Remnants: Choreography in A.R. (PT 1)

BODYART is currently developing Remnants, a digital experience that uses A.R. (augmented reality)

In the early days of the pandemic, BODYART began researching virtual and augmented reality programs. As our connection to one another moved beyond the physical and into the digital, we found ourselves itching to explore how art could respond. What came about was the beginning of a new phase for BODYART, one that challenges our current definitions of storytelling and audience.

BODYART is currently developing Remnants, a digital experience that uses an AR (augmented reality) app for storytelling to reframe the user’s home as a site for interrogating our relationship to ephemerality and preservation, accumulation, and loss, and our beautiful but futile battle with time. Remnants deploys the technology available through smartphones to turn the user’s living space into a virtual world filled with images, sounds, and text that reexamine how we experience time.

On February 1st, 2021 Managing Director, Megan Lewicki, and Artistic Director of BODYART, Leslie Scott, recorded a conversation over Zoom about this next phase in BODYART’s trajectory, the future of performance, and the impact of COVID-19 on our relationship to time.

Below is Part 1 of that discussion.

Megan Okay, first and foremost, in your words, what is Remnants?

Leslie Remnants is an AR "experience." Let's not use the word game just yet, although it will feel a little bit like a game. Remnants is about experiencing your home with augmented reality. I'm excited to be partnering with longtime BODYART collaborator Jesse Garrison from Night Light Labs and new collaborator Ann Glaviano. Jesse and Night Light Labs specialize in digital media and technology-driven storytelling. And Ann is our writer, helping us develop and shape the story behind Remnants. 

And we're playing with what happens when time goes haywire in your space. Remnants will reveal times of the past and times for the future. But it will also kind of allow you to appreciate more fully the things that are already in your space. One of our hopes, when you leave, is that you can both appreciate ephemerality or things that are impermanent and also just look at your four walls in a different way.

We are looking at things in our life that we use to stop time. So, for example, a fridge is meant to stop time, your eye cream is meant to stop time. We spend a lot of time on our own combating the inevitable--the fact that time is moving forward. We build things to try to control time, which, you know, inevitably we can't. Think about photographs, Tupperware containers, and all the ways in which we feel like somehow, we can win, or we can stop time from marching on.

But this [Remnants] is the beginning of a much larger project, this is really just the first chapter in what will hopefully be a full novel. But right now, we see the Remnants AR experience as a simple loop that starts at the user’s front door, moves them through two or three spaces in their home, and maybe the climax is in their closet. And from there on out time feels different. It's nonlinear. But there is still a motor, we're still asking people to move forward in space. It's a first-person point of view. And the goal of the user is to ask questions and discover the story in their own personal spaces.

Megan What is the motivation behind creating this work?

Leslie This was definitely born out of COVID. This was born out of a deep desire to want to make work in a time that felt impossible to make work. I think at certain times of our life, and this was particularly true for 2020, time can move really slowly for some people and really quickly for others. And I think just the "now-ness" of this project is acknowledging how much we've changed our relationship to time. You know, I was so like, go-go-go all the time. And I do have a little bit of a different appreciation for what it means to be in these walls and feel like time is moving differently. And I also wanted to make--I think zoom is really powerful and I don't want to disparage people who are doing zoom plays, but--

Megan I do.

Leslie (Laughs) I guess, and this is not a fair analogy, but I'd say proscenium theater is to Zoom, as site-specific work is to AR.  That's how I'm kind of thinking of it.

Megan It feels like AR technology is able to have a conversation in the digital space within the physical space, which really does feel like the next step in BODYART work, which has so much to do with space as co-author.

Leslie Yeah. And I think a lot of people had very strong reactions to technology during COVID. But hate it or love it, look at all the doors it's opened. And of course, we all have moments where we oscillate back and forth. But I do think that there's an inherent limitation of the expectations for experiences that can actually happen in the digital space. And I think, in some ways, this project is the thesis statement for everything that we've been doing. It's about site-specific work, it's about your home, it's about decay, it's about visuals, it's about digital storytelling. So, in some ways, it feels like the logical next step in the work that we've been doing so far.

Even though it feels really scary because it does feel beyond my capacity. I'm learning a lot about the constraints of short formats and digital formats. And I'm not used to telling stories in such a short amount of time with this much agency. But in that way it reminds me of Maison, and the way that we started to think of stories with a lot of agency for the viewer. So, it feels like the desire for AR work has always been there. And this is really the first time I have access to technology that could help tell these types of stories, in the way that we'd like to. 

I'm still like calling myself Director/Choreographer, because I'm thinking about the choreography of the user. And it's not going to be "5-6-7-8" codified dance steps, but I'm interested in moving a person through their home in a way that they don't normally move. Maybe they're going be in the corner, maybe they're lying on the ground, maybe they're seeing the nook or cranny of their house that they haven't ever seen. I think having this kind of technology may help you be more intimate with your own physical spaces. And it poses such an interesting question to me. Because, even as I'm sitting here with you on Zoom, it feels like you and I are having an experience. But I'm not really participating in my environment. Now Remnants will not be viewable on a computer screen; the user must view Remnants on their smartphone, we are requesting mobility and movement from the user just through the choice of delivery method.

And then the other part of the motivation is just really truthfully, wanting to push myself in different storytelling platforms. I'm thinking about my students. Just getting them to look up from their phone feels kind of futile. And so, what if instead of me asking them to change, what if I change the way I'm working or participating in the digital space? And again, not because I want to stop doing live work, or I want to stop doing in-person work, but I do think it would be silly for us to not read the writing on the wall. It feels like these are all the things that we're interested in doing and exploring. Why not build a tiny world that you could experience from anywhere?

