Bodies and Labour: Industrialisation, Dance and Performance A thesis submitted for the degree of Master in Philosophy By Jennifer McColl Crozier Main Supervisor: Prof. Johannes Birringer School of Arts, Brunel University London June, 2012. Abstract This thesis presents an interdisciplinary analysis of ideas regarding the introduction of technologies in the field of dance and performance since the industrial era. The first two chapters analyse different historical periods, thus creating a parallel between the establishment of work-science, and emerging methods and styles within performing arts that utilise technology as a core element for its creation. The historical examination of the field of work-science studies allows the sketching of a variety of relationships between labour and technical developments, focusing especially on the systematisation of productive processes, the integration of new technical developments and the measurements of body’s rhythms and capacities. Therefore, rather than presenting a full historical study of industrialisation and technological performance, this research proposes a segmented analysis of two different periods: firstly, a parallel between Taylorism and Electric Dance since the late nineteenth century; and secondly, some relevant notions of Fordism, Mass Ornament and film studies from the 1920s. In the last part of this thesis, I present some general ideas on post-Fordism and digital performance that will serve as a base for future research development. This investigation is rooted in the field of performing arts, introducing ideas and concepts from labour studies and generating a critical approach to the integration of technologies within performing arts and its aesthetical, methodological and creative outcomes. The research encompasses a wide range of perspectives, from early photographic experiments, film studies, entertainment culture, video games, and digital technologies, formulating a general approach to technological transformations since the late nineteenth century. The key question throughout this research is precisely a double-sided adaptation between movement style and technical development: a process of intermedial configurations based on technological progress, analysed from a labour-science perspective, and then applied to performance art and entertainment culture. 1 Acknowledgements I wish to thank my supervisors Professor Johannes Birringer and Professor Sue Broadhurst at Brunel University, London, for their advice, encouragement, and dedication throughout this process. This research has much benefited from the constant and critical approach of my main supervisor, Johannes Birringer, who also invited me to participate in the creative process of the choreographic installation UKIYO (Moveable Worlds). This intense experience with the DAP-Lab allowed me to get involved with a group that, directly and indirectly, has promoted a critical approach to digital art creation, as well as giving me tools with which to reflect upon a wide range of possibilities within digital performance today. I especially want to thank my colleagues and classmates Anne-Laure Misme, Margaret Westby and Sandy Finlayson, for their stimulating and analytical comments. Our collaborative work on video, sound and choreographic installations provided an inspiring context for the exploration of some of the main ideas within this research. My deep gratitude is owed to Hernán Madrid Pruzzo for his support and his commitment with this thesis. Finally, I would like to thank Simone Crozier, Pauline Crozier and Esteban McColl, for their understanding and support. Their encouragement was the basis upon which this thesis was possible. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………… 1 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………. 2 Table of Contents ……………………………………………………… 3 List of Illustrations ……………………………………………………. 5 Introduction …………………………………………………………… 6 Chapter 1: Motion Machines: Taylorism – Electric Dance …………………….. 10 Rhythm …………………………………………………………. 11 Labour Organisation ……………………………………………. 14 Taylorism ………………………………………………………. 15 Economy of Gesture ……………………………………………. 18 Work-Science Instrumentation …………………………………. 22 Abstract work – abstract dance …………………………………. 27 Workers Leaving the Factory ……………………………………. 28 Electric Dancers: Loïe Fuller and Marie Leyton ………………… 31 Chapter 2: Assembly line and automata: Fordism – Mass Ornament …………… 45 Speed ……………………………………………………………… 46 Mass Production …………………………………………………. 48 Fordism ………………………………………………………….. 50 Movement Pattern Analysis ……………………………………… 60 The Heart Machine (Film Approach) ……………………………. 67 Tiller Girls / The Mass Ornament ………………………………… 76 3 Chapter 3: Flexible Specialisation: Ideas on Post-Fordism and Digital Performance ……………………... 84 Nano-Second Culture …………………………………………….. 85 Post- Fordism …………………………………………………….. 