GENRE & TECHNIQUE
TELEBODY is conceptualized as a performance rather than an installation; there are aspects of an installation in TELEBODY but only in that the performers (not the audience) can interact in real-time with the audio-visual environment. In TELEBODY the performers have control over both sound and image in real-time. Whenever they strike a key on the keyboard or hit a note on the guitar, something happens in the visual realm as well as the auditory realm. In a second level of synchronicity, robot-controlled lights also respond to information from the musical instruments, cueing new scenes and altering the appearance of the lights. The performers are also tracked using the Martin Lighting Director allowing the robot lights to follow them as they play.
IMAGE, SOUND & NARRATIVE
The images in TELEBODY are limited to those of the human body - one male, one female - naked, and in rather classic poses (Christ, DaVinci, etc.). The performers control one body or body part at a time, and may apply effects in real-time. Bodies are manipulated in both grotesque and beautiful ways, creating a strange synchronous dance of sound and image.
The sound sources are generally associated with a classic audio definition of "human" - male and female solo voices, boys choir, etc. These sounds are presented in both original "natural" form and in manipulated "digital" form.To emphasize the manipulation of the human body, we have also very carefully sifted through hours of sci-fi films and snatched a number of samples relating to the body and it's perfectability through cybernetics. Sound "objects" (rather like "patch leitmotifs") recur throughout the piece and are presented unfailingly with their image object counterpoints (e.g. female voice sound = female body twirl animation). These object groupings provide "narrative" continuity as they unfold during the course of the piece.