Hi Soo, Kiani, Josée-Anne,
What do you think of this as the beginning: The idea would be that Touch2 picks up where Touch1 ends, in an indirect way, In fact we could project the Desh’s video onto the Atrium wall right up to the point where we see Kiani’ facing the camera, fading.
What if the way we open Touch2 is to have Soo, the one who emerges from the womb (in Touch1) emerge from the Atrium wall in the following way. I imagined that the emergent dancer (Soo) would, initially be covered in a very large film of tissue paper wheatpasted to the wall, so that her body is behind of a continuous sheet of very thin translucent fibrous material following the contours of her body and blending into the rest of the wall. (Josee-Anne, Harry gave precise ideas of how to make this. He and I think it is eminently buildable. We will always make it breathable, and as comfy as possible! Of course we have to see what Soo and Kiani think 
Soo’s initial pose could be a frozen moment of a movement of escape, emergence. Kiani initially would be offstage (ready to enter from the blackbox gallery). Desh’s video could be projected over Soo’s body-as-part-of-wall-as-screen.
At a given moment, (say the end of the video), Soo would emerge out of the tissue paper wall, bursting through the layers of tissue paper,
(EXFOLIATION is one of the themes of Remedios.)
The sound could be quite strong bc paper is stiff. I imagined with Harry that we could prepare this as a “costume” in the form of a sandwich of a cardboard back and tissue paper at least 8′ x 8′…. It is important not to read as clothing, but as “wall”. The edges of this would have to be dressed to make flush with the actual wall.
Obviously we would pre-assemble of sandwich, complete with pre-drilled holes in the wall for attachment of the sandwich to the wall, and store the assembly somewhere in the Gallery together fast-drying plaster-water mix ready for rapid assembly minimum time before showtime. That time is the time of comfortable wear for the Dancer, of course. We must figure out a way to rapidly assembly, and dress the set+costume, before — but not much before — the vernissage starts.
After this event, we could paint over the eruption “scar” so that it simultaneously remains as evidence of the event, and can hold projected image, so subsequent Jitter imagery would pick up the traces of the physical peeling layers of the exfoliation. (Thanks to Harry.)
Cheers,
Xin Wei
On 19-Feb-08, at 3:43 AM, Josée-Anne wrote:
I saw Kiani on Sunday and we talked about it. That’s cool! She’s interested.
I need to check with the Gallery director tomorrow and see if we can cut into on of the Gallery’s walls.
JS, we would probably want to to project Desh’s film first and at the end (shortly before the dancers emerge from the wall) move-on to the one of the patches that you have been using to do it. Would that be something possible?
XW I’m back at the drawing board on this. Now trying to put together the paper and what I showed you before… did you have sketches for this as well? Or an event design.
Talk with Harry re specific construction ideas, and bring back notes. Then we can enroll production help. I would say Marine Antony.
I’m also wondering, Soo, if you think the movement should be centered on/close-to the floor or not. (Vertical crack - like the Remedios paintings or Horizontal-on the floor to accommodate Touch-like movements…)
Whatever the movement — Touch, as Soo and Kiani know, is concerned with the ethical medium in-between bodies.
See the forwarded email re Aristophanes below.
Touch2 indirectly (NOT literally) follows after the emergence event in Touch1.
Could we schedule a meeting towards the end of the week, as things get better defined.
Thanks.
Bye.
On Feb 19, 2008 3:00 AM, SOO <chohansoo@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Jo,
Yeah!
I asked Kiani and she would be available as well for the event. If you want, we can set a schedule to talk about it more specific.
Soo
On Feb 17, 2008 9:36 PM, Josée-Anne <joseeanne@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I’d like to work with the Touch team (and possibly JS) on costumes and a temporary installation for the video-movement performance event Touch2. If there is time/interest.
I thought that Touch2 was part of the vernissage event? any updates regarding this? What do people think, together, separate, beginning, middle, end…
On the calendar we have the opening on Monday the 17th. What about the other event(s)?
Reminder: 3 Weeks before setup, 4 Weeks before opening.
On Feb 16, 2008 10:30 AM, x w <shaxinwei@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
Among those of you who are not already committed to one of the
productions, would one of you be able to take charge of managing the
events: the vernissage, the possible performances (Touch2 and Sebald3) ?
Xin Wei
Begin forwarded message:
From: x w <shaxinwei@gmail.com>
Date: January 27, 2008 1:07:05 PM EST (CA)
To: sutton Timothy <tim@synthist.net>, Jean-Sébastien Rousseau <jsrousseau@gmail.com>, Morgan Sutherland <morgan@morgansutherland.net>, Ludwig Manahan <vjmoots@gmail.com>, Soo-yeon Cho <chohansoo@gmail.com>, Marine Antony <marine.antony@gmail.com>, desh Fernando <nacando@gmail.com>
Subject: Aristophanes on love; and going beyond Aristophanes
Hi Touch Folks,
People have made excellent work preparing for the shoot. So we’re almost there. This is a good moment to take stock of where we are in spirit….
In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes presented a history of sexed love, based on Zeus splitting the atom of round, primeval man. In the beginning, man-woman were powerful, spherical creatures, with four legs and four arms. But for their arrogance, Zeus split them into halves that Apollo healed and shaped into the sexed bodies we have today. Doomed to seek our other halves.
I’m augmenting this myth by de-emphasizing the human organisms and foregrounding the medium of tissue and the liquid plenum of the world. So the effects we’ll see from the live video process will make palpable the
0. the single composite body (only light, some moments of delay)
1, the bodies internal forces (textures — only within the bodies)
2. the forces between the bodies (with bodies in black silhouette)
3. the forces suffusing everything - the bodies as well as the space exterior to the bodies.
How the visual dynamics work is up to JS. The staging of the different swirling video textures as the event unfolds step by step, should suggest that:
1. ethical relations are mediated by tissue (substance, not formal grammar of a moving part of body);
2. the very fabric of space itself is a medium (not just body tissue).
So the “womb” is merely a context for a dramatic event of “birth” but we don’t have to over emphasize the womb (too clichéd, and too over-coded with expectations). But the birth event itself is the moment at which the sound connotes to much huger space, and more clarified voices — as Tim has been suggesting — and when the video textures display the delayed forces / tensions built up from the earlier activity between the two separated halves — Soo and Kiani.
Compliments to all of you,
Xin Wei
514-817-3505
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