Liminal Performance Space
Kusanagi Sisters and Fernanda D’Agostino
Liminal Performance Space is an arena for remote performance creation and exhibition created by video installation artist and creative coder Fernanda D’Agostino, using the coding platform Isadora. Fernanda was a Beta tester for new units of code developed by Mark Coniglio at Troikatronix in Berlin, that permit Isadora users to input live video from SKYPE or other NDI based online meeting platforms. Live video feeds via SKYPE allow collaborators prevented from meeting IRL to come together to create new work that pushes the boundaries of what remote spaces can be. In some cases my collaborators and I have been separated by oceans and days of the week. The intention is to use the restrictions of quarantine to open up and explore new ways of working together that cross boundaries of time, space and cultures. My work pre-Covid was in interactive sound and video installation. My history is as a performance artist and from that history springs my interest in creating spaces that viewers can interact with both digitally and by touch, movement, meals within the space etc. I’m also a frequent collaborator with dancers and other performance artists. I see the Liminal Performance Space as yet another interactive performance installation space in the series I’ve been creating for many years. There are fourteen distinct “rooms” within the space all with different coded effects and potential interactions. Most are activated by the movements of digital visitors to the space. Some are sound activated. Some allow visitors to manipulate sound or streams of particles by gesture. The showcase I have submitted is one of three experimental collaborations to date. Aside from The Kusanagi Sisters, (Tokyo) I’ve collaborated with Yunuen Rhi (Los Angeles and Mexico City) and the In/Body collective, (Portland, Oregon.) Interesting to me is how experienced performance artists will explore the properties of the different “rooms” and quickly discover creative acts the code permits that I did not fully anticipate.All the scenes in the Kusanagi Sister Showcase were created within one hour long session. The only post production was for me to cut our conversation between exploring each “room” and fine tune where the sound cuts in and out. All the effects you see in these clips happen in real time in response to the performers. Most of those performers quickly fall into a state of reverie and when working in duets into a heightened sense of awareness of “the other,” of scale, and of the potential within each “room’s” transformational properties. I’m currently working on a fourth collaboration, with artist/critic Pat Badani, where the role of both written and spoken language will be more central. That is an area of coding I am just now exploring and I’m sure I will be stretched by our work together. Keep an eye out for that work in the future as we plan to submit that as a distinct project.