Real-time composition
In this work, we set up a space for improvisation that is focused on composition. Each participant is making choices based on what the space needs, while keeping an awareness of the outside picture. There is always a space to exit the playing space, to reexamine and make a new choice to enter again.
As a large group, it’s great to assign rolls before beginning and give time to develop ideas.
A few possible parameters:
Roles: players, light, video, sound, visual design
Players: inhabit the space, movement, text
Lighting: units and range of sources
Video: pre-loaded images, real-time camera and projection
Sound: acoustic, electronic, vocal
Visual design: set, props, spatial dimensions
- Make a choice
- Commit to it and go
- Leave when you are done
- Repeat
As a large group, it’s great to assign rolls before beginning and give time to develop ideas.
A few possible parameters:
- Choose a theme
- Break into groups (players, designers, sound, lighting)
- Go away to build ideas
- Come together and improvise
- Call out: pause, reverse, solo, duet, trio, clear the space, etc.
Roles: players, light, video, sound, visual design
Players: inhabit the space, movement, text
- Off space: make a choice and re-enter
- Question: what does the space need?
- Choices: Go with the simple—not always first idea—when out of an idea... leave.
Lighting: units and range of sources
- Make choices about what sources to include
- Move within and outside the working space
- Bring focus/open to change
Video: pre-loaded images, real-time camera and projection
- make choices about images/ light/spatial arrangement
- move within and outside the working space
- bring focus – make change- open to change
Sound: acoustic, electronic, vocal
- Make choices about instrumentation
- Move within and outside the working space
- Bring focus, make change, open to change
Visual design: set, props, spatial dimensions
- Make choices about how the space will be arranged: props, parameters
- Move within and outside the working space
- Bring focus, make change, open to change
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
