This proposal represents a research strand of my Masters in Art and Design (majoring in dance and video) project, ‘In the Company of Strangers’. The proposal critically explores the forces of indeterminacy which I maintain are responsible for the dynamics which create the personna of the ‘stranger’ in encounters between people in urban spaces. I am particularly interested in pursuing and viewing concepts related to ‘missed-conversations’ through my dance research-practice which, as a scrutinizing lens, attest to the theories which reside in the states of ‘becoming’ evidenced in selected writings of Henri Bergson and Brian Massumi.
I maintain that our engagements, meetings and encounters in urban spaces frequently manifest as ‘missed conversations’.
This is due to the inevitability in our existence of indeterminacy – a state facilitating the breakdown of structured actions and intent and therefore, a signifcant mediator of our behaviour leading to our inability to be fully present for prolonged periods of interaction with another, at any given moment in time. Indeterminacy implies motion and emerges, as Massumi so ably asserts, through ‘… an unfolding relation to its own nonpresent potential to vary …’*. We are constantly being drawn away – always either approaching or embracing involuntarily, a state of ‘Leaving’ which co-mingles with and unerringly erodes our efforts to converse with another in the here and now. This proposal seeks to offer up a documentation of missed conversations approached performatively in a mixed-reality (Real and Second Life) expressed through a language of indeterminant ‘Leaving’.
* ‘Leaving’ is defined in upper case because for me, it references the event as an Urban Myth that I am creating: The act of leaving mediates our relations and shared time and space with others in urban environments. Ultimately perhaps, ‘Leaving’ will make strangers of us all.
*Massumi, B. Parables for the Virtual – Movement, Affect, Sensation 2002, Duke University Press, Durham and London.
Mike’s current focus is on improvisational movement exploration within real and virtual site-specific frames of reference. (Second Life.com). Principal areas of research practice over past ten years have been in the integration of traditional art-making materials and progressive movement modes with digital multi-media, in relation to two and three-dimensional, real and virtual installation and dance/video performance. He is in the final, thesis year of his AUT Masters in Art and Design majoring in dance and video. Mike and his wife Fiona co-direct the Contact Improvisation Dance company, Coriolis Dance Co, based in Nelson, NZ.
http://hoststranger.blogspot.com
Mike Baker Biography
Currently senior lecturer on the Degree in Arts and Media programme in the School of Arts and Media at NMIT, Nelson, NZ Aotearoa. Lecturing in Installation and Performance, Object Design, Drawing and Design. In the last ten years, Baker has danced and worked with: BodyCartography Project, (USA/NZ) Wilhemeena Gordon, (NZ) Nancy Stark-Smith, (USA) State-of-Flux Dance Co, (Mel/Aus) Martin Keogh (USA) Zjamal Xanitha (USA) Catherine Chappell - Touch Compass Dance Trust (NZ)
Research Practice:
Principal areas of research practice over the past ten years have been realized through interdisciplinary fields and the integration of progressive movement modes with digital multi-media, installation and dance/video performance. Baker`s current focus is on Contact Improvisation Dance modes within mixed-reality site-specific frames of reference, ie: Second Life.com. He is commencing the final, Thesis year of his three year AUT Masters in Art and Design - majoring in dance and video.
http://hoststranger.blogspot.com
Mike and Fiona Baker co-direct the Contact Improvisation Dance company, Coriolis Dance Co, based in Nelson, NZ Aotearoa
Full CV available on request, as a pdf document.
Read more about Mike Baker.
The SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens creative residency participants include Sue Page and Janine May, Jo Tito, Andrew Hornblow, Dhyana Beaumont, Lanfranco Aceti, DodoLab (Andrew Hunter with Lisa Hirmer), Karen Ingham, ÆLab (Gisèle Trudel with Stéphane Claude), Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, Angelo Vermeulen, Justin Morgan, Jonah Marinovich, Nina Czegledy (our International Research Fellow) and Janine Randerson, Keith Armstrong and James Muller, Ramon Guardans. Dr Te Huirangi Waikerepuru, Roger Malina and Erich Berger of Arsbioarctica will be involved in the hui, to be held at Owae marae. Julian Priest's Slow Flow project is also a partner project, and will immediately follow the SCANZ 2011 residency.
The dates for the events in and around the city of New Plymouth are:
Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand (SCANZ)
Solar Circuit Aotearoa New Zealand (SCANZ) is New Zealand’s premier art, technology, culture and ecology event and involves a symposium, creative residency, and public events and exhibitions. Occurring bi-annually, it has typically involved a mix of Aotearoa New Zealand and international artists, producers, theorists and curators many of whom are leading practitioners. Held in New Plymouth, SCANZ 2011: Eco sapiens will be the third event.
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Govett-Brewster Art Gallery

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Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT)

TSB Community Trust
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Phosphor Essence Ltd.
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