Mapping the audit traces of interdisciplinary collaboration: bridging and blending between choreography and cognitive science

Abstract

Two long-term sci-art research projects are described and positioned in the broader conceptual landscape of interdisciplinary collaboration. Both projects were aimed at understanding and augmenting choreographic decision-making and both were grounded in research conducted within a leading contemporary dance company. In each case, the work drew upon methods and theory from the cognitive sciences, and both had a direct impact on the way in which the company made new work. In the synthesis presented here the concept of an audit trace is introduced. Audit traces identify how specific classes of knowledge are used and transformed not only within the arts or sciences but also when arts practice is informed by science or when arts practice informs science.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary collaboration; audit trace; cognitive sciences; contemporary dance; long-term projects.

Wayne McGregor’s dance company developing the performance piece Becoming, using an artificial-intelligence system with a screen viewed with 3D glasses. Photo: David Bickerstaff, courtesy of Wellcome Collection.

Figure 1.

The model for bridging scientific knowledge into practical applications in the domain of clinical psychology (modified from Barnard 2004).

Figure 2.

A model for bridging artistic knowledge into the making of contemporary choreography. Note that in artistic design processes, the landscape of foraging opportunities makes references to other disciplines. The discovery representation references the methods, tasks or constraints used in the creation of the production representation (e.g. the movement material for the new work), both are processes studied within the CTT project, while the knowledge sources and essences of natural encounters under ideational resources are topics explored in the PACT project. Both projects will be elaborated on in the following sections.

Figure 3.

Categories of knowledge probed in PACT.

Figure 4.

Illustrative data from one experience sampling study of eight professional dancers (May et al. 2011). At the apex of each spoke of the ‘spiders web’ arrangement is a description of a type of mental image (e.g. a verbal thought). The distance out from the centre captures the percentage of the ‘stops’ that an image on that spoke was reported. Shown here are data from instructions to draw or describe in movement the content of emotional imagery or imagery of a physical object. The key finding is that the pattern changes with the type of task McGregor asks them to solve. Dancers were often surprised by the low frequency of intuitive and emotional responses and the higher frequency of verbal thoughts.

Wayne McGregor making Dyad 1909 at the University of California at San Diego in 2009 while two researchers record the making process. Photo: Adrienne Hughes.

Figure 5.

In the upper part of this illustration there are three sensory subsystems that initially transform sense data and pass it on in specific pathways to four cognitive subsystems, highlighted in grey. These cognitive subsystems support three internal mental dialogues or interactions (shown as double grey arrows) that generate mental imagery and, once formed, image content undergoes translation into overt actions either through effector subsystems that manage the control of skeletal effectors and vocal articulation or via somatic and visceral response systems.

Figure 6.

(a) An example of an imagery task and (b) a creation task along with illustrations of the principles used. Note the upper panel makes graphic reference to three imagery ‘loops’ in the mind. These three loops are a simplified form of the interactions shown in Figure 5, and their graphic form was designed to be compatible with the graphics created to illustrate principles derived from McGregor’s practice. Text is extracted from the Mind and Movement resource. Image Credits: Magpie Studio for lower panel and Philip Barnard for the upper panel.

Figure 7.

Three graphical representations of the ICS theory contextualized at alternate levels of specificity for work in basic science and its use with professional and student dancers. Each representation preserves the same fundamental relationship between spatial-praxic, auditory verbal and semantic imagery.