M@ggie's Love Bytes info

M@ggie's Love Bytes is a dance theatre performance ocurring in real and virtual (net) space. Participants - M@ggie and her lovers - interact through sound, text, and realtime video conferencing via the Internet. Love Bytes are given to M@ggie in the form of digital signals. The hardcore performance group consists of a choreographer, two musicians and three dancers.

This is a post-modem project, using the Internet as a platform for interaction. The restrictions of the chosen technology are used as an expression of Now! This project focuses on connection and disconnection, appearance, disappeareance and reappearance. Fluctuations in transmission and reception rates between the geographically separated participants are embedded in the expression of the performance, and define the dramatical development of the piece.

M@ggie is represented physically by three dancers, each dressed in bra and pants and equipped with a plunger. M@ggie relates strongly to the soundscape. M@ggie's lovers enter the performance from such diverse locations as Cologne, Yokohama, London, San Francisco and Copenhagen. While some remote participants are regularly active as collaborators (musicians and dancers who are involved in rehearsals), others enter the project for the first time during performance.
You'll find a downloadable RealVideo (494k) introduction to M@ggie HERE which'll give you more of an idea about who she is :)

Each participant is free to choose their own form of interaction. Each remote participant experiences their own unique performance on their computer desktops and in their local spaces - some choose informal party settings, others create their own scenic settings inviting their own audiences. In addition to the live interactioin described above, audio and visual gifts from visitors deposited in M@ggie's Giftbox, are integrated into the performance. By using several interwoven physical and virtual platforms for interaction, a multitude of simultaneous telephonic spaces occurs between the diverse physical locations.

Here is a review from the show @ Electra, march '96.

HOW

The Internet-based sound project Nood and the choreographer direct the performance in realtime from three home computers. The desktops of two computers are projected onto a large wall. The ongoing work process of running the performance is visible at all times during the performance.

CU-SeeMe and Ivisit video-conferencing is utilised for transmission and reception of video image and text. Several connectix cameras enable the dancers to move simultaneously in/through real and virtual space, while remote participants' images and texts also enter the local performance space. The projections are used by the dancers as a source of movement interaction. They also function as an audience-expander and a living scenography.

The two musicians create the soundscape for the performance in collaboration with the digitally connected guests. As sounds enter and mix with brickspace they are simultaneously transmitted in telephonic space. FTP, Real Audio, Email, mobile phone and telephone are also used. In addition to the text exchange possibilities of CU-SeeMe, the performers enter IRC channels where text takes on an audio guise in speechmanager.

All necessary applications are freeware, and can be found in M@ggie's Toolbox.

Here is a detailed technical setup

3 November 95: M@ggie joins Nood at the VOID FESTIVAL at Moonfish, Oslo.
7 February 96: M@ggie joins Nood at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne. With contributions from San Francisco, London, Yokohama & Oslo.
8-9 March 96: M@ggie's Love Bytes at Electra, Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Norway. With additional performers Kate Pendry and Jessica Reese Dessner.
15 June 96: Connecting Bodies Symposium, Amsterdam. Amanda Steggell and Per Platou present the M@ggie's Love Bytes project as a lecture demonstration.
22-23 August 96: M@ggie joins Nood at the Oslo Rock Festival.
20-30 August 96: Open House Rehearsals at M@ggie's House, Oslo.
2 December 96: Filming of M@ggie's Love Bytes for Norwegian national telly. Broadcast in february, 97. Here's a rather long transcript from the cu-seeme talk window.
10-11 October 97: Amanda Steggell and Per Platou took part in the seminar section of Screens in Trondheim, Norway, with a presentation of M@ggie's activities.
22-23 January 99: M@GGIES LOVE BYTES experienced a welcomed revival opening a new theatre at ARC, Stockton-on-Tees, in north England. We had a great time, with oldhanders and newcomers joining the show. We used Ivisit as well as Cu-SeeMe as an additional video tele-conferncing platform.

The telecommunications of cyberspace offer the contemporary artist the means of interaction (both his own and that of the viewing subject) with dynamic systems, with creativity-in-process, with the emergent properties of an art of transformation, growth and change. Cyberspace is the space of apparition, in which the virtual and real not only co-exist, but co-evolve in a cultural complexity.

("Appearance to Apparition: Communications and Consciousness in the Cybersphere" by Roy Ascott.)

