Joseph Hyde

I’m in Bangalore, India at the moment for the FACETS choreographic forum.  This is a fantastic international meeting point for 16 young choreographers who are supported by an equal number of mentors.  Each of the choreographers is working for two months in Bangalore to present a new work in the Attakkalari India Biennial 2013 at the beginning of February, several of them with music by (or partly by) yours truly.

The choreographers and mentors are an amazing, and amazingly international bunch. The top image shows the mentors (from left to right):  me, Janet Lilly (US), Thomas Dotzler (Sweden), Nicole Seiler (Switzerland), Gideon Obarzanek (Australia), Meryl Tankard (Australia), Ryoya Fudetani (Japan), Horst Muhlberger (Germany), Jayachandran Palazhy (India), Margie Medlin (Australia). Not in picture: Lars Erik H. Bratlie (Norway), Ong Ken Sen (Singapore), Helena Waldmann (Germany), Sankar Ventateswaran (India), Jatin Vidyarthi (India).

In the bottom image are the choreographers.  From left to right: Deepak Kurki Shivaswarmy (India), Santhosh VS (India), Airi Suzuki (Japan), Paula Rechtman (Mexico), Yola Yulfianti, Isak Immanuel (US), Jade Dewi Tungal Tyas (Australia/Java), Inbal Oshmam (Israel), Aguibou Bougobali (Burkina Faso), Yeon-Woo Na (South Korea), Anoushka Kurien (India). Not in picture: Kristina Soetorp (Norway), Leandro Kees (Germany), Rianto (Indonesia), Surjit Nongmeikapam, Choi Ka Fai (Singapore).

It’s been a brilliant year for pioneering abstract film-maker Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967), with major exhibitions of his work across Europe and the US.  I’m delighted because I think he’s a wonderful and somewhat neglected artist (although that seems to be changing very quickly).  I’m also happy for more selfish reasons – I’ve been researching his work for the last two years, so this all seems very timely.  I’d like to particularly recommend two ongoing exhibitions – the AMAZING multiscreen piece Raumlichtkunst (from 1926!) at Tate Modern and the Oskar Fischinger retrospective at the very shiny new EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam. The former is on until May 2013, the latter until March. Accompanying the EYE exhibition is this rather beautiful and very useful book, with two essays of mine in, which I’m very excited about.  It’s currently only available direct from EYE or to CVM members, but will be distributed by Thames and Hudson early in the New Year.

This is rather belated, but here’s some more information on me and my shadow and danceroom Spectroscopy, both of which are very much ‘ongoing’.

me and my shadow was presented at the fantastic Robots and Avatars – UK Selection exhibition that body > data > space presented at the Star Gallery, Europe House, London in September, and will also feature as part of their presence at the AHRC’s Digital Transformations Moot on the 19th November.

danceroom Spectroscopy will also feature in the AHRC event, and this weekend (3rd and 4th November) is making a special appearance at the Barbican as part of their Weekender festival – come along!

I’ve been having a great time with the danceroom Spectroscopy crowd over the last few weeks.  We’ve really taken it up a level by making a proper dance piece using the system, called Hidden Fields.  Laura Kriefman choreographed it, I did the sound with some help from Tom Mitchell, we had five fantastic dancers, and as always Dave Glowacki and Phill Tew brought the dS magic – this time with six kinects and five screens!  We premiered it at the Arnolfini in Bristol’s Harbourside festival, then did it in the ICCI 360 dome in the Weymouth cultural olympiad – just before our performance there we got to see Ben Ainslie win his gold!

I’m sure we’ll have some documentation soon, and I’ll post a link here.

[EDIT] the installations are now closed.  Already looking forward to me and my shadow 2 – watch this space! After an incredibly intense lead up through the final residency and pinging back and forth between London, Paris and Brussels (would have loved to have pinged back to Istanbul too but it simply wasn’t possible), me and my shadow is up and running.  We’ve had all sorts of obstacles to overcome, but it actually works!  I have to admit that I still get a thrill when I actually meet someone in there and realise they’re physically dancing with me in another country.  The project site/blog has expanded greatly, and will continue to do so..

