# Data Choreographies

Joana Chicau is a graphic designer, coder, researcher — with a background in dance. She researches the intersection of the body with the designed and programmed environment, aiming at widening the ways in which digital sciences is presented and made accessible to the public.

She is currently an associate lecturer and PhD candidate at UAL Creative Computing Institute at the University of the Arts London.

.･ﾟﾟ･ [joanachicau.com](https://joanachicau.com/)
.･ﾟﾟ･ [post.lurk.org/@joanachicau](https://post.lurk.org/@joanachicau)
.･ﾟﾟ･ [are.na/joana-chicau](https://www.are.na/joana-chicau/web-choreographies-other-stories)

### What's Choreography?

> “The term ‘choreography’ has gone viral [...] Buildings choreograph space and people’s movement through them [...] birds perform intricate choreographies and combat is choreographed [...] web services choregraph interfaces and even existence is choreographed. Choreography, then, would seem to apply to the structuring of movement in highly diverse occasions, yet always where some kind of order is desired to regulate movement.” (Rosenthal et al.: Move: Choreographing You, 2010, p.32)

<!--
Choreograph (v.): to arrange relations between bodies in time and space
Choreography (v.): act of framing relations between bodies; “a way of seeing the world”
Choreography (n.): result of any of these actions
Choreography (n.): a dynamic constellation of any kind, consciously created or not, self-organising or super-imposed
Choreography (n.): order observed . . ., exchange of forces; a process that has an observable or observed embodied order
Choreograph (v.): to recognize such an order
Choreography (v.): act of interfering with or negotiating such an order
(Klien et al., 2008, p. 9)

…one of the crucial questions of our times: how to claim agency for our movements and actions within our highly (even if subtly) choreographed societies of control (…) Dance and choreography display and practice how bodies get to be mobilised as well as made passive.
(Lepecki in Martin, 2015: 44;46)
-->

Choreography = “writing movement”

Examples: [a collection of scores, ontologies on circling, circles and other geometries...](http://www.geometries.xyz/inventory.html)


> Source: Les Basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche, a 15th-century manuscript for a Burgundian court dance, consists of twenty-five parchment leaves on black paper with gold rules and calligraphic initials in silver. Source: historyofinformation.com


> Source: The legal right to claim ownership [...] was established only in 1948 using an early 20th-century form known as Labanotation to produce a score of a dance that could be copyrighted Source: Susan Leigh Foster in intermsofperformance.site.

### Influences and References ✨ 👀


> Source: [Yvonne Rainer’s “No Manifesto” 1965](https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/yvonne-rainer-no-manifesto/1454)


> Source: 9 Evenings, Theatre & Engineering, 1966 "9 Evenings was the first large-scale collaboration between artists and engineers and scientists. The two groups worked together for 10 months to develop technical equipment and systems that were used as an integral part of the artists’ performances." [Read more here](https://monoskop.org/9_Evenings:_Theatre_and_Engineering).
* [See program](https://www.fondation-langlois.org/9evenings/e/index.html)
* [Video trailler: 9 Evenings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-cgnK-kFoo)
* [Video: Open Score, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, 1966, edited circa 1997](https://vimeo.com/107488380)


> Source: Games for actors and non-actors by Boal, Augusto. Publication date 1992 Topics Acting, Improvisation (Acting), Games, Acting -- Study and teaching Publisher London; New York: Routledge Collection https://archive.org/details/gamesforactorsno0000boal

### Previous Work


> Live coding — sometimes referred to as “on-the-fly programming,” “just in time programming,” or even “conversational programming” — is about people interacting with the world, and each other, in “real- time,” via code.
> Live coding asks questions about liveness, inviting us to reflect on what it means to be live — to have bodies, to communicate, to act. [Live Coding User's Manual](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/live-coding)

**Web Choreographies** w/ Jip de Beer

> Caption: screenshot from a performance integrating 3D visualizations display of live coded web environments.

* [Video trailler](https://vimeo.com/318721981);
* [Project's website](https://joanachicau.com/web_choreographies.html);

**Choreographic Analytics**


> Caption: screenshot of the work Choreographic Analytics by Joana Chicau

A local analytics engine for the ‡ DobbeltDagger website, in collaboration with Anders Visti. It presents an alternative form of documenting, analyzing, notating and archiving ‡ DobbeltDagger. Every search performed is an act of making a new choreography — which brings new relations and new links between words and meanings — building up on an ecology of growing choreographies.

* [Link to project](https://dobbeltdagger.net/publication/choreographic-analytics);

**Anatomies of Intelligence** w/ Jonathan Reus

> Caption: screenshot from AoI's virtual theatre

Anatomies of Intelligence (AoI) is an artistic research project that investigates connections between the processes in anatomical knowledge and the “anatomy” of computational learning and prediction, datasets and machine learning models.

* [Link to project website](https://anatomiesofintelligence.github.io/);


THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME is a practice-led research project exploring how theatre techniques can be employed to reverse-engineer cognition and emotions, to invent new forms of communication between human and machine, and to rehearse future societies.