Megan Do you feel like your work is moving into a space that includes more choreography of the audience and less of the choreography of dancers?

Leslie I think I'm very interested in what moves people. What is the thing that, really, actually moves you? And I definitely enjoy moving trained physical bodies. But I also enjoy creating shared experiences for audiences, through movement. I don't know if my work is headed in that direction, but I'm definitely going to continue to explore both. Because I think access to theater spaces is limited, access to funding is limited. And also, I know that when I feel most included, it's when I get to participate. And as I think about what it means (to me) to include someone, it usually has an element of physicality. I think we get so much information these days. The amount of screen time and sensory information we get on a daily basis is profound. And rather than countering that and telling audiences to sit in a silent, quiet theater and watch this thing, I think artmakers can meet people where they are and say, put your body in space, any space. Let's start there, and let's have an experience that way.

Megan Yeah. That's interesting. What is it you hope audiences or users gain from Remnants?

Leslie For me, this project has been about both slowing down and gaining awareness of one’s relationship to time and space. We can't stop time even though we try. Life gets so busy and so stressful. I would love to have a five-minute jewel of a moment that's encapsulated in a personal experience of home. Something that makes you look at your home in a different way or just makes you take a deeper breath or just makes you consider the familiar differently. I would love that in the weeks that follow, you remember one moment from this experience. Or that you'll want to do it again! Maybe in a different space, and maybe you'll have a different experience, but that it really sits with you. Not in a prescriptive way, but as a thoughtful reflection. 

Remnants feels like the antidote to 2020 for me. It feels like the response to this push that I've felt all through 2020 and I hope it's useful for other people as well. I think it will be beautiful and I think it will be interesting, but I'm hoping that the heart of it will stay with people beyond it. But it's also meant to be short. It's a piece about time that's also not long. (Laughs)

Megan So, in a way, is this project about escapism then?

Leslie I don't know if that's true. I think because it's in your home and your home is one of the main characters, the idea is that you’re firmly in reality, but then we confront that. We ask you to alter your reality somewhat, with magical realism or even surrealism at times. But we want the user to be able to hold these two dissonant ideas, that you have no control over time and it keeps marching on, but also an appreciation for the beauty that comes from human powerlessness and the chaos of Time.

So, I don't know if that's escapism. I would like to think it's more revelatory than that. I think it's about wonder, intrigue, and appreciation for what's around you. Since the pandemic I've watched a lot of movies, a lot of theater on TV, had some good conversations with friends...but I don't remember the last time I really, truly said the word "wow," and meant it.  I am one person in this big world, and I'm learning to appreciate that. I think just understanding your place in this bigger space is useful, as well as knowing that everybody's having this one shared experience. Everybody's locked in their homes to some degree right now. Remnants feels less like escapism and more of a calling out for shared experiences. We're still kind of hammering, chiseling it out. I don't totally have the perfect answer for you just yet. (Laughs)

 Megan It sounds like...BODYART is giving this little gift. Like we are stuck in our homes and we are trying to make the best of it. And this project is just a way to feel a little less alone. This feels like a really good example of how art can lessen the burden sometimes.

Leslie Yeah. I think that's right. I also think there will be a moral of the story, I don't exactly know what that looks like yet. But it's meant to dive into brevity, to feel like a deep breath. I want users to be like, "Wow, this was really interesting. And it made my day."  And depending on how this goes -- I mean, this first iteration is really meant to be the introduction chapter--depending on how this goes, I could see us moving into environmentalism. I could see us going in a lot of different directions. But for now, this is meant to be the first tiniest little nugget within a bigger story. Megan, you have not blinked. (Laughs)

Megan I have! (Laughs. More laughter) I'm taking it in!

Leslie (Laughs) This is what I saw. (Leslie widens her eyes as much as she can, relaxes her draw, and stares deadpan into her webcam.)

Megan (Laughs) I have intense eyes. (Laughs) No, but this all sounds really cool! I'm still trying to figure out what AR is...

Leslie You know, I will say, I think we take for granted how often we use this type of technology. It's more familiar to us than we realize. AR [augmented reality] used to be in the same category as VR [virtual reality]. With early-days AR we used to need special glasses to see our reality augmented or changed. It was an exclusionary or exclusive technology. You really had to be in the know to even gain access to it. And now we have Pokémon Go! The average person knows what that is, and you only needed your smartphone to engage. And maybe your parents don't know what that is--

Megan My parents definitely don't. 

Leslie (Laughs) But it's not the craziest thing to see an image pop up on your camera view screen, that exists both in your current reality and digital reality. And so, there's a recent increase in the level of accessibility in terms of just everyday usage and familiarity. AR is getting easier to develop and use, but the arts aren't really using it as a storytelling platform. And open-source software has come out that has really leveled the playing field in terms of creating digital art and digital work. And some of these video games that have come out of these open-source software programs are beautiful! They're amazing! But I do think the majority of dance companies aren’t using that space. And I think this is the perfect time to explore it.

Beta launch for Remnants is coming Fall 2021. Wanna know more? Stay up to date here.

How has the pandemic influenced your relationship with time and space? Does 2020 feel like one big blur? Or drawn out and detailed? How does time influence your reality? We want to hear from you! Let us know in the comments below.