NOTE
Steve Paxton's installation exhibited this time is of great value in the context that it embodies a physical idea - philosophy of the body that Paxton has been pursuing. Generally, dance is realized when it is presented as a physical object, and the stage director sees it as the subject of choreography and control while the audience look on it as the visible thing they appreciate. It is "the body seen" by others correlatively composed in the stage space that forms the basis and history of dance. Paxton, however, creates a new phase of dance by deconstructing such a formation structure of dance. To Paxton, the body is not a thing to control, but a phenomenal world to make discoveries. He stares in wonder how his physical sensations and actions are connected and reactions are experienced. Only through this filter of relativity, various conditions such as the aspects of the outside world and gravity are revealed physically.

In Paxton's epoch-making presentation, space and time are not chosen according to the existing system of theaters and art museums as space for expression. He insists on discovering space and time as an extension of his body's discovered logic and interface, and through Contact Improvisation, the physical plurality is further expanded as the self body becomes pluralized and exchangeable. It may safely be said that these discoveries and practices are exactly the results of uniqueness of Paxton's experience of viewing steadily and thoroughly American postmodern dance and Oriental body techniques. This media installation, through a new method of expression by synchronizing five big scale screens, provides viewers with an opportunity to ascertain the methodology and idea of "Material for the Spine" of the past twenty years in a more concrete and substantial manner.

A minor project exhibition titled "Body as Interimage" goes side by side with Paxton's "Phantom Exhibition." "Body + Media" is a contemporary vivid theme, and it has two aspects; "body-ing media" and "media-ing body." What is important is that the feedback between the two aspects accelerates the discovery of a new expression or approach. When images and the ways they exist or are latent are differentiated (in interimages) and appear as interfaces that reconstruct new relations between algorithm design and representation, a new self-organized space and time dimension, different from hitherto-believed perceptional senses and sensations, cognitive ability and editorial capability of consciousness, will emerge new physical senses. In this exhibition, an original dance video in which two groups of exciting next-generation artists, newClear + Alessio Silvestrin and Shinichi Takashima, as well as internationally esteemed Saburo Teshigawara make the most use of a high-speed camera, is open to the public. (work-in-residence, YCAM, 2007)

The time when Paxton originated postmodern dance form was when Chance Operation and Intermedia movements were coming to the fore as social practices destroying the barriers of the existing system. Today, inheriting our pioneers' spirit and regression, we are living in the system of information media society while uncertain about its future.
I believe that the physical substance in considering the "body" in post-postmodern paradigm, made relative through the platform of ever-updating media, suggests the area where the most attractive and risky adventure is possible and expression could reach its peak level.


K.ABE / YCAM