* [Replica Institute](https://replica.institute/);
* [The Shape of Things to Come video](https://vimeo.com/371160085);
* [Related article](https://pan.ecphras.ist/Projects/The_Shape_of_Things_to_Come.html);

### Current Research

**Choreographing You! Dear User, are you ready to move?**


> Caption: screenshot of artwork and essay by Joana Chicau

Contribution to 're-coding everyday technology' VOL. 1 contains 12 positions by artists, researchers and designers on questioning the default conditions and circumstances of everyday technology.

* [Link to project](https://re-coding.technology/choreographing-you/);
* [Link to performance](https://meshfestival.ch/events/joanna-art/en);

#### RESEARCH QUESTIONS

¨*•.¸¸● ◎ How to move away from pre-choreographed environments and compose our own choreographies?

¨*•.¸¸● ◎ How can we choreograph countermoves in response to a computational infrastructure that surrounds us?

---

*BREAK 30min*

**Task:**
1. write down/ take a picture/ screenshot of 1 instruction you encountered and/or performed during the break or earlier today;
2. add your picture to [Miro board](https://);

---

## WORKSHOP

:hourglass_flowing_sand: 20 min


> Source: [Score for Performing User by Lauren Lee McCarthy](https://criticalcode.recipes/contributions/score-for-performing-user)

---

### EXERCISE 1: Disobedient Choreography

1. Join the [Miro board](https://);
2. Rewrite the instruction you found to make it 'desobedient';
3. Present it as a series of steps;
4. Swap with someone and perform each others instructions;


> Image Source [Tactical Tech](https://tacticaltech.org/projects/data-you/)

---

### EXERCISE 2: Mapping Digital Ecosystems 📍 📱 ✨

:hourglass_flowing_sand: 30 min

1. Join the [Miro board](https://);
2. Chose 1 app/ digital platform (can be related to your project or one that you use regularly and find problematic);
3. What data is being collected? Create a list of data collected by your chosen app/ digital platform (eg.: your date of birth ᴥ your location ᴥ your address ᴥ your phone number ᴥ the size of your underwear...);
4. Use different colors to signal data do you consider to be intimate | personal | sensitive;
<!-- For eg.: social media ᴥ news ᴥ chats ᴥ email ᴥ transit apps ᴥ maps ᴥ shopping ᴥ banking ᴥ search engine ᴥ goverment websites... -->

**🗫 Discussion**

Have you ever thought about what data is shared through these apps and online services?
How do you feel this data represents you or the people who use the app/ digital platform ?

---


> Source: Una Lee and Dann Toliver, [the Ripple Mapping Tool](https://togethernet.org/assets/accessibility/ConsentfulTechZineTextVersion.pdf)

### EXERCISE 3: Choreographies in/ of Relation

:hourglass_flowing_sand: 30 min

IN GROUPS:
1. Join the [Miro board](https://);
2. Create an own axis (X, Y);
3. Populate the canvas with data types or characteristics of the app / digital platform you chose according with the axis;
4. What reflections arise from the mapping above? Each group writes down a 2-3 sentences.

> This exercise is [inpired in Scores & Scripts, a Bestiary of Intents](https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/20944/1/2017-PPIG-28th-church.pdf) by Luke Church, Joana Chicau. In Psychology of Programming Interest Group Annual Conference 2017 (PPIG 2017).

___

### Feedback & Discussion 🗫 🦜

> 'Choreography has become a metaphor for dynamic constellations of any kind consciously choreographed or not, self-organizing or artificially constructed. (Klien M., Valk S.: What do you choreograph at the end of the world?, 2007)

## Further References

🌈 🖥 🌈 🖥

**Data, Privacy, Consent**
* [Tactical Tech Data and You](https://tacticaltech.org/projects/data-you/)
* [Consentful Tech Zine](https://togethernet.org/assets/accessibility/ConsentfulTechZineTextVersion.pdf)
* [Together Net](https://togethernet.org/)
* [ Togethernet: Programming Culture, Building Consent, with Xin Xin & Charlotte Yaqing ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1624DqhP40)
* [Consentful Protocol by Xin Xin](xin-xin.info/projects/2021/02/15/consentfulProtocol.html)
* [Privacy Not Included](https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/)
* [Alternative To](https://alternativeto.net/)
* [Our Data Bodies Project 2016 Report](https://www.odbproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ODB-Community-Report-7-24.pdf)
* [Design Justice Network zine](http://designjusticenetwork.org/zine)
* [Crypto Dance](http://www.ooooo.be/etherhtml/e2h.php?_=cryptodance)
* [Crypto Dance Exercises](https://pad.constantvzw.org/p/cryptodance_somatics)

**Live Coding Community Links**
* [TopLap Hub](https://toplap.org/nodes/)
* [TopLap Yearly Conference](https://iclc.toplap.org/)
* [Live Streamed live coding performances Eulerroom](https://www.youtube.com/c/Eulerroom/videos)