CLUNL

BlackBox – a Collaborative Platform to Document Performance Composition: from conceptual structures in the backstage to customizable visualizations in the front-end

Identification

• Project identification: BlackBox – a Collaborative Platform to Document Performance Composition: from conceptual structures in the backstage to customizable visualizations in the front-end [ ERC Starting Grant 2013 – Ref. 336200 ]
• Group: Cognition, Language and Multimodal Communication
• Principal Investigator: Carla Fernandes
• Duration: allocated to CLUNL betweeen May 2014 and Dec. 2017
• Funding enity: European Union – ERC Starting Grant 2013 
• Website: http://blackbox.fcsh.unl.pt/

Description

“BlackBox is an interdisciplinary ERC-funded project hosted by NOVA FCSH since September 2014, under the direction of Prof. Carla Fernandes as its Principal Investigator.

With a wide-breadth duration of 5 years, the BlackBox project aims at developing a cutting-edge model for a web-based collaborative platform, dedicated to the documentation of compositional processes by contemporary performing artists with a focus on dance and theatre. The platform will enable a robust representation of the implicit knowledge in performing practices while applying novel visualization technologies to support it.

Choreographer João Fiadeiro (Re.Al) is our first year case study, and other artists will be invited throughout the project duration.

As an Arts&Cognition project, BlackBox aims at the analysis of the invited artists’ unique conceptual structures, by crossing the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication (Human Interaction, Gesture Studies, Cognitive Science) and Computer Vision.

General objectives: 1) perform theoretical and innovative interdisciplinary research on the intersection of multimodal communication and cognition, performance studies and digital media; 2) document, transmit and preserve the unexplored knowledge contained in performance composition processes; 3) assist artists with creative tools to facilitate their choreographic/dramaturgic practices on a collaborative basis.

The ERC Starting-Grant which supports this project has allowed the recruitment of 3 Post-Docs and 2 PhD students in the research domains of Cognitive Linguistics, Digital Media applied to the Performing Arts and Computer Science. The project also hosts several freelance collaborators and external service providers in the areas of graphic and web design, video, photography and software development, as well as international consultants in Digital Archiving and Intangible Cultural Heritage.”

(Retrieved from the project website.)

Team

Researchers:
Carla Fernandes (principal investigator)
Bibiana de Sousa
Cláudia Ribeiro
Stephan Jürgens
Vito Evola
Elisabete Vahia
Joanna Skubisz
Rafael Kuffner
Ana Rita Fonseca (invited research fellow, Neuroscience Programme, Champalimaud Center)

Collaborators:
Nuno Correia (Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa – NOVA FCT)
Sarah Whatley (C-DaRE, Coventry University)
Francisco Henriques (CIEBA, Universidade de Lisboa)
João Gouveia
José Ramos
Sam Meyler (Neuroscience Programme, Champalimaud Center)
Roger Oliveira
Urândia Aragão (NOVA FCT, research grant)

Associate partners:
Scott DeLahunta (Motion Bank Institute, Frankfurt)
Isabel Galhano (Linguistics Centre, Universidade do Porto – CLUP)
Rui Horta (Centro Coreográfico “O Espaço do Tempo”, Montemor-o-Novo)
Bibiana de Sousa
Maria Clotilde Almeida (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa – FLUL)
Maile Colbert (School of Social Sciences and Humanities of Universidade NOVA de Lisboa – NOVA FCSH)
David dos Santos (NOVA FCT)
Bertha Bermudez
Andrea Brandão (NOVA FCSH)
Carlos Oliveira (Inter-University Centre for Dance, Berlin)

Publications

Articles

Anjos, Rafael; Fernandes, Carla and Pereira, João (2017). 3D Flashback: an informative application for dance. ERCIM News, [online] 108, pp.33-34. Available at: https://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en108/special/3d-flashback-an-informative-application-for-dance [Accessed 28 Sep. 2017]. ISSN 0926-4981.

Fernandes, Carla and Jürgens, Stephan (2016). Moving from an artist-led practice into self-emerging educational approaches. Performance Research, [online] 21(6), pp.71-77. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13528165.2016.1239910 [Accessed 28 Sep. 2017]. e-ISSN 1469-9990; ISSN 1352-8165.
DOI 10.1080/13528165.2016.1239910

Jürgens, Stephan (2017). How to communicate on the verge of collapse. Choreographic Practices, 8(1) (Special issue: Words and Dance), pp.89-109. e-ISSN 2040-5677; ISSN 2040-5669.

Jürgens, Stephan; Henriques, Francisco and Fernandes, Carla (2016). Re-Constructing the Choreographic Studio of João Fiadeiro through Animated infographic films. PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, [online] 1(1), [n.a.]. Available at: https://scholar.colorado.edu/partake/vol1/iss1/3/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2018]. ISSN 2472-0860.

Chapters in books/proceedings

Almeida, Maria Clotilde and Sousa, Bibiana (2016). Worldmaking in Rap – Predators, Fighters, Salvagers: a Multimodal Approach. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.23-37. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Bermudez, Bertha (2016). What is Involved in the Process of Naming Movement? An Insight into a Research Project on Pre-choreographic Elements Based on the Work of Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [n.a.]. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Evola, Vito; Skubisz, Joanna and Fernandes Carla (2016). The Role of Eye Gaze and Body Movements in Turn-Taking during a Contemporary Dance Improvisation. In: E. Gilmartin, L. Cerrato e Nick Campbell, eds., Extended Abstracts of the 3rd European Symposium on Multimodal Communication (MMSYM 2015). [PDF] Linköping: LiU Press, pp.24-31. Available at: http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/article.asp?issue=105&article=005 [Accessed 11 Oct. 2017]. ISBN 978-91-7685-679-6.
DOI 10.13140/RG.2.1.3115.6885

Galhano, Isabel (2016). Understanding “shit talk”: Interpersonal communication in Rui Horta’s SetUp. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [n.a.]. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Galhano, Isabel and Galvão, Elena (2015). Nonverbal communication. In: F. Pöchhacker, ed., Routledge Encyclopedia of Interpreting Studies. London: Routledge, p.279. ISBN 978-0-415-63432-8.

Gouveia, João; Fernandes, Carla and Correia, Nuno (2016). The Creation-Tool: Augmenting the Annotation of Performing Arts Rehearsals. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.146-158. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Jürgens, Stephan (2016). Three methods of designing a workflow with multimodal video annotation in interdisciplinary choreographic processes. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp.159-178. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Jürgens, Stephan and Fernandes, Carla (2018). Choreographic practice-as-research: researching and visualizing conceptual structures in contemporary dance. In: A. Arlander et al., eds., Performance as research: knowledge, methods, impact. London: Routledge. ISBN 9781138068704.

Oliveira. Carlos (2016). Nexus at the Limits of Possibility. A Few Remarks on the Documentation of Multiplicities via the Curious Case of The Emergence Room #2 Berlin. In: C. Fernandes, ed., Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, [n.a.]. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.

Ribeiro, Cláudia; Anjos, Rafael; Fernandes, Carla and Pereira, João (2016). 3D Annotation in Contemporary Dance: Enhancing the Creation-Tool Video Annotator. In: S. Manitsaris, ed., Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Movement and Computing (MOCO’16). [PDF] New York: ACM, pp.146-158. Available at: https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2948961 [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017]. ISBN 978-1-4503-4307-7.
DOI 10.1145/2948910.2948961

Book edition

Fernandes, Carla, ed. (2016). Multimodality and Performance. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4438-9465-4.