[ISEA2002] Artists Statement: Marie-Claude Poulin & Martin Kusch (kondition pluriel) – Scheme II

Artists Statement

kondition pluriel’s artistic directors, Marie-Claude Poulin -with her background in dance – and Martin Kusch – from the media arts – both have extensive experience in their respective creative fields. Their performances are founded upon the convergence of different disciplines. Their artistic practice relies on the hybridisation of media, the process of electronic-image transformation, and the influence digital technologies exerts on how the body and space is conceived. They are working on the construction and simulation of spaces where they reactualise the presence of the dancer?/ performer. In terms of body language and gesture, they stage different bodily states and raw action, suggesting a multiplicity of attempts at the body’s reorganisation, metamorphosis and adaptation to situations of constraint. The way the body is put into perspective and its relationship to architecture are key factors in defining the character and spatiality of the work.

The choreographic installation scheme II (2002) – integrates dance / performance with an interactive media-environment. scheme I1 is an ongoing research and development process, where the principal subject of experimentation is the interactive manipulation of video, live images, sound and 3D environments, by dance/performance. The two performer control and generate this environment, their movement is translated via sensors into MIDI data. These sensors are mounted on their arms, legs and on the head. Two prototypes of a wireless sensor box, three video cameras, five computer and two moving projectors are forming with the performance an expressive system. A matrix – developped in MAX/MSP, enables multiple control parameter mapping and is managing the data flow.

With this project, kondition pluriel has generated an interdisciplinary creation where the use of new technologies – in coexistence with the living body – leads to question the traditional codes of representation, to modify the very nature of spectacle and to put forward a reflection on the phenomenon of perception. scheme II, provides a time and space situation, where the performer/visitor and the media interact between each other, forming an intelligent space. The relationship to time, memory and space immediately stands out as thematic of this singular practice, geared toward the transformation of the real.

  1. Concept / direction: Martin Kusch & Marie-Claude Poulin
  2. Choreography / performance: Line Nault & Marie-Claude Poulin
  3. Media environment / installation: Martin Kusch
  4. Sound installation: Alexandre St-Onge & Alexandre Burton
  5. Software development: Alexandre Burton
  6. Light Design: Patrice Besombes
  7. Technical assistance: Mathieu St-Arnaud
  • Marie-Claude Poulin has developed an approach to the body founded on her practice in contemporary dance; her study and teaching of somatic-education techniques; and on her graduate-level studies in kinanthropology, where she analysed movement with respect to the nervous system.
  • Martin Kusch has been working in media arts for the last 14 years. Since 1997, he has also been teaching in the dept. for Visual Media at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Martin Kuxh’s artistic practice is based on the creation of interactive installations and environments, and on architecture and site specificity, in terms of content and spatiality.