UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Race-Ing Technology
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Race-ing Technology in Dance A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Kelly Bowker June 2021 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Anthea Kraut, Chairperson Dr. Imani Johnson Dr. Derek Burrill Copyright by Kelly Bowker 2021 The Dissertation of Kelly Bowker is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements While writing often feels like a singular process, this dissertation would not have been possible without the support many different communities. Thank you to the UCR Dance Department my academic home, from the support and inspiration of my classmates, the guidance of faculty, to the administrative support provided by Katrina Oskie and most recently Bryan Bradford. Thank you especially to Xio who has been a sounding board, cheerleader, and friend throughout this process. The knowledge I gained from courses with Linda Tomko and Joel Smith has helped shape the artistic and analytical skills I drew on for this project. I received substantive feedback and guidance from Jose Reynoso and Anusha Kedhar who joined my committee for my oral exam. Thank you to my committee members Imani Johnson and Derek Burrill, whose conversations throughout the early stages of my studies were central in helping me determine the boundaries of my project and what questions I wanted to ask. Finally, thank you so much to my amazing committee chair, Anthea Kraut, who has always provided a wonderful combination of critical feedback and encouragement. Anthea has pushed me to become a better writer. I am grateful to have received support through UCR’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship and Dissertation Year Program Fellowship, allowing me the space to focus on my studies. The UCR Digital Humanities Fellowship, supporting my attendance to the Digital Humanities Summer Institute at the University of Victoria helped me develop the frameworks for my project. Two Humanities Graduate Student iv Research Grants from UCR’s Center for Ideas and Society supported my archival research. Finally, the Gluck Fellowship for the Arts not only supported me financially but helped keep me connected to my artistic practice. The Graduate Writing Center has been my second home at UCR, and I am grateful for the opportunity to grow as a writer alongside so many thoughtful colleagues over the years. Thank you especially to Christina Trujillo and Hillary Jenks. Christina has offered so much guidance this past year on everything from dissertation writing to preparing job materials to finding empanadas. Hillary has seen some of the roughest earliest brainstorming drafts and yet continues to be an encouraging friend despite these disasters. I could not have completed this dissertation without the support of my family. My parents have given numerous long-distance pep talks especially in these final few months of writing. Thank you to First Christian Nursery School, where I know my son has been well cared for, leaving me the peace of mind to focus. Finally, thank you to Mike and Charlie. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Race-ing Technology in Dance by Kelly Bowker Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Critical Dance Studies University of California, Riverside, June 2021 Dr. Anthea Kraut, Chairperson This dissertation interrogates the racial ideologies embedded in and deployed by technologies as they appear in concert dance, popular/social dance, dance video games and on screens, via music videos and commercials. In my first chapter I explore how queer white modern dance choreographer Merce Cunningham and predominantly Black hip hop DJs justified their own technological accomplishments by drawing on Cartesian language. Their own self-fashioning/self-representation has since been discussed by scholars who picked up on this Cartesian line, emphasizing the “mental” accomplishments of these artists, often at the cost of ignoring the role of embodiment within their creative processes. In my second chapter, I examine the dance video game Dance Central, which translates movement from physical bodies to virtual and back again via surveillance technologies. However, because these technologies were not designed to track all body parts and actions equally, the game rewards whitened movements and erases/fails to recognize the Africanist aesthetics of its original choreographers. My third chapter analyzes how filmic techniques have been used to represent bodies and vi technologies through car commercials and music videos. While some of the commercials I examine engage in traditional conflations of Black bodies and machines, I also explore examples where Afrofuturism opens up alternative imaginings. By moving across these varied sites, I argue that ideologies of race and technology impact each other at every point where they intersect, from