KICK OR MUSIC ?

9 March 96

Saturday's event at Electra was a bizzare phenomena, or?

A dash of contemporary dance, two Macs projected on a large screen via video projectors, a female Mouse Controller, two men with itchy instrument fingers and a heaped tablespoon of computer knowledge. Mix well - and keep mixing for a while. Zap - what have you got? M@ggie's Love Bytes! Woops, I forgot - one kilo (or was it mega) of internet, three persona scattered neatly around mother earth, each with their own little camera and a pixelated (self) picture.

Confused?

Yes, so was I; who did what and not in the least how. So: A performance of the 90's. Text, or lyrics, about drilling a hole in one's own head in best Laurie Anderson style. Performed with a good New York measure of M@ggie (?) Stylistically pure, but possibly a little old-fashioned in content.

Music: A techno-like soundscape is created. The screen projects two mac desktops. Things happen. Connections are made to persona and groups on the net, greetings are written in digitalis; english with a large portion of writing errors (globish), but it is obvious that everyone understands each other anyway. Pictures of men, in what can only be described as stone-age quality resolution, are moved around in a random pattern. The screen pictures are tidied up. A live projection of a dancing female is shown on one part of the screen, while on the other, we are served a late-zen variety of two other participants.

Every now and again, one of the male musicians steps out of the digital twilight and plays a robust, good old-fashioned instrument such as a guitar or an indian pump organ (a la Nico). These musical inputs are not solos in the traditional sense of rock (and thank goodness for that!)

One dancer, several dancers enter, each with their own plunger. They relate closely to the musical expression; the platform of sound which the technology presents (it is difficult to choose between the expression "comp" or "soundscape" in this setup). A straight performance, but with a prescribed dose of human intervention striking direcly into the heart of the 90's. A few more people than Laurie Anderson, more modern than the Fugs.

The distant participants from Yokohama, USA and England watch the dance performance and contribute with comments. CU-Seeme has become a phenomenon for humane contact on the net. It is used here as scenery, as an audience expander, and as participant and producer in a somewhat watered-down version of the traditional subject-object relationship. Sex role perspectives enter and are twisted as the masculine gaze becomes reversed, and sent out on the net in a multi-media show from several global locations.

The techno-based soundscape and the pixelated pictures give the whole seanse a primal feeling. Repetative patterns invoke stone-age impressions. Here, we are very much at the genesis of the development from the digital pre-historic twilight, moving steadily into the collective drama of the twentyfirst century.

by Eirik Befring
freelance journalist, Origo

(translated from norwegian)