PULse 01: Amelia & Me (Video Performance)

Art Residency Umbria Italy part of The Verdecoprente Arts Festival

https://verdecoprente.com/lorna-moore/

Proposal

For this residency I would like to develop a one to one performance piece between the spectator/performer and the district of Amelia. PULse is a performance based on a mutual choreography between the spectator and the landscape of Amelia. The landscape and the human body come together to create an ensemble of sound, vision and movement through the participant’s body and the projected video images, which would depict the essence of Amelia. Using a wireless biometric heart rate monitor the spectator’s pulse is transmitted through the computer and connects with the video images of Amelia. The heart rate of the participant will trigger the video images to be viewed and control elements such as; the speed, sound, transparency, volume, size of the images. As an example the faster the heart rate the louder the image may become. Controlling these viewing elements through the heart rate enables the performer to choreograph their experience of Amelia’s images. However there is a feedback process were Amelia’s images and sound also makes an impact on the performer so together they create PULse – a live third space in[between] the spectator of Amelia and Amelia itself. The heart rate of the spectator/performer breathes new life into the landscape/townscape creating a collaborative dance controlled through breathing and moving.

While the region of Amelia is seen as a stage, the images are a site of representation capturing the essence of the district through movement and sound. Here the material body of the spectator and the immaterial body of images become one ‘body’ each dependant on the other. PULse goes beyond the boundaries of the corporeal body and stretches its materiality across borders that are penetrable- a performance that captures the heart of Amelia and Me. PULse is a performance for all ages which anyone can take part in.

Realized idea and concept

As the art residency was looking for artists to work in the Umbria region of Italy and respond to the territories looking for ways to merge nature and culture through the artworks. My response to this was to work with water and olive oil as metaphors for nature and culture. Olive oil is a very important part of Italian culture and this olive oil was from Guardea. Through a collaboration between the body and the bio sensing technology the heart rate (beats per minute) could mix or separate these liquids depending on the live pulse of the body. If the (BPM) were above 70+ the oil dissolved into the water and if the (BPM)were below 70- they separated.

Participants involved in this video performance wore a wireless bio sensor clipped to their ear and wireless headphones. They could move freely and raise their heart rate through movement or rest it to choreograph the video projection in front of them.This work was exhibited inside the olive oil factory in Guardea.

When you look at this video you can see the real-time heart rate of the artist in the bottom right of the video image.

PULse: 'Amelia & Me' September 2014

This work was part of an art residency which took place in September 2014. The work produced became part of the Verdecoprente Arts Festival in UMbria Italy