertação propõe um quadro teórico com o intuito de contribuir para a organização de um discurso crítico acerca da dança tecnologia (dança-tec), entendida como a recente explosão de práticas performativas que aplicam tecnologias digitais. Analiso o que está em jogo na emergência destas novas formas de performance e de fazer artístico, baseada em projectos e debates por artistas, tecnólogos e teóricos a propósito da mudança de estatuto da corporalidade em consequência do impacto global da tecnologia de informação na sociedade e na vida.
Apresento a dança-tec identificando os seus laços teóricos, artísticos e históricos de forma a compreender como e por que motivos os artistas da dança e da performance se voltaram para as tecnologias digitais (1), assim como as consequências deste investimento para uma identidade da dança e performance contemporânea. Reconhecendo o papel dos corpos e das tecnologias de informação na sua mútua constituição como crucial para este paradigma de investigação, a minha abordagem é informada pelos contributos teóricos híbridos chave da teoria crítica – política do corpo, estudos de cultura, teoria feminista e tecnocultura –, assim como pelos estudos de performance e dança. Sintetizando a interpenetração dos domínios físico e virtual, concebo a dança-tec como uma interface e relaciono este conceito com a emergência de novas corporalizações ciborgues/pós-humanas, modos de colaboração inter e transdisciplinar e de criação e produção coreográfica.
Este quadro de interfaces procura oferecer um modo possível de sistematizar a amálgama que é a dança-tec, entendendo-a como tipos de interface distintas mas não mutuamente exclusivas. As interfaces dança-tec são entendidas como os principais modos de experiência mediada e de representação envolvidos na interacção entre participantes (físico-virtual) e os elementos que constituem os trabalhos.
A principal questão que coloco é: Como poderá este quadro de interfaces dança-tec instigar a reflexão e a acção de artistas, tecnólogos (2), e audiências, para possibilidades de agenciamento/agency através da corporalidade e da arte na sociedade da informação? Assim, esta investigação das interfaces dança-tec incide principalmente no trabalho que ousa desafiar disciplinas, fronteiras, dualismos e hierarquias há muito estáticas entre concepções e práticas de corpo e tecnologia/mente, artistas e tecnólogos/formas de arte/audiência, processo de trabalho/produto, e forma/conteúdo. O desafio empreendido pelos projectos e a minha análise, não adopta apenas tácticas de desconstrução. Também envolve estratégias e atitudes alternativas à tendência dominante para celebrar a tecnologia numa sociedade e num mundo de arte corporatizada cada vez mais fixamente hierárquica, elitista e global.

1 Paralelamente a esta viragem da dança para as tecnologias digitais incluo também o movimento inverso de artistas plásticos, músicos digitais e outros ligados à informática para a dança.

2 Embora colocados como dois sujeitos separados, quero reconhecer que existem artistas da dança e tecnólogos especializados em ambas as áreas. A interligação entre eles sempre fez parte da (definição de) arte.

English (original)
My dissertation proposes a theoretical framework intended to contribute to the organization of and critical discourse about the recent burst of performance practices applying digital technologies generally labeled dance technology (dance-tech). I analyze what is at stake in the emergence of these new forms of performance and art making, based on ongoing discussions undertaken by artists, technologists and theoreticians concerning the changing status of corporeality as a consequence of the global impact of information technology in society and life.
I introduce dance-tech by identifying its theoretical, artistic and historical ties in order to understand why and how dance and performance artists have turned towards digital technologies,1 as well as the consequences of this investment for (concert) dance identity. Recognizing the role of bodies and information technologies in their mutual constituency as crucial to this research paradigm, my approach is informed by key hybrid theoretical contributions pertaining to critical theory – body politics, cultural studies, feminist theory, and technoculture – as well as performance and dance studies. Synthesizing the merging of physical and virtual realms, I conceive dance-tech as an interface, and relate this notion to the rising of new cyborgian / posthuman embodiments, modes of interdisciplinary collaboration and choreographic practice and production. This interface framework attempts to provide a possible way of systematizing the dance-tech amalgam, by understanding dance-tech as distinct but not mutually exclusive types of interfaces. Dance-tech interfaces are perceived as major modes of mediatized experience and representation involved in the interaction amongst (physical-virtual) participants and those elements that constitute the works.
The main question I ask is: How can this dance-technology interface framework instigate reflection and action with artists, technologists,2 and audiences, towards possibilities for agency through corporeality and art in information society? Therefore, this investigation of dance-tech interfaces will focus primarily on work that attempts to challenge long lasting static boundaries, dualisms, and fixed hierarchies between body and technology/mind, artists and technologists/art forms/audience, work process and product, and form and content. This challenge is undertaken by both the projects and my analysis not only through deconstructive tactics alone. It also encompasses alternative strategies and stances to the mainstream tendency to celebrate technology within an increasingly hierarchical, elitist, and global corporative art world and society.