design, production, and practice to retrospective analyses of their significance. vii Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Disembodied: Dance Technology’s Devaluation of the Body 36 Chapter 2 Dance Central: Failures of Technological Translation 88 Chapter 3 Mechanized Blackness, Superbodies and Afrofutures 126 Coda 171 viii List of Images Image 2.1 97 Processing Skeleton image on greyscale depth map Image 2.2 98 Avatar Taye performing the “Lay It Out” in Dance Central’s “Dip It Low” Image 2.3 118 Screenshots of Frenchy Hernandez, Avatar Taye, and Laura223 performing the “Hula” Image 2.4 121 Screenshots of Hernandez, Avatar Taye and Laura223 performing the “Cowgirl” Image 2.5 123 Screenshots of Hernandez, Avatar Taye and Laura223 performing the “Merge Back” Image 3.1 127 Screenshot of Kia Stinger ad “Feel Something Again” Image 3.2 127 Screenshot of Kia Stinger ad “Feel Something Again” Image 3.3 127 Screenshot of Kia Stinger ad “Feel Something Again” Image 3.4 127 Screenshot of Kia Stinger ad “Feel Something Again” Image 3.5 130 Screenshot from Citroen commercial featuring Grace Jones Image 3.6 130 Screenshot from Citroen commercial featuring Grace Jones Image 3.7 130 Screenshot from Citroen commercial featuring Grace Jones Image 3.8 130 Screenshot from Citroen commercial featuring Grace Jones Image 3.9 143 Screenshot of Black Panther in Lexus’s “Long Live the King” ix Image 3.10 143 Screenshot of Lexus in “Long Live the King” Image 3.11 143 Screenshot of Black Panther in Lexus’s “Long Live the King” Image 3.12 143 Screenshots of Lexus in “Long Live the King” Image 3.13 147 Screenshot from Audi’s “Drivers Test” Image 3.14 147 Screenshot from Audi’s “Drivers Test” Image 3.15 148 Screenshot from Audi’s “Drivers Test” Image 3.16 151 Screenshot of split screen image of Lil Buck and engine in “Man and Machine” Image 3.17 151 Screenshot of Lil Buck in Lexus’s “Man and Machine” Image 3.18 151 Screenshot on Lexus in “Man and Machine” Image 3.19 152 Screenshot of Lil Buck and engine in “Man and Machine” Image 3.20 152 Screenshot of Lil Buck and engine in “Man and Machine” Image 3.21 153 Screenshot of split screen image of Lil Buck’s hands and wheel in “Man and Machine” Image 3.22 153 Screenshot of split screen image of Lil Buck and car in “Man and Machine” Image 3.23 154 Screenshot of split screen image of Lil Buck as part of car in “Man and Machine” Image 3.24 154 Screenshot of split screen image of Lil Buck as part of car in “Man and Machine” x Image 3.25 155 Screenshot of Lil Buck sliding into car in “Man and Machine” Image 3.26 155 Screenshot of Lil Buck behind the wheel in “Man and Machine” Image 3.27 159 Screenshot of blurred image in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.28 159 Screenshot of Monaé behind the wheel in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.29 160 Screenshot of moment of digital disturbance in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.30 161 Screenshot of Monaé throwing her arms up in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.31 165 Screenshot of Monaé pulling over in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.32 165 Screenshot of Monaè’s eye being scanned in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.33 166 Screenshot of Monaé singing to the camera in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.34 167 Screenshot of women stretching and standing up in car in “Crazy Classic Life” Image 3.35 167 Screenshot of women with animal masks in “Crazy Classic Life” xi Introduction On June 11, 2020, Amazon placed a one-year ban on the use of their facial recognition software, Rekognition, by the police. Claims of racial and gendered bias within Amazon’s software had been circulating for years. In 2018, for example, computer scientist and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League Joy Boulamwini published early research noting racial bias in Rekognition. Buolamwini’s study showed that Rekognition much more accurately identified white men than any other category tested and performed most poorly when tested on Black 1 women. The company refuted the results and kept offering the software, even after twenty-six researchers posted a blog in March of 2019 calling for the company to stop selling the software. It wasn’t until the immediate aftermath of the huge number of Black Lives Matter Protests taking place in response to the murder of unarmed Black man George Floyd by the police that Amazon took action. The company framed the move as a cautionary step allowing for governmental regulation to catch up with the technologies being deployed without any admission of bias. As the BBC News reported, “Amazon said the suspension of law enforcement use of its Rekognition software was to give US lawmakers the opportunity to enact legislation to 1 Following the recent shift made by the New York Times and Chicago Manual of Style I will capitalize Black when referring to people or culture.