Freya Björg Olafson: CPA [Consistent Partial Attention]

 
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Artist Statement:


    This video returns the 60-minute stage work CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] to the internet, in a condensed version broadcast from Olafson’s studio in Winnipeg over Skype. CPA is an exercise in ‘nowness’; the performer engages in the act of real-time translation of data/movement vocabulary from a video score of dances that were found on YouTube. In CPA, we experience dance as a vernacular, learned language, permeating, and crossing communities, provoking consideration upon the evolution of dance in the age of the internet. Societal engagement with everyday media remains a cornerstone of my work investigating contemporary culture and the body as inextricably linked with technology. The integration of technology in live performance is an ongoing dynamic negotiation, which continues to inform the thematic content of my work. Using the fluctuations and oscillations apparent in computer/body interfaces; Olafson’s work permits a ‘cyborg’ viewing – a hybrid and highly unstable presentation of body-as-dis / place(ed) which, in its unpredictability, activates various possibilities for viewing. Developed through digital collage, the CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] performance is guided by a video score of pre-existing / found Internet footage of individuals improvising in their homes. As performers, we sight-read the choreographic video score off diverse screens: laptop, external monitors, video projector and heads-up displays. Through the rich confluence of sources, we experience dance as a vernacular, learned language, permeating and crossing communities, provoking consideration upon the evolution of dance in the age of the Internet. Curious about returning these dances originally found on the web back to the internet as a site for performance, this video is the result of research created in 2017. CPA was presented by the Cluster Festival of New Music & Integrated Arts in Winnipeg in March 2017, OFFTA in Montreal in June 2017 and  represented Canada at Les Jeux De La Francophonie in Ivory Coast, Africa in July 2017.

Video:

 

Freya Olafson – CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] (excerpts) from ACM SIGGRAPH on Vimeo.