1 Alongside this move of dance towards digital technologies I will also include the converse move of visual / music / digital artists towards dance.
2 Although posed as two separated subjects, I want to acknowledge the fact that there are dance artists and technologists with expertise in both areas. The interweaving between the two has always been part of (the definition of) art.

Papers by Isabel Valverde

Typescript. Microfiche copy available in Special Collections Dept. Thesis (M.A.)--San Francisco S... more Typescript. Microfiche copy available in Special Collections Dept. Thesis (M.A.)--San Francisco State University, 1998. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-84).

Procedia Technology, 2014

ABSTRACT The project Senses Places has developed an experimental somatic-technological dance appr... more ABSTRACT The project Senses Places has developed an experimental somatic-technological dance approach for dancing in mixed reality mediated through image, avatars and biodata. This paper discusses the interfaces and choreographic methods resulting from the art-technology collaborative process between the main authors, creating participatory performance environments and leading workshops that raise innovative challenges to crossover areas of curriculum design. The aim is to understand its effectiveness for creative trans-disciplinarity educational practices.

Senses Places is a mixed reality participatory environment developing whole body interfaces for p... more Senses Places is a mixed reality participatory environment developing whole body interfaces for people to interact moving-dancing with each other in remote settings and through avatars in a shared virtual environment in Second Life@. During a residence at the Fridge Gallery, WelTec, the work was opened to the public participation, mainly students and staff and we facilitated workshops introducing participants to the project’s Dance-Technology approach. The participants (mainly informatics and dance undergrad students) were led through exploratory situations directed to awaken their kinesthetic awareness, integrating inner and outer sensory perceptions along with the introduction to the interfaces. Ranging from pedestrian to improvised movement, the participants were invited to interact with each other, playing with the different challenges posed by the experience. For instance, how to interact with other people through your image projected alongside in a virtual environment, plus th...

This article analyses a somatic-technological dance approach developed in the collaborative proje... more This article analyses a somatic-technological dance approach developed in the collaborative project Senses Places over a period of five years. Conceived as a process-oriented work that features choreographing-designing, embodied-mediated interfacing experiences for performance and participatory environment, Senses Places also establishes dialogue with key practical and theoretical references. The ongoing cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural creative experimentation, discussion and reflection shaped aesthetic, philosophical and practical principles out of the work’s emerging hybrid form. Within the quickly evolving artistic-technological terrain of research on human-machine interface, Senses Places wishes to contribute a somatic-technological aesthetic and practical discourse, arguing for inclusive and embodied inter-subjective modes of creative experience with expanded reality forms capable of bringing us closer together as posthuman corporealities.

from Roundtable from Isabel Valverde and Mike Baker DaNCING IN SECOND LIFE: a Roundtable — Envisi... more from Roundtable from Isabel Valverde and Mike Baker DaNCING IN SECOND LIFE: a Roundtable — Envisioning Virtual Cartographies for Corporeal Interaction: Dance and Performance Convergent Applications of the Second Life 3D Metaverse Social Environment :: at Society of Dance History Scholars Conference :: June 20, 2009; 5:30 - 7:00 pm (SLT) :: Room 2 - History Corner and Weltec, Koru (203, 224, 3093). Moderator/Discussant: Sarah Rubidge, Chichester University, UK :: Facilitator: Mike Baker, School of Arts and Media, NMIT, New Zealand :: Panelists: Yukihiko Yoshida, Keio Research Institute, Keio University, Japan; and Isabel Maria de Cavadas Valverde, Institute of Humane Studies and Intelligent Sciences, Center for Art and Technology, Portugal. For Mike Baker, Yuikihiko Yoshida, and Isabel Valverde, the Second Life 3D environment is a novel terrain for creative convergence, rather than separation, of physical-virtual embodied realities. The constant traversing between physical and virtua...

