LANDING SITES - a further-field pursuit of new tools for choreography

Abstract

This document reports on the artistic research project ‘Landing sites’ led by Amanda Steggell, professor within the field of choreography, Academy of Dance, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, in co-operation with students in the first year of the Masters’ course in choreography, Katherine Fallmyr, Heidi Jessen and Solveig Styve Holte, and Tormod Carlsen, a second year Master student in stage design, Academy of Theatre. Landing sites took place from 20-28 October 2012 at Reversible Destiny Lofts MITAKA, a surburb of Tokyo. It was made possible through an artistic research grant from Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and in cooperation with Momoyo Homa, Director of the Architectural Body Research Foundation and curator of Reversible Destiny Lofts MITAKA. Other invaluable contributors are Fujii Noakota MD., Ph.D., leader of Adaptive Intelligence Laboratory, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, artist Miuki Kawamura and linguist Ryoko Uno, Associate professor, Tokyo University. The project is also indebted to artist/complex systems scientist Professor Takashi Ikegami. He introduced me to the work of Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins while I was a researching artist at his Artificial life laboratory, Tokyo University. The title of the project ‘Landing sites’ is on loan from Architectural Body (2002), a written work by Arakawa and Gins. Reversible Destiny Lofts is an iteration of this book in the form of a very unusual apartment building, constructed through prescribed techniques called ‘Procedural architecture’. We traveled to these lofts in pursuit of new tools for choreography.