Thanks again to the MADE partners and everyone else who has helped make this happen – I couldn’t have done it without you! Special personal thanks to Phill Tew, programmer extraordinaire..

I’m currently in Enghien-les Bains, a beautiful suburb in the north of Paris, working at the Centre des Arts on the final residency for my year long MADE (mobility for Digital Arts in Europe) project, me and my shadow.  It’s all very exciting when everything comes together after such a long stretch of work – we’re very close now, though there’s still lots to do!

me and my shadow will simultaneously premiere on June 9th in 4 European cities. It will be launched at 6 pm in London, 7 pm in Paris and Brussels and 8 pm in Istanbul. The premiere event is invitation-only.

It will then be open to the public between the 10th and the 26th June – full details on this, and much more besides, can be found on the project website and blog

For the last two weeks, I’ve been in Mons, Belgium, for the third residency of my MADE (Mobility for Digital Arts in Europe) project, me and my shadow. This residency was hosted by Transcultures and the University of Mons – we were working in the Salle du Bélian in the architecture department, a rather fine converted chapel. For the first time we had an actual physical portal installation to work with (albeit ‘in progress’), and we fulfilled the plan for this residency to develop the visual and sonic aesthetics of the piece.  We also secured the site for the Belgian portal, which will be the Galeries Royales St Hubert, right in the centre of Brussels.  We’re into the final stretch now, working towards the final residency in Enghien-les-Bains, Paris in May, and the opening in London, Paris, Brussels and Istanbul on the 9th June.  As always, there’s much more information on the project blog.

Just back from an extended trip in the US.

First port of call was Stanford University, where I gave another talk in the Intermedia Lab at CCRMA. Always a great place to visit, always interesting people to talk to. Thanks to Jaroslaw Kapuscinsci for inviting me!

Next, two weeks in Los Angeles for further research on Oskar Fischinger for my AHRC fellowship grant. I spent most of my time at the Center for Visual Music in their archive room, looking through scores and other process material. Also a lovely day down at the Fischinger house in Long Beach with Barbara Fischinger. I’m nearly done with this now – I’m excited by what I’ve discovered, and getting into the writing now.

Finally, I went to the SXSW festival to present as part of the Beyond Dance Dance Revolution panel, with Laura Kriefman and Matthew Bickerton who I’m working with on the Guerrilla Dance Project, Dave Glowacki and Phill Tew (Danceroom Spectroscopy) and Victoria Tillotson (Pervasive Media Studio, Watershed). I was only there for a couple of days, but it’s an AMAZING festival, and our panel went down really well.  Need to try and go again next year!

I’ve just completed by second residency for the MADE project. This was the London leg of the ‘tour’, and was hosted by body>data>space and the National Theatre – for the residency we worked in the NT Studio; the London installation will be in the foyer of the Theatre in June (connecting with the other three in Istanbul, Paris, and Mons/Brussels).

It was a great residency – thanks so much to b>d>s, the National Theatre and everyone else involved. Especially Nick, Sasha and Amina (the dancers we worked with), and as always Phill for his amazing programming skills. We made a lot of progress, getting all four installations working together for the first time (albeit all in one place for the time being). Next stop, Mons in March.

Much more detail can be found on the project blog.

I’ve been bad at  keeping this up to date lately – too busy doing things to have time to write about them!  I never did report back after Seeing Sound 2, which was a great success – I was really pleased with the quality and variety of papers, performances and films, and we attracted a really good crowd.  The site now contains a reasonable amount of documentation of the event, and links to lots of the films we showed online.

Mostly I’ve been planning next year though, which is going to be really busy! I’ll be going to the US for two more visits to the Center for Visual Music as part of my ongoing research into Oskar Fischinger’s creative process; also presenting my work at Stanford University and the SXSW festival. I’ll be working on the Danceroom Spectroscopy and Guerrilla Dance projects. But mostly I’ll be working on my MADE project me and my shadow, starting at the National Theatre in January. More on that very soon.. (image: Katrin Bethge)