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Textos Universitários das Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Lisboa, 2010

A minha dissertação propõe um quadro teórico com o intuito de contribuir para a organização de um... more A minha dissertação propõe um quadro teórico com o intuito de contribuir para a organização de um discurso crítico acerca da dança tecnologia (dança-tec), entendida como a recente explosão de práticas performativas que aplicam tecnologias digitais. Analiso o que está em jogo na emergência destas novas formas de performance e de fazer artístico, baseada em projectos e debates por artistas, tecnólogos e teóricos a propósito da mudança de estatuto da corporalidade em consequência do impacto global da tecnologia de informação na sociedade e na vida.
Apresento a dança-tec identificando os seus laços teóricos, artísticos e históricos de forma a compreender como e por que motivos os artistas da dança e da performance se voltaram para as tecnologias digitais (1), assim como as consequências deste investimento para uma identidade da dança e performance contemporânea. Reconhecendo o papel dos corpos e das tecnologias de informação na sua mútua constituição como crucial para este paradigma de investigação, a minha abordagem é informada pelos contributos teóricos híbridos chave da teoria crítica – política do corpo, estudos de cultura, teoria feminista e tecnocultura –, assim como pelos estudos de performance e dança. Sintetizando a interpenetração dos domínios físico e virtual, concebo a dança-tec como uma interface e relaciono este conceito com a emergência de novas corporalizações ciborgues/pós-humanas, modos de colaboração inter e transdisciplinar e de criação e produção coreográfica.
Este quadro de interfaces procura oferecer um modo possível de sistematizar a amálgama que é a dança-tec, entendendo-a como tipos de interface distintas mas não mutuamente exclusivas. As interfaces dança-tec são entendidas como os principais modos de experiência mediada e de representação envolvidos na interacção entre participantes (físico-virtual) e os elementos que constituem os trabalhos.
A principal questão que coloco é: Como poderá este quadro de interfaces dança-tec instigar a reflexão e a acção de artistas, tecnólogos (2), e audiências, para possibilidades de agenciamento/agency através da corporalidade e da arte na sociedade da informação? Assim, esta investigação das interfaces dança-tec incide principalmente no trabalho que ousa desafiar disciplinas, fronteiras, dualismos e hierarquias há muito estáticas entre concepções e práticas de corpo e tecnologia/mente, artistas e tecnólogos/formas de arte/audiência, processo de trabalho/produto, e forma/conteúdo. O desafio empreendido pelos projectos e a minha análise, não adopta apenas tácticas de desconstrução. Também envolve estratégias e atitudes alternativas à tendência dominante para celebrar a tecnologia numa sociedade e num mundo de arte corporatizada cada vez mais fixamente hierárquica, elitista e global.

1 Paralelamente a esta viragem da dança para as tecnologias digitais incluo também o movimento inverso de artistas plásticos, músicos digitais e outros ligados à informática para a dança.

2 Embora colocados como dois sujeitos separados, quero reconhecer que existem artistas da dança e tecnólogos especializados em ambas as áreas. A interligação entre eles sempre fez parte da (definição de) arte.

English (original)
My dissertation proposes a theoretical framework intended to contribute to the organization of and critical discourse about the recent burst of performance practices applying digital technologies generally labeled dance technology (dance-tech). I analyze what is at stake in the emergence of these new forms of performance and art making, based on ongoing discussions undertaken by artists, technologists and theoreticians concerning the changing status of corporeality as a consequence of the global impact of information technology in society and life.
I introduce dance-tech by identifying its theoretical, artistic and historical ties in order to understand why and how dance and performance artists have turned towards digital technologies,1 as well as the consequences of this investment for (concert) dance identity. Recognizing the role of bodies and information technologies in their mutual constituency as crucial to this research paradigm, my approach is informed by key hybrid theoretical contributions pertaining to critical theory – body politics, cultural studies, feminist theory, and technoculture – as well as performance and dance studies. Synthesizing the merging of physical and virtual realms, I conceive dance-tech as an interface, and relate this notion to the rising of new cyborgian / posthuman embodiments, modes of interdisciplinary collaboration and choreographic practice and production. This interface framework attempts to provide a possible way of systematizing the dance-tech amalgam, by understanding dance-tech as distinct but not mutually exclusive types of interfaces. Dance-tech interfaces are perceived as major modes of mediatized experience and representation involved in the interaction amongst (physical-virtual) participants and those elements that constitute the works.
The main question I ask is: How can this dance-technology interface framework instigate reflection and action with artists, technologists,2 and audiences, towards possibilities for agency through corporeality and art in information society? Therefore, this investigation of dance-tech interfaces will focus primarily on work that attempts to challenge long lasting static boundaries, dualisms, and fixed hierarchies between body and technology/mind, artists and technologists/art forms/audience, work process and product, and form and content. This challenge is undertaken by both the projects and my analysis not only through deconstructive tactics alone. It also encompasses alternative strategies and stances to the mainstream tendency to celebrate technology within an increasingly hierarchical, elitist, and global corporative art world and society.