88 Lean Manufacturing ………………………………………………. 91 Digital Media ……………………………………………………… 96 Ideas on Digital Performance ……………………………………. 107 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….. 116 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………… 120 4 List of Illustrations Fig 1.1 Photograph by Étienne-Jules Marey, published in CH. Frémont. Fig 1.2 Etienne-Jules Marey’s sphygmograph. Fig 1.3 Etienne-Jules Marey’s unnamed device for the measurement of the body rhythm while running. Fig 1.4 Five moving slides for the magic lantern. Fig 1.5 Jules Chéret’s poster for Fuller’s appearance at the Folies-Bergère, 1893. Fig 1.6 Loïe Fuller’s “Garment for Dancers”. Fig 2.1 Still from Dziga Vertov’s film Man with a Movie Camera, (1929). Fig 2.2 Workers on a flywheel assembly line at the Ford Motor Company's Highland Park, Michigan. Fig 2.3 Poster advertising payment plans for Ford Model T (1925). Fig 2.4 Tabular presentation of an Action Profile by Rudolf Laban, prepared by Warren Lamb. Fig 2.5 Advertisement of Walter Ruttmann’s Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927). Fig 2.6 & 2.7 Still from the film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang (1927) utilising the Schüfftan Process. Fig 2.8 Still from the film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang (1927). Fig 2.9 A line-up of Tiller Girls in a cabaret show at the Piccadilly Hotel in London. Fig 3.1 Organisation schemes for office space. Quickborner Team fur Planung und Organisation Fig 3.2 David Tudor, Bandoneon! (a combine) Performance presented at the 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, New York, 1966. Fig 3.3 Still from video Variations V (1965). Fig 3.4 David Rokeby, Scheme of Very Nervous System. Fig. 3.5 Visiting avatars walking around the virtual UKIYO. Fig 3.6 & 3.7 Virtual dancer prototype, Quartet Project, London 2007. 5 Introduction During the twentieth century we witnessed one of the most significant technological changes in the history of humanity, which radically transformed our everyday life, public and private spaces, our standard of living, our ways of communicating, and how we specifically interact with new technical and technological apparatuses. The multiple concepts that have informed the discourses on the body since the late nineteenth century create a complex network of theoretical discussions that serves as a basis for the emergence of the central aim of this research: to analyse the notions of body, movement and gesture regarding both the integration of technologies within performing arts and the establishment of work-science since the industrialisation era. It is important to highlight the explicit connection between military industries, medicine technologies, information processing, communication systems and the constant technological development as one of the main issues of our time. It is specifically within this context where it becomes relevant to emphasise the relationship between labour and technological developments – a relationship that particularly focuses on a systematisation of productive processes through the structuration of behaviour patterns for workers and a rigorous re-design of the workplaces. The emergence of certain art performances that directly integrate scientific concepts – focussing on the relationship between body, stage, and technology – are the product of technical developments that constantly affect our daily life, and therefore, might be analysed as a reflexive axis for contemporary society. Hence, this research integrates a variety of perspectives in order to generate a more general understanding of technological transformations since the late nineteenth century. Thus, technical developments related to thermodynamics, science and engineering determined a specific viewpoint on the rise of mechanical rhythms, generating a social sense of dynamism and new cultural representations of this dynamism in the entertainment industries. Early photographic and cinematic experiments, in addition to dance and performing art creation play a key role in the analysis of entertainment culture. Within this framework, my research attempts to open a specific line of analysis from early industrialisation and time-and-motion studies for productivity to actual ideas on Lean 6 Manufacturing and its way of understanding the organisation of the working-body today. Since the late twentieth century, there have been considerable contributions by engineers applying their knowledge to artistic creation, as well as multiple artists working with highly technological apparatuses, not only in their mise-en-scène and designs, but also as part of the compositional process. Simultaneously, a variety of colloquiums, laboratories, papers, books, journals, and interesting compilations on the insertion of technological devices have