Art & Culture

A WebPage in Three Acts

live coding performance
Eliza
Joana Chicau
A Web Page in Three Acts is a live coding performance which combines principles of choreography within the formal structures of coding. An assemblage of semi-improvised visuals and composition experiments in web environments. The screen becomes an open stage for the hybrid code which links choreography and web programming as well as body and language.
For the series ‘WebPage Act I, II, III’, Joana Chicau created a specific grammar or vocabulary that links choreographic concepts from post-modern dance with web-coding functions. This technique follows the concept of esoteric programming languages, also called esolang, used when writing so ware, integrating a new grammar into an existing one. Although an esolang doesn’t have a proper functionality, it is used in combination with other programming languages to explore alternative ways of composing and writing code. Chicau started using esoteric programming languages as an a empt to overcome the abstractness of algorithmic code, and simultaneously as a way to develop my own design language, which derives from choreographic concepts. The performance starts with a standard webpage, followed by the opening of the web console. The screen is now divided in two stages: the ‘frontstage’, the interface a user normally accesses and the ‘backstage’ or the web console in which programming languages can be ran. In the web console Chicau is calling, juxtaposing and manipulating different functions from a glossary of code, while simultaneously displaying the varied outcomes of graphic elements in the screen. These functions are named a er choreographic concepts, which are assigned to specific web actions. While the computer interprets the code, the audience will be interpreting and start wondering about the relation between the ‘choreographic vocabulary’ within the code and its immediate outcome. The screen becomes an open stage, providing the audience the access to the methodology and the tools used during the performance. The performative aspect of the act of coding is a way to make more transparent the process of composition and to enhance the nuances and transient character of coding. As in choreography, web-design also deals with space, time and movement qualities. It has been defining ways of moving, collectively or individually, through fluid nonetheless complex landscapes of information displays, networked spaces, and multi- media environments. The performance being presented and the notion of ‘choreographic coding’ is a technical as much as social, cultural and aesthetic experiment constantly being expanded. Program Code The flexibility of code allows for a combination of possibilities, not only for the live performance se ing, but also for the use of the code itself by other designers, just as in any choreography that can be re-interpreted, re-created and adapted. The code serves as a generative tool for new possible outcomes in the creation of graphics for interfaces and a way of playing with the choreographic logic. Therefore, this method promotes disciplinary openness, by sharing ideologies and methodologies and questioning structures of collaboration and of intellectual property. The documentation is delivered in an open-ended format, following Free/Libre Open Source (Floss) models/ philosophies. The source code for the project is available on: github.com/JoBCB

Additional information

Type performance
Language English

More sessions

12/27/18
Art & Culture
Sélim Harbi
Eliza
Let's think "Beyond Slavery": Afroroutes is a one-of-a-kind VR experience conceived as a journey through 3 displaced African heritages, immersing users in Rituals and Ceremonies to experience that well-conserved memory form, but also to feel the power of Music as a strong anthropological tool. Connecting Afro-diasporic narratives: alterity and heritage transcendence within the digital era, Afroroutes is a trigger to open a crucial debate about diasporic identity.
12/27/18
Art & Culture
Coco Sollfrank
Eliza
Performance lecture by Cornelia Sollfrank that makes a (techno-)feminist comment on the entanglements of gender, technology and information politics exemplified by the case of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The artist takes us in her text assemblage on an adventurous trip into the realm of zeros and ones, of data and pure information, of ciphers, signifiers and figures. On the other side of reality we encounter suspected heroes, leaks and phreaks, engineers of escape who control our secret ...
12/27/18
Art & Culture
Angela Washko
Eliza
During her talk “Tactical Embodiment,” artist and activist Angela Washko will present several different strategies for performing, participating in and transforming online environments that are especially hostile toward women. She will introduce her long-term performative intervention “The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft” alongside several interventions, interviews, performances, written works and video games works she has created with the ...
12/28/18
Art & Culture
Eliza
From Cyberfeminism to XenoFeminism - a short history of radical appropriations of media. This discussion will question how media is made (for whom and for what) and how meaning is produced through different contexts. it will feature media hacks and productions spanning a century and three continents.
12/28/18
Art & Culture
mp_ttaa
Eliza
This talk will engage the practises and protocols of hacking in the context of Hong Kong, drawing parallels from the stigmergic responses of the city (consensus network organisation) and the peer-production (or attempt) of the hackerspace, Dim Sum Labs. Perspectives on this will also draw from the publication, The Field Guide to Hacking (_TFGTH), a collection of (project and essay) snapshots generated from the hackerspace and its surrounding community.
12/28/18
Art & Culture
Judith Okonkwo
Eliza
This talk will share the experience of a leading African extended reality lab - Imisi 3D. It will highlight this African journey to adopt augmented and virtual reality, the challenges and lessons learned and will then focus on some of the arts and culture use cases that have emerged so far. In particular we will explore the collaboration with the IAF Basel festival (organisers of the Contemporary Africa Photography prize) that resulted in Reality Check, a simultaneous virtual reality tour of ...
12/28/18
Art & Culture
Dijkstra
Seit 2010 ist die Sehnsucht des Schauspiel Dortmund, ein gegenwärtiges und wagemutiges Schauspiel für ein Publikum des 21. Jahrhunderts zu schaffen, ein Volkstheater für die Digitale Moderne. Intendant Kay Voges, Videokünstler Mario Simon und Engineer Lucas Pleß berichten über Dortmunder Theaterarbeiten zum Menschsein im Digitalen Zeitalter, speziell über die Stückentwicklung "Die Parallelwelt", die im September 2018 am Berliner Ensemble und am Schauspiel Dortmund gleichzeitig Premiere ...