1 Alongside this move of dance towards digital technologies I will also include the converse move of visual / music / digital artists towards dance.
2 Although posed as two separated subjects, I want to acknowledge the fact that there are dance artists and technologists with expertise in both areas. The interweaving between the two has always been part of (the definition of) art.

Typescript. Microfiche copy available in Special Collections Dept. Thesis (M.A.)--San Francisco S... more Typescript. Microfiche copy available in Special Collections Dept. Thesis (M.A.)--San Francisco State University, 1998. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-84).

Procedia Technology, 2014

ABSTRACT The project Senses Places has developed an experimental somatic-technological dance appr... more ABSTRACT The project Senses Places has developed an experimental somatic-technological dance approach for dancing in mixed reality mediated through image, avatars and biodata. This paper discusses the interfaces and choreographic methods resulting from the art-technology collaborative process between the main authors, creating participatory performance environments and leading workshops that raise innovative challenges to crossover areas of curriculum design. The aim is to understand its effectiveness for creative trans-disciplinarity educational practices.

Senses Places is a mixed reality participatory environment developing whole body interfaces for p... more Senses Places is a mixed reality participatory environment developing whole body interfaces for people to interact moving-dancing with each other in remote settings and through avatars in a shared virtual environment in Second Life@. During a residence at the Fridge Gallery, WelTec, the work was opened to the public participation, mainly students and staff and we facilitated workshops introducing participants to the project’s Dance-Technology approach. The participants (mainly informatics and dance undergrad students) were led through exploratory situations directed to awaken their kinesthetic awareness, integrating inner and outer sensory perceptions along with the introduction to the interfaces. Ranging from pedestrian to improvised movement, the participants were invited to interact with each other, playing with the different challenges posed by the experience. For instance, how to interact with other people through your image projected alongside in a virtual environment, plus th...

This article analyses a somatic-technological dance approach developed in the collaborative proje... more This article analyses a somatic-technological dance approach developed in the collaborative project Senses Places over a period of five years. Conceived as a process-oriented work that features choreographing-designing, embodied-mediated interfacing experiences for performance and participatory environment, Senses Places also establishes dialogue with key practical and theoretical references. The ongoing cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural creative experimentation, discussion and reflection shaped aesthetic, philosophical and practical principles out of the work’s emerging hybrid form. Within the quickly evolving artistic-technological terrain of research on human-machine interface, Senses Places wishes to contribute a somatic-technological aesthetic and practical discourse, arguing for inclusive and embodied inter-subjective modes of creative experience with expanded reality forms capable of bringing us closer together as posthuman corporealities.

from Roundtable from Isabel Valverde and Mike Baker DaNCING IN SECOND LIFE: a Roundtable — Envisi... more from Roundtable from Isabel Valverde and Mike Baker DaNCING IN SECOND LIFE: a Roundtable — Envisioning Virtual Cartographies for Corporeal Interaction: Dance and Performance Convergent Applications of the Second Life 3D Metaverse Social Environment :: at Society of Dance History Scholars Conference :: June 20, 2009; 5:30 - 7:00 pm (SLT) :: Room 2 - History Corner and Weltec, Koru (203, 224, 3093). Moderator/Discussant: Sarah Rubidge, Chichester University, UK :: Facilitator: Mike Baker, School of Arts and Media, NMIT, New Zealand :: Panelists: Yukihiko Yoshida, Keio Research Institute, Keio University, Japan; and Isabel Maria de Cavadas Valverde, Institute of Humane Studies and Intelligent Sciences, Center for Art and Technology, Portugal. For Mike Baker, Yuikihiko Yoshida, and Isabel Valverde, the Second Life 3D environment is a novel terrain for creative convergence, rather than separation, of physical-virtual embodied realities. The constant traversing between physical and virtua...