Nathan A L6 choreo

  Following my assessment where the full piece was finally realised I feel relieved to have achieved what I set out to do by the deadline. My initial goal after consultation with Miss Evans was to explore movement and display a chronology of events inspired by my research into ASIMO, A.I, and Rosie Kay. I feel I displayed each key advancement in the development of ASIMO by isolating my body movements into clear sections. I feel I showed the concept of machine learning through the accumulation of movement and the use of falls and floor work to suggest failure. And I feel the chaos and unpredictability of my movement showed the idea of a robot uprising. However as with any piece of art these concepts have to be interpreted by the audience, who may take something completely different away from what I presented to them. Interestingly, my piece has had the desired effect on my audience on myself. Now that I have finished this piece it has left me with a curiosity about robotics and cons...

  Having come to the end of my choreography this blog post will reflect on the process so far. Since my last post I have finished my last section of choreography and have taken a small influence from the ballet world. A manege is a balletic term meaning circular, and describes when a dancer takes a circular path around the stage. I wanted to apply theist contemporary using different levels while keeping on the circular track. Ballet performed at the highest level is a form of complete body mastery, and I wanted to suggest that robotics in the future could emulate this full body mastery to achieve   the potential A.I takeover suggested in conspiracy theories. I have also pieced together the music. The pieces now fit together nicely and I have edited out long sections of repeated music as they did not fit with my idea of growth and development of robotics and I felt that they only slowed this rate of progression. Following these edits to the music I feel although the piece as a ...

Similar to MK Ultra, my choreography has no plot but rather shows a chronology of events. Starting with the invention of robotics and its development it progresses to computerised learning. However, where it differs from the Rosie Kay piece is in the final section. I will take a look into the future of A.I and decide whether I believe the theory of a robot uprising to be true.    I have now completed the first two sections of movement and have the structure for the third and final piece laid out. I have decided to take sections of movement from my previous two topics and enlarge them to fit this piece of music. This aims to show how the physical body of a robot and the coded software of machine learning become one in order to create sentient beings.   While personally I don't believe that an artificial intelligence uprising is likely, given the limitations even the most advanced works of A.I face. And a university of Huddersfield computer science lecturer further confirms...

In this blog post I will review the work “5 Soldiers” by Rosie Kay and compare it to the previous work of hers that I reviewed “MK Ultra” 5 Soldiers is much more of a narrative piece in comparison to MK Ultra. It portrays the idea of “How you make soldiers, the physicality of the training” but also “the relationships off duty” (R.Kay, 2016) and finally depicts a scene on the front line. The structure of the piece shows a clear chronology of events and how the five soldiers react differently to these events. Despite the differences in storytelling, the way the music is used is quite similar, in times of relaxation both pieces use pop music. I think this lulls the audience into a sense of security in familiarity. By using music many people are familiar with the audience and aren't expecting any surprises. However during these times of relaxation in 5 Soldiers I find the jovial movement style and acting to be almost too childish. Having spent time at three military bases (R.Kay, 2016)...

  I am now part way through the second section of my piece. Set to the song “Lost it to trying” by Son Lux I think the lyrics in this song are crucial to the audience's understanding of the movement. “What should we do now we lost it to trying” and “give in and get out we rise in the dying” perfectly relays the concept of artificial learning to the audience's ears. A.I learns to move through iterative trial and error in other words losing and trying again, dying and rising up from that with more intelligence as per the lyrics of the song. I drew inspiration for this use of sound from Rosie Kays’ MK Ultra. A piece where, in my previous blog post I noted that, narration is used to explain turns of historical events. While my audio relies on a pre existing song, as opposed to carefully selected soundbites, I believe this more subtle approach still enhances the explanatory ability of movement In terms of movement I am finding this piece easier to construct as the style is closer to...

In this blog post I will review the piece MK Ultra. This is a piece by my chosen practitioner Rosie Kay that I have seen live and has influenced the stimulus and research behind my choreography. The title MK Ultra is the code name for a top secret experiment performed by the CIA. during the cold war It investigated how LSD and other drugs could be used for “ mind control, information gathering and psychological torture” (M.Sullivan, 2017). Through declassified reports and interviews with those involved we know these events to be fact. However the topic of the dance piece takes a look into the conspiracy theories that have spawned surrounding the mystery of MK Ultra. Dancers are dressed in skintight, psychedelic unitards a clear reference to the psychedelic drug LSD. This trend continues into the stage lighting and some pieces of music and while there isn't necessarily a meaning behind this the theme is obvious and works well to simplify the audience's thought process despite th...

The topic of my first section is the Honda created robot ASIMO. This is a robot that has interested me since I was young as it was the first robot to take on the challenge of ascending and descending a flight of stairs. And while the logistics of how this was achieved may always be far too complex for me to understand, the evolution of the robot provides me with an interesting set of parameters, and the physical movement/ limitations of its movement create ideas for movement of my own.  Personally I find limitations crucial to choreography. Without limitation the body sets into a comfortable routine and choreography will inevitably look repetitive without purpose. To minimize this I have created this grid displaying the key sections or ASIMO’s development and have begun to choreograph by abiding to the limitations shown in bold.   1986 Just legs . 5 seconds between steps. No use of arms or upper body, slow walks 1987-1991 E2 mimics human walk 1.2km/h. E3 3km/h. Faster walks, n...

For this choreographic process I have chosen to take influence from the choreographer Rosie Kay. Rosie Kay is a choreographer based in Birmingham only twenty minutes away from where I live meaning I have had the opportunity to take contemporary class with one of her dancers for approximately two years. I have also seen her work MK Ultra live which in particular has influenced me in this process. Initially, when deciding on my stimulus idea, conspiracy theories were a topic that really excited me. I attribute this in large part to watchink MK Ultra, a piece based on the conspiracy of the Illuminati. In an interview she states that “A theory behind this pop imagery is the illuminati” (R.Kay 2021). The theory suggests that the illuminati work with the government to control pop culture and mainstream media. The piece then goes further to look into a top secret CIA experiment that supposedly experimented on unwilling citizens of the US. These ideas of media control and specifically pop cult...