They’ll take whatever you feed them—Reflections on projection in live audiovisual performance

Cornelia Lund, “They’ll take whatever you feed them—Reflections on projection in live audiovisual performance.” Gabriel Menotti, Virginia Crisp (eds.): Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 173–188. https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190934118.001.0001/oso-9780190934118

The chapter investigates the approaches to projection we find in the field of live audiovisual performance. This field comprises different kinds of performative expressions working with live manipulated sound and image, such as VJ and live cinema performances, as well as many expanded cinema and visual music projects, but also cases of collaborations with artists from other areas such as dance. As different as they may be in their approach to performance and the interconnection of sound and image, they share a similar approach to projection: as opposed to the ‘traditional’ cinematic dispositive, there are no fixed expectations or rules as to how the elements of the projection process should be arranged in a live audiovisual performance. Their set-up has to be decided anew for, and according to, every single performance project. This creative freedom opens up the space for a broad theoretical and practical exploration of the projection process, which, however, often becomes restricted by certain standardizations, as the analysis of performances and performance situations shows. This chapter develops some reflections on projection in this very specific field by, in a first step, discussing theoretical and discursive approaches to projection. In a second step, it analyses the role of projection in concrete situations of live audiovisual performance, relying on the author’s academic research as well as on her experiences with such performances as a curator and a member of the public.

https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190934118.001.0001/oso-9780190934118-chapter-11

Book launch: Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies (eds. Gabriel Menotti and Virginia Crisp)

The Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King's College London has the pleasure of hosting a launch of the collection published by the Oxford University Press on Wednesday 9th December 2020.

Date & Time: Wednesday 9 December, 16.00-18.00 (GMT)

All welcome!
This is a virtual seminar. Joining instructions will be sent the day before the event. Please register: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-practices-of-projection-histories-and-technologies-tickets-129714937871 (open until 7th December)

16:00 – 16:15 Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies
Introduction from the editors – Virginia Crisp & Gabriel Menotti

16: 15 – 17:00 Session 1
5-minute presentations from each contributor followed by questions and discussion

17:00 – 17:45 Session 2
5-minute presentations from each contributor followed by questions and discussion

Contributors’ Biographies

Introduction
Gabriel Menotti works as an Assistant Professor in Moving Image Studies at Queen’s University, Ontario, and as an independent curator. He holds a PhD in media and communications from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an¬other from the Catholic University of São Paulo. His projects have been presented in venues such as the São Paulo Biennial, Transmediale Festival, Centre Pompidou, and the International Symposium of Electronic Arts (ISEA). Menotti has authored and edited books on the topics of image and technology. His latest work is Movie Circuits: Curatorial Approaches to Cinema Technology, a monograph published by Amsterdam University Press (2018). Together with Virginia Crisp, Menotti co¬ordinates the Besides the Screen network.

Virginia Crisp is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College, London. She is the author of Film Distribution in the Digital Age: Pirates and Professionals (Palgrave, 2015), and co-editor of Besides the Screen: Moving Images through Distribution, Promotion and Curation (Palgrave, 2015). She is the cofounder, with Gabriel Menotti, of the Besides the Screen network (www.besidesthescreen.com).

Session 1
Amanda Egbe is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher. She is currently a Lecturer in Media at the University of Bedfordshire. She has been awarded a number of commissions and residencies for her installation and film work, as well as screening her films nationally and internationally. Her research is concerned with new and emerging digital technologies, archives, and media production practices.

Stefania Haritou studied philosophy and film in Greece and the UK. She is researching the various forms of film practices, besides the screen. Currently she is interested on children's film education and cinematic creativity.
Anthony Head is an artist- designer and Professor of Digital Media Art and Design at Bath Spa University. His research practice includes coding as an artistic medium and often uses 3D graphics to create immersive interactive experiences. For several years, Anthony has worked with Leila Sujir on Elastic 3D Spaces as codirector, in a successful international partnership. Anthony’s current research is exploring wearable devices as inputs for immersive experiences, drawing in 3D space, and the potential for mixed- reality headsets.

Leila Sujir is an artist, Associate Professor in Intermedia and Chair of the Studio Arts Department at Concordia University in Montreal. Over the last thirty years, she has been building a body of video/video installation artworks exploring immigration, migration, nation and culture. Sujir is a founding member of Hexagram. Her works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Tate Gallery in England.

Mo White aka Dr. Mary C. White is an artist and writer. Mo works in moving image (film and video) and photographic media and has exhibited widely, including exhibitions in New York, Dublin, Athens, Berlin, Oslo, Belfast, and Birmingham. Her research concerns gender, diasporic and queer identities, and their effects on contemporary artists and art practices, and she has published on these topics. Mo is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Loughborough University in Leicestershire.

Su-Anne Yeo is a sessional instructor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. She is also a faculty associate of the Hong Kong Studies Initiative at the University of British Columbia.

Session 2
Yiyun Kang is an artist who generates immersive experiences with moving image. She is currently working as a Visiting Lecturer at Royal College of Art. Kang’s works have been exhibited in V&A, Venice Architecture Biennale, Shenzhen Biennale, Taipei MOCA, Seoul Museum of Art and CONNECT, BTS.

Cornelia Lund is an art, film and media theorist and curator living in Berlin. Since 2004, she has been co-director of fluctuating images (fluctuating-images.de), a platform for media art and design. Her research interests include documentary practices, audiovisual artistic practices, design theory, as well as de- and postcolonial theories.

Adeena Mey is a researcher and curator. He is managing editor of Afterall Journal and a lecturer at Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), Switzerland.

Andreia Machado Oliveira is a Multimedia artist with expertise in the fields of art and technology, contemporary subjectivity, and interactive systems. Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Visual Arts and in the Undergraduate Program in Fine Arts at Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil.

Adrian Palka is assistant professor in the School of Media and Performing Arts at Coventry University and associate member of CDare (Centre for Dance Research). His research and practice centre on sound performance, image projection and the mediation of post memory. His contribution to this volume is based on following in the footsteps narrated in an inherited diary to Siberia where is father and grandfather had been exiled in WW2. More information in www.palkadiaries.co.uk

Felix Rebolledo Palazuelos holds a doctorate in social and institutional Psychology from UFRGS Porto Alegre and an MA (SIP) from Concordia University (2013), Montreal. He is a Lecturer in Screenwriting and Documentary Theory at Centro Universitário Franciscano in Santa Maria, Brazil. He is researcher at InterArtec/ Cnpq and LabInter / Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil, and member of the SenseLab (Montreal).