future present 2

2019
Durational performance, 3 hours

This second iteration of 'Technologies of Lived Abstraction: Future Present' has been supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Goldsmiths University of London (Department of Art & Department of Computing), and Ugly Duck Spaces.

Using machine learning as its foundation, the work addresses questions of how the algorithmic and the notion of a quantified self are creating “soft architectures” impacting the construction of movement: in both an interior and social way.  The performers (the quantified subjects of the work) are wearing biosensors that read the data produced through their movements (muscle tension, orientation, speed, etc.).  Their data is translated in realtime by neural network algorithms, producing a constantly moving and mutating light sculpture projection. It is the visualised form of their data, an abstracted “data self”, acting as another body in the space.  It moves and dances with its human subject, and the performer responds to the unpredictably abstract outputs produced by the predictive algorithms.  Both human and machine are engaged in a complex and constantly evolving positive feedback loop.

Over the course of the 3-hour performance, the performers engage in various choreographic scores that reveal intimate interpersonal narratives and transition between states of solipsism, narcissism, competition, mania, eroticism and collectivity in technology-mediated spaces.  The durational aspect of the work answering to the ubiquitousness of artificially intelligent sensing technologies recording and redistributing complex information patterns, where human subjects must then navigate these abstract soft power relations.  The performers as the quantified subjects of the work confront this radical intimacy with the algorithm, each other and the audience, working towards overcoming the individualistic preoccupation/fascination with technology & pushing for collectivity.

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Exhibition:  
​11-14 April 2019: Anamorphic Waves, Ugly Duck (London)

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​Credits:
Performed by Angus Bartlett, Marlen Pflueger, Monica Tolia & Moses Ward
Sound composition by James Philip Brown
​Programming by Terry Clark
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Interview in Chrom Art Magazine (April 2019):
www.chromart.org/future-present-monica-tolia-interview/

Documentation photography: Matthew Cawrey