Event # 3 Toni Dove

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Source: Toni Dove's Presentation

I was fascinated to learn about how artists can use interactive media and robotics to create performances and immerse the audience in such a unique experience. Toni Dove’s presentation about working with installations, kinetic motion, and sound allowed us to experience art through a different lens. I really enjoyed listening to how artist Toni was inspired by other artists and her insights on what happens when something starts to almost suggest something, how can an abstract piece be seen as a living entity or an inhabitable structure. Toni Dove is also a writer and a theater performer in which she uses technology in a very smart way.

Dove’s work on human-like instruments that tell stories that are dynamically interactive is a great example of the different forms that art can take. Toni talked about how she was inspired to work on a piece called “Lucid Possession” in which the artist who’s the lead character in the story creates an avatar of herself and her performance goes viral. Toni thought about how we live simultaneously in analog with the digital world and how we think about it. Toni was inspired to present how the artist created a robot that helps her see things. The idea that we want to replicate ourselves in some way, make something and put too much in it to make it come alive.

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Source: Toni Dove's Presentation

“The Dress That Eats Souls” is one example of how Toni Dove uses interactive kinetics to track the viewer’s head and body movement. I did more research on this piece of art and found that the kinetic has a camera tracking system that create an X, Y, and Z dimensions in space. The work involves 3D printing, robotics, and much more technologies. The process of making this piece was a combination of artists work including building the robot, writing the text for the voices, and making the dress. It was a collaboration of artists with different skills and visions, worked together to create a complete work. We have seen similar collaborations throughout this course and how artists work together and contribute their expertise to a particular piece to distinguish it from other artworks.

Artist Toni was also inspired by the work of Alan Ruth; she was inspired by a piece called “Voyeur”. Movement can be a form of live, a feather in a motor where motion can be thought of as a sequence of words. After I watched the presentation, I did some research on interactive cinema and read about the immersive experience that creates a dynamic relationship through motion. It was fascinating to read about the evolution of interactive cinema and the use of the available technology to create a unique experience for the audience.

The presentation of Toni Dove has presented her work as a way of expressing thoughts and the use of nonliving objects to create a live experience and tell a narrative. Although other artists use similar technologies and motion to create art, every piece of art is presented in a unique way.

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Source: Toni Dove's Presentation

 

References 

 Dove, Toni. “The Dress That Eats Souls: A Robot in Progress.” Tonidove.com, 1 May 2016, https://tonidove.com/the-dress-that-eats-souls-a-robot-in-progress/

Hamilton, Kathryn. “Biotechnology: Humanity's Highest Art Form.” Medium, Bioeconomy.XYZ, 22 Dec. 2021, https://medium.com/bioeconomy-xyz/biotechnology-humanitys-highest-art-form-8d539cdde11a

“Interactive Cinema.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 17 May 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_cinema.

“Toni Dove: Embodied Machines.” The Ringling, https://www.ringling.org/events/toni-dove-embodied-machines.

“Toni Dove.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Dove.