Live Video Looper Performative Innovative Technology
Developed during Savyon's residency at Akadmie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart,
which also funded the project | 2018-2020
Between 2018-2020 Savyon developed an original technology in collaboration with Dr. Eyal Gros and consulted by Yuval Shenhar. She called this technology Live Video Looper. Just like music loopers, layers are being recorded and added on top of each other in real time. But here, the object being duplicated is not sound, but video: Savyon performs a movement or action with her body - it is recorded in real time, during the show, this is the first layer. This recording is repeated over and over in the projection. Now Savyon performs another movement or action, it is also recorded. Now the two layers exist together, simultaneously, in the projection. Savyon continues to the next layer, which is also recorded (or maybe not?...) and so on. So, parallel to the living body there is the world of multiple replicated bodies existing in the projection.
In this choreographic-technological research project, Savyon developed a tool that would enable the time of the performance to behave in a circular manner, in addition to its constant forward movement. Conceptual questions arise, not only regarding the medium: What happens when a person meets himself? What is the logic of a world where such a meeting is possible? What is recorded on the looper in order to perpetuate and what is recorded "only" in space, in the echo of memory? What is the relationship between the living body and its avatars? How is she influenced as a performer by knowing that on any given moment - every movement, every expression, powerful or embarrassing as it might be - might be captured and broadcast in an ongoing loop again and again? Does the performer serve the world of images and reproductions or do they serve her? What is truth, lie, forgery, copy and original? Complex relationships between man and machine are being forged. For example, the more layers are captured, the more duplications are added, the more all the layers become transparent, the virtual body blurs and dissolves from its tangibility.
The looper has different visual effects, to expand the possibilities of the projected image, to create interesting visual relationships between the layers. In addition, the layers recorded in the looper can also be layers of times and places other than those of the show, to further expand the perception of time and space - not “only” meeting the performer of 5 minutes ago but the one of 5 years ago; or meet other people, living or dead; or for example a layer of text or drawing or location. All of this is done live during the show.
The development of the looper can be seen as an act of importing from one field (music) to another field (dance). This terminology, "import", does not undermining the importance of this tool at all, on the contrary, it highlights its necessity, as the looper is a common musical instrument that had no equivalent in dance until this innovative development.
In this project Savyon repeatedly transforms herself into a virtual body to get crowded with herself. The last performance took place on March 2020 and then the corona pandemic broke out and the world seemed to join it in the virtual gathering...
This technological-artistic project was developed during Savyon's residency at Akadmie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, which also funded the project. The project has two performative outcomes:
The show Translucent - One Too Many Body - Savyon tries to expand the limits of physics in order to expand the appearance of the "self", on circuit time, between the virtual and the real, between the choreographic and the cinematic. The work was developed with the grant of the of the Ministry of Culture for independent artists; Residency at the Stage Center (TLV). Pre-premiered on Bodies of Evidence conference (Stuttgart). Premiered on Acco Festival. Performed again at Spring Festival at HaSimta Theater.
The ongoing performance Piece Of – to experience self-multiplicity, not only quantitative-wise, but mainly qualitative-wise, to discover otherness within self. Performed at Jaffa Well House; Print Screen Festival; Woman Festival; Relation-Ship events.