Fascination With Technology and Science
McGregor started playing with computers when he was seven and it was natural for him to incorporate the cyber world into his own choreography. Collaborating with state-of-the-art designers, he experimented with projecting computer generated images onto the stage. In Sulphur 16 (1998) his dancers were dwarfed by the presence of a shimmering virtual giant and danced with a company of digital figures who wove and shimmered among them. In Aeon (2000) digitally created landscapes transported the dancers to what seemed like other dimensions and other worlds.
On specific occasions McGregor has used technology to alter the conditions under which his work is viewed. 53 Bytes (1997) was created for simultaneous performance by two sets of dancers in Berlin and Canada and it was watched by audiences in both countries by live satellite link. In 2000 McGregor aimed for a wider global public by transmitting a live performance of his Trilogy Installation over the internet.
Wayne McGregor Random Dance has been the vehicle for McGregor’s ongoing fascination with the mechanisms of the human body. In Amu (2005) he explored the functions and the symbolism of the heart, in Ataxia (2004) the connection between brain and body movement and in Entity (2008) the links between artificial intelligence and choreography.
During Entity rehearsals, he and the dancers worked alongside six international cognitive scientists and technologists from esteemed institutes including University College London, University of Cambridge, University of California, San Diego and Imperial College London. In January 2009 they traveled to University of California, San Diego and created a new piece of work under ‘lab’ conditions, Dyad 1909; fueling the search for new creative decisions on the part of McGregor and new findings in the brain/body relationship for the scientists.
Read more about this topic: Wayne Mc Gregor
Famous quotes containing the words fascination, technology and/or science:
“Women are most fascinating between the ages of thirty-five and forty, after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves. Since few women ever pass forty, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.”
—Christian Dior (1905–1957)
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)