Marcia Lyons

Luminous Massage
Posted on: August 6, 2012

OVERVIEW
Luminous Massage is born out of the performative uncanny in which the human body – with its psychic drives and physical thresholds – is exposed to actual site energies. Unfolding across a series of geographical realities (ice, deep sea, desert), in the span of three years, my work explores site as an entity with its own psychology and momentum, introducing the notion of a subtle alchemy: field as witness. Introducing different kinds of situations in which an audience and a site’s energies are in ‘play,’ fusing more with the contemporary environment in the moment. A dynamic sense of standing in, with, among, remote and local energies, I’m inviting viewers to access a living presence within their own improvisational moves. Remote frequencies become a kind of character study, suggesting a ‘porousness’, awaiting entry and passage, as well as, the ‘wide open’, as an less metaphor for field. Each geographical circumstance has its own unique tone. This idea of narrative is formulating in relationship to the increased complexity and intensification of a field witnessing, prompting more intricate forms of character development. Exploring forces in live performance, Mirage Desert Hum, the last site, takes this principle as a governing sensibility.

IMPLEMENTATION
Hire Database Programmer: Softcinema installation involves a non-linear interactive editing system and dataRent Professional HD Video Equipment: Cinematic and telematic sequences are shot on location and triggered by proximity-based movementHire/Record Actors/Post-Production Editing: An aural sensation ‘generated by field’ is recorded through a series of live performances

DETAILS
June 2012: On Location White Sands Shoot
July 2012: Post-Production/Voices
Aug 2012: Print/Exhibition

IMPACT
My work seems recently to have developed a more recognizable character—that is a vision and voice–that fuses cinema and live performance, and incorporates physicalized projectiles and sometimes text. I regard it as participatory –a brew inhabiting the universes and traditions of public art and witnessing, but “thickened” with cross-pollinating performative disciplines (film, sound design, theater and live media) that help weave a context for a developing field narrative. This project is the culmination of three years of research expeditions.This grant would enable me to realize the work on location.