Corpus Corvus Work-In-Progress

Corpus Corvus is an experimental augmented reality performance work that utilizes an integrated physical/media choreographic vocabulary, stereoscopic 3D projection, motion capture animation, electroacoustic sound composition, and spatialized ambisonic sound. The work is inspired by a synthesis of string theory, special relativity, Australian Aboriginal dream painting, Pacific Northwest Native American mythology, futurist performance, and innovations in immersive digital media. The title Corpus Corvus refers to the body of the raven.  Loosely based on the myth of the raven as creator/thief who steals the sun and moon, the stereoscopic-ambisonic performance space consists of somatic architectures both extracted from and inhabited by the physical body. The cumulative instantiation of performative embodiment spans a dynamic spectrum from the animalic to the immaterial.

Through this work, I am exploring hybridzed spaces of technology and myth. The epicenter of the piece is the body of the raven, Corpus Corvus, an animal-human-virtual-mythic body.  The Corpus Corvus is a Dreaming: a body that is landscape, environment; imbued with a complex tapestry of forces and patterns both human and Other.

Formally, I am focusing on the relationship between movement of the physical body, animation in a digital stereoscopic 3-dimensional image field, and movement of sound in an ambisonic (spatialized) sound sphere.  The piece progresses through ten segments: formation, throat, wing, eye, talon, belly, heart, spine, brain, dissolution.  Each segment articulates a media architecture extracted from one aspect of the Corpus Corvus. These somatic media architectures are densely integrated 3-dimensional kinesthetic-audio-visual compositions.  Relationships between flesh bodies, virtual bodies, mythic bodies, and fabrics of hyperreality emerge within the performance technology architecture.

My primary intent is to create an augmented reality theatrical experience that awakens and resonates in the mythic dimensions encoded in the body and mind of the observer.  Moreover, I will achieve this intent through a new media/performance language that recalibrates our perceptual organs into a symbiotic synthesis of physical and virtual form.  It is my hope that this experience will be sensorially vivid, cathartic and transformative; and will provoke questions regarding the limits of the body, the relationship between body and environment, the nature of perceived reality, the function and relevance of myth, and technologically-facilitated transformations of consciousness.

Corpus Corvus will premiere in late 2009. For SCANZ 2009 Raranga Tangata Symposium: Interconnections, I propose to give a 30-minute artist presentation of the work in progress.

keywords: Corpus Corvus, Australian Aboriginal Dream Painting, Augmented Reality Performance, Technology and Myth, Stereoscopic Performance



Heather Raikes is a media/performance artist presently pursuing a PhD at DXARTS, the University of Washington’s Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media.  Her work has been presented throughout the world, and includes performances, installations, videodances, hypertext, visual art and interactive media design.

http://www.heatherraikes.com/corpuscorvus