Superstrings


'Marina Koraiman Marina Koraiman

Superstrings s a dance piece for two dancers, and features audio and computer- generated images. Its subject is the invisible. Dance and movement are visible only by means of the body that is limited in its possibilities of motion and that body’s positions in space.

This space changes; moreover, it is not empty, but rather a sea full of air, a material that can be perceived and shaped by the senses. One cannot see a point in space but one can feel it. Points in space are not all the same. They convey different qualities depending on our feelings: warmth, color, size, weight, and consistency. Naturally, no point really exists as such. Physical existence manifests itself in the material—in things and not in points. If they can be said to be anywhere at all, then these points exist in the mind far removed from space, or in relative proximity to our feelings.

Superstrings has to do with the capability and the strivings of the human mind to make its existence and its world describable or explicable with the help of logical instruments. The piece attempts to prove the invisible mathematically and, by means of complicated machines, to lure it out into the visible world, in that it seeks ever more minute building blocks of material. Superstrings is also about the attempt by means of the logical explanation of the invisible to grasp the omnipresent unconscious that even lies beyond so-called irrationality. The results of these experimental arrays are fit to be considered as deceptions of the very easily deceived human senses, as wishful thinking by the human mind. After all, the mind is also in the position to think beyond those boundaries that it has drawn for itself by means of rationality, logic and, ultimately, irrationality.
The superstring theory is the brilliant attempt to establish a link between the two great thought experiments of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity: tiny threads vibrating between different spatial topologies connecting as if by means of a trick quantum and relativity theory. These thought experiments are thought machines to evoke the invisible—or, better said, the unthinkable. Rituals to attain new states of consciousness or knowledge. Ultimately, art in its original sense is precisely this ritual. Sounds, movement, light, images, etc. are components of this ritual.

The dance piece Superstrings is symptomatic of the festival motto. It had to be worked out quickly in spring 2001 as a low budget production since the elements that go into a production—space, technology and time—were available only at a specific point in time. The artistic and occupational work of the members of the cast and crew place them in a permanent creative production process. Their work is decentralized. Prior to production, video and sound were only sketched out using the crew’s personal equipment in order to keep things constantly flexible and make elements easy to modify and switch. Quick reactions on the part of the dancers to new challenges and to the continually changing demands of the venue space are a fundamental principle.

The aim can never be the creation of an enduring Gesamtkunstwerk, but rather the acquisition of new capabilities and insights for one’s ongoing encounters with corporality, perception and technology as a dancer, performance artist, audio and video technician. No financing was available either for the technology or for the performance space with which to present interim results etc. Thus, there was a collision of elements that had been worked out in the dress rehearsal with those of the performance immediately thereafter presented in their respective venues. The results achieved are only conditionally reproducible; they are the products of specific circumstances and constellations of the prefabricated components. The latter, depending upon their suitability, were kept in use, modified or eliminated. A new and different variant of the dance piece Superstrings will be presented in conjunction with Ars Electronica—a new space, new technical possibilities, new limitations, the usual short set-up time, new adventures for the cast, crew and audience.

Credits
Artistic Director: Marina Koraiman
Choreography and Dance: Monika Huemer, Marina Koraiman
Graphic Animation and Projection: Dietmar Bruckmayr
Music: Alex Jöchtl
Lighting: Rainer Kocher