<<Maybe we should be thinking in terms of linguistic systems rather than in terms of language? After all, mathematics and music share some of the same communicative structures as are found in dance.>> I find the recent posts, discussions, and Sylvia's long note on contact improvisation and semiotics, quite interesting.....as they also constitute a response to COSIGN's policy or objective to invite presentations that "explore areas of overlap (or potential overlap) between semiotics and interactive digital media" .... There are many small details, in the posts, that would deserve discussion..... but I'd like to bring (the mostly agreed upon) notion of dancing as a system or organisation of movement in time and space back to the COSIGN platform, which appears to link it - the "system-ness" of the language or linguistic system (and HOW the signs in a given system and context function and mean) -- to current experimentations with DSP, realtime synthesis and other programming/processing in "interactive systems" that we are using in dance, music, art, netbased work, etc. And in this arena of course it gets even more complex, or muddled, if we start to use these conceptual abstractions, which we need. At the same time, we do speak of "programming languages," and Scott deLahunta just noted, in his abstract of the report on "Software for Dancers," the current "study of software as a condition and shaper of cognition, creativity and culture. [the report] defines and seeks interrelations between aspects of software arranged under three headings: software as a language; as a tool; and as a material. Through this engagement with the topic of software, the essay attempts to transform the computer into an invention open to critical reflection and less a product upon which society has come to rely." I'd welcome connections we could make here between the discussion on dance/languages and software tools/systems and material -- in order to explore perhaps certain possibilities of shaping a new critical vocabulary for our (still tentative) use of interactive constellations in performance or in installations or on the net. Especially, that is, HOW such constellations (from the programming point of view or the programming for dance/music/video interfaces) create meaning, affect audiences in specific ways, and can be perceived/read in specific ways. Johannes Birringer OSU_Dance & Technology AlienNation Co. http://www.aliennationcompany.com
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