M@ggie's Love Bytes has developed through the group's engagement in net life, and tries to cater for a great amount, and diversity of traffic/inter-activity during the performance. The ongoing process of running the show is embedded in the expression of the piece (words such as open, close, fetch, connect, disconnect, and icons such as the running dog in FTP, and the open and closed eye in CU-SeeMe, appear on the wall, adding an extra dimension to whatever may be happening just then). All these features form an integral part of net life as we know it. And this is the point: M@ggie's Love Bytes is in fact a regular dance theatre performance of the 90's which dares to reflect upon, and perform through our digitally-connected lives as they happen - now! However, what makes this project unique is the (re-claimed) power of the moving, gesturing human body in cyberspace, embodied in the dancers.

The figure of M@ggie forms a focus point for audiences and participants alike, elevating (?) real life into the realms of performance art (in the same way that taking on a personae in a MUD or MOO may do - this is a debatable issue). M@ggie has evolved through the choreographer's explorations into three main themes:

Body facing technology
Space - what (the hell) is it anyway?
Female identity struggling through the close of the twentieth century towards the twentyfirst.

The performance is carefully planned to take on the unpredictability of cyberspace; improvisation is of essence! Computers inevitably crash, connections break. The restrictions and malfunctions of the technology are used creatively. For example, the timelagged, freezing and pixilating moving images in CU-SeeMe are juxtaposed with the fluidity of similar movements in brickspace. Time stands still, time moves on, time and place are out of sync.

M@ggie's Love Bytes attempts to create an engaging experience for local and remote audiences and participants, and is bold enough to claim that lowbudge technology currently offers the greatest number of people the greatest possibility of experience, interaction and creativity.

WHO

M@ggie's Love Bytes is created by the performance group, Motherboard, co-directed by Amanda Steggell and Per Platou.

Amanda Steggell, choreographer
Studied dance at London College of Dance and Drama, and choreography at Statens Balletthøgskole (Oslo). Dance and drama instructor since 1986, and working primarily as choreographer/project leader since 1994. Her first full length work entitled "Arena2" was shown in May 1995 at Black Box Theatre, Oslo. Member of Res Rocket Surfer.

Per Platou, nood musician/technichal producer
Studied media theory, criminology, film dramatization and history of ideas at University of Oslo. Editor-in-chief Radio Nova, Oslo from 87-89. Founded DBUT in 1989; an alternative distribution network, record label and production company. Member of Res Rocket Surfer, MACOS and EFF.

Siri Jøntvedt, dancer
Freelance dancer (focusing on improvisation techniques) and instructor. Studied dance at Statens Balletthøgskole, with further studies in New York, where she also worked for Francis Becker. Founding member of "Studio B", Oslo's centre for New Dance.

Snelle Hall, dancer
Freelance dancer. Studied dance at Statens Balletthøgskole (Oslo), with further dance studies in New York. Founding memeber of "Studio B", Oslo's centre for New Dance.

Kristine Øren, dancer
Freelance dancer. Studied dance at Statens Balletthøgskole.
In 1993 she represented Norway in the Eurovision Competion for Young Dancers. Also working as dancer and choreographer in Vampire State Building

Ulf Knudsen, nood musician/net dweller
Played in several cult bands in Norway from '77 onwards. Among them "Kaare & Partiet", "Spacelings" and "Sister Rain". Studied criminology at University of Oslo. Currently working as freelance musician for theatre productions. Innercore member of Res Rocket Surfer and MACOS.

Alijah's daddy, honorary member
Guitar hero from San Francisco. Extremely innercore member of Nood and Res Rocket Surfer.

Collaborators homepages
Res Rocket Surfer
Shoe Vegas
Viking
Troika Ranch
Momentary Fusion

NOW!

We do not know what the future holds in store for M@ggie.

Since M@ggie came into being in 1995, she has developed in mysterious ways, and influenced the paths of her participators. Motherboard have been producing performances, installations, concerts and club nights, which relate to digital technology, social interaction and pop culture.

Visit the Motherboard Head Quarters to find out more.

For instance, M@ggie enthusiasts may like to know that she joined Islamicity.com in our project called the Digital Mosque, and became "Trans-m@ggie" in our latest theatre performance, Switch Bitch -search for the cyberfemme!

For those of who like to seep themselves in nostalgia, you may like to visit M@ggie's House, where you will find archives of the very first and the very latest impressions of M@ggie.

If you have been unable to join us for earlier events, do not despair. Feel free to contribute to the M@ggie's Love Bytes project by dropping a gift in M@ggie's Giftbox, simply by attaching a sound, picture, poem or video of your choice/making to the email address below.

Web design by Amanda Steggell and Per Platou Last updated 2/1/99

Web design by Amanda Steggell and Per Platou
Last updated 2/1/99