Dia Center for the Arts press release 2/14/02
JAMES BUCKHOUSE WITH HOLLY BRUBACH: TAP
Artists' Project for the Internet Makes Use of Wireless Technology
On March 1, 2002, Dia Center for the Arts will launch Tap, a work
created by James Buckhouse in collaboration with Holly Brubach for Dia's
series of artists' projects for the web. Tap may be seen at
www.diacenter.org/buckhouse. Dia and the artists will launch the project
on Friday, March 1, from 6 to 8pm, with a party for the public in Dia's
bookshop at 548 West 22nd Street, New York City.
For Tap, a project commissioned by Dia Center for the Arts, presented in
cooperation with Creative Time, and selected for the Whitney Museum of
American Art's 2002 Biennial, Buckhouse has created two animated
dancers, one male and one female, that the user may direct to practice
movements or give recitals. Tap is made for distribution on wireless
handheld networks and is accessible via Dia's website, as well as from
beaming stations that interface with all Palm PoweredTM personal digital
assistants (PDAs). By taking advantage of beaming technology, which
enables wireless transmission of data, Buckhouse encourages the project
to expand beyond the internet and individual computer desktops: Users
may pass dancers to other users and exchange choreography with those who
already have a dancer.
When instructed to "practice," a Tap dancer begins to learn a series of
sixteen basic moves, inevitably making mistakes but gradually expanding
the number of steps it has mastered. A dancer may then combine the steps
into a dance, either through randomized improvisation or with a sequence
of moves specified by the user. Once codified, the dances may be saved
for future performances.
While digital media traditionally allows users to exchange exact copies
of data, Tap, with its potential for the transfer of unique
choreography, emphasizes difference rather than repetition, treating
digital data not as defined packets of information but as the seeds for
a creative process. By enabling interchange between and among users, the
project creates a network of communication.
Buckhouse's collaborator, Holly Brubach, organized the dance elements of
the project. She recruited ballet dancer and choreographer Christopher
Wheeldon, resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet, to
participate in the project, and taught Wheeldon to Tap dance. Videos of
Brubach and Wheeldon were used by Buckhouse as templates for the female
and male animated line drawings.
From March 1 through July 27, 2002, users may download the project onto
their PDAs from a beaming station at Dia. During this same period,
Creative Time will present additional beaming stations at the Barnes &
Noble at Union Square and two additional locations in New York City.
Tap, which was selected for the Whitney's 2002 Biennial, will also be
available via a beaming station in the Whitney's lobby during the course
of the Biennial, from March 7 through May 26, 2002.
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James Buckhouse
James Buckhouse, born in 1972, currently lives and works in San
Francisco. He has exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals in the
United States and Europe and recently completed a year as a visiting
artist at the Stanford University Digital Art Center, where he created
and co-curated an exhibition on artist-produced screen savers as a form
of public art. Buckhouse has also created computer-based animation for
major-release films. Artist and programmer Scott Snibbe assisted
Buckhouse with the programming for the project.
Holly Brubach
Journalist and fashion designer Holly Brubach began her career as a
dancer. The author of three books, she has also been on the editorial
staff at Vogue, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and most recently The
New York Times, where she served as style editor for almost five years.
Former director of Prada's home and sport collections, Brubach recently
started her own business. She lives and works in New York and Milan,
where she continues to teach Tap.
Artists' Projects for the Web
Dia Center for the Arts initiated a series of web-based works in early
1995, becoming one of the first arts organizations to foster the use of
the world wide web as an artistic and conceptual medium. Previous
projects, which can be visited on Dia's website, include Shimabuku's
Moon Rabbit (2001), Feng Mengbo's Phantom Tales (2001), David
Claerbout's Present (2000), Stephen Vitiello's Tetrasomia (2000), Arturo
Herrera's Almost Home (1998), Diller + Scofidio's Refresh (1998),
Molissa Fenley's Latitudes (1996), and Komar and Melamid's The Most
Wanted Paintings (1995). All may be viewed at www.diacenter.org.
Dia
Founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation plays a vital and original role
among visual arts institutions nationally and internationally by
initiating, supporting, presenting, and preserving art projects in
nearly every medium, and by serving as a primary locus for
interdisciplinary art and criticism.
Dia presents a program of exhibitions at Dia Center for the Arts in
Chelsea, New York City. Supplementary programming at Dia Center for the
Arts includes the artists' projects for the web, lectures, poetry
readings, film and video screenings, performances, scholarly research
and publications, symposia, and an arts education program that serves
area students. Dia is currently constructing a new museum in Beacon, New
York, sixty miles north of New York City, to house its permanent
collection. The museum in Beacon will open in spring 2003.
Creative Time
Creative Time is a nonprofit arts organization with a thirty-year
history of presenting public arts projects of all disciplines, through
both grassroots activism and highly prominent venues. From the Brooklyn
Bridge Anchorage, Grand Central Terminal and Times Square to milk
cartons, billboards, and skywriting over New York City, Creative Time
has a distinguished history of commissioning and presenting art that
enhances the public realm, inspires and provokes discussion of socially
relevant topics such as domestic violence, HIV/AIDS pandemic, genetic
engineering, and now, the proliferation of wireless technologies in the
arts and society at large. For more information about Creative Time,
please visit www.creativetime.org.
Funding
Tap was commissioned by Dia Center for the Arts. Its presentation is
being made in cooperation with Creative Time. Technology is provided by
Palm, Inc., with additional support from hi beam. Dia's series of
artists' projects for the web receives funding from the New York State
Council on the Arts.
For confirmation or additional press information on this project and
programming at Dia Center for the Arts in Chelsea, New York, please
contact Sarah Thompson, tel. 212 293 5518; fax 212 989 4055; email
sthompson@diacenter.org.
For additional press information about Dia:Beacon, please contact
Heather Pesanti at Jeanne Collins & Associates, tel. 646 486 7050; fax
646 486 3731, email info@jeannecollinsassociates.com.
