Join us for a site-specific immersive audio-visual performance by Kim Nucci and AC Diamond
doors open at 7:30pm
The beat refers both to the heart rate and to the musical concept of tempo. HEART/TIME proposes that the heart rate is the tempo. Using heart rate data as a control parameter in the music creates a biofeedback loop between the heart rates of the performers and the theatre. HEART/TIME leverages the conceptual framework of embodied cognition by which the body and psyche are both intertwined and influenced by one’s environment, rather than it being solely instigated by the mind. The theatre — or in this case, the gallery — is a constructed environment where the perceptual envelope of both audience and performer is altered by the collective energies of the space and those within it. Performer-driven shifts in sound, movement, and reactive visual systems modulate their heart rates. The resultant fluctuations in real-time biodata feeds influence HEART/TIME, triggering corresponding changes in the music and visuals, feeding back into the system. This real-time loop continuously reconfigures the audiovisual experience as it unfolds.
This work builds upon the research of Professor Milford Graves and his study of healing, rhythms, the body, and the heart; and is inspired by something he used to say frequently to his students:
“…throw away your metronome and listen to your heart.”
This work is situated in Nucci’s larger research practice examining the ecology of the body/mind and how it’s surveilled and manipulated. Their research loosely centers the collection of personal biodata, personal information security, AI, surveillance capitalism and state surveillance that uses this data collected about us to enforce normative behaviors and/or feed the carceral state. By re-appropriating tools such as smart watches, phones to manipulate and this work seeks to reclaim ownership of our own biodata through creative use and data manipulation through biofeedback, and interrogate these emergent systems of oppression.