This e-Merge project is now in its seventh year of development and aims to develop emergent performance. Emergent behaviour is an outcome of a complex system. A close relative of Chaos and Complexity, Emergence is a scientific
phenomenon describing dynamic systems that self-organise from the bottom up in unpredictable
ways. Think flocking birds, ant colonies, street fashions, performance. The e-MERGE project was supported by European Commission's cultural programme Culture 2000 and commenced in 1999 in a residency at CAMAC France with Prof. Igor Aleksander of Imperial College.
e-Merge 2004 Institute of Contemporary Arts
eMerge involved a science-arts team that included computer programmers, software designers who developed a new technological system enabling rule systems to be networked via interactive technologies - wireless headsets, floor sensors, computer screens - to the performers during the performance, and enabling the performers to feedback into the system as the work unfolded. By using digital means to orchestrate performers actions I was exploring the interaction of technology in generating emergent performance.
My most recent exploration of emergent ideas to create new dance entitled FUZZY LOGIC was performed March20-22 2007 at The Rocket, London Metropolitan University, London and was preceded by BIRDS BODIES (2005) which integrated the use of the software Isadora.
With long-term collaborator Daniel Biro
(composer) the exploration of scientific ideas that generate dynamic
creative patterning as a source for new performance works started in 1996 with an improvisational duet Strange Attractors
BIRDS, BODIES involved seven dancers in work for London Metropolitan University's professional performance programme and as part of The Facility's Labyrinths and Mysteries symposium during 2005. This work used Isadora software and integrated audio systems devised by Nick Rothwell that responded to the performance's evolution in real time.