Project acronym BlackBox
Project A collaborative platform to document performance composition: from conceptual structures in the backstage to customizable visualizations in the front-end
Researcher (PI) Carla Maria De Jesus Fernandes
Host Institution (HI) FACULDADE DE CIENCIAS SOCIAIS E HUMANAS DA UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2013-StG
Summary The global performing arts community is requiring innovative systems to: a) document, transmit and preserve the knowledge contained in choreographic-dramaturgic practices; b) assist artists with tools to facilitate their compositional processes, preferably on a collaborative basis. The existing digital archives of performing arts mostly function as conventional e-libraries, not allowing higher degrees of interactivity or active user intervention. They rarely contemplate accessible video annotation tools or provide relational querying functionalities based on artist-driven conceptual principles or idiosyncratic ontologies.
This proposal endeavours to fill that gap and create a new paradigm for the documentation of performance composition. It aims at the analysis of artists’ unique conceptual structures, by combining the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication and Digital Media studies. The challenge is to design a model for a web-based collaborative platform enabling both a robust representation of performance composition methods and novel visualization technologies to support it. This can be done by analysing recurring body movement patterns and by fostering online contributions of users (a.o. performers and researchers) to the multimodal annotations stored in the platform. To accomplish this goal, two subjacent components must be developed: 1. the production of a video annotation-tool to allow artists in rehearsal periods to take notes over video in real-time and share them via the collaborative platform; 2. the linguistic analysis of a corpus of invited artists’ multimodal materials as source for the extraction of indicative conceptual structures, which will guide the architectural logics and interface design of the collaborative platform software.The outputs of these two components will generate critical case-studies to help understanding the human mind when engaged in cultural production processes.
Summary
The global performing arts community is requiring innovative systems to: a) document, transmit and preserve the knowledge contained in choreographic-dramaturgic practices; b) assist artists with tools to facilitate their compositional processes, preferably on a collaborative basis. The existing digital archives of performing arts mostly function as conventional e-libraries, not allowing higher degrees of interactivity or active user intervention. They rarely contemplate accessible video annotation tools or provide relational querying functionalities based on artist-driven conceptual principles or idiosyncratic ontologies.
This proposal endeavours to fill that gap and create a new paradigm for the documentation of performance composition. It aims at the analysis of artists’ unique conceptual structures, by combining the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication and Digital Media studies. The challenge is to design a model for a web-based collaborative platform enabling both a robust representation of performance composition methods and novel visualization technologies to support it. This can be done by analysing recurring body movement patterns and by fostering online contributions of users (a.o. performers and researchers) to the multimodal annotations stored in the platform. To accomplish this goal, two subjacent components must be developed: 1. the production of a video annotation-tool to allow artists in rehearsal periods to take notes over video in real-time and share them via the collaborative platform; 2. the linguistic analysis of a corpus of invited artists’ multimodal materials as source for the extraction of indicative conceptual structures, which will guide the architectural logics and interface design of the collaborative platform software.The outputs of these two components will generate critical case-studies to help understanding the human mind when engaged in cultural production processes.
Max ERC Funding
1 378 200 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-05-01, End date: 2019-04-30
Project acronym NOVELSAINTS
Project Novel Saints. Ancient novelistic heroism in the hagiography of Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages
Researcher (PI) Koen De Temmerman
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2013-StG
Summary "The novel is today the most popular literary genre worldwide. Its early history has not been written yet. In order to enhance our understanding of this history (both conceptually and cross-culturally), this project offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of the persistence of ancient novelistic material in hagiographical narrative traditions in the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th cent.). This period constitutes a blind spot on the radar of scholars working on the history of the novel, who conceptualize it, much to the detriment of the study of narrative in subsequent periods, as an ‘empty’ interim period between the latest ancient representatives of the genre (ca. 3rd-4th cent.) and its re-emergence in 11th/12th-century Byzantium and 11th-century Persia.
This project, on the other hand, advances the hypothesis that different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted, rehearsed, re-used and adapted them to various degrees as tools for the representation of saints as heroes/heroines. In this sense, constructions of heroism in these traditions should be understood to varying degrees as ‘novelistic’ and raise crucial issues about fictionalization and the texts’ own implicit conceptualizations of fiction.
Three stages of the project will test different aspects of this hypothesis. Firstly, the project will chart for the first time all novelistic influences in the hagiographical corpus texts. Secondly, it will analyze the impact of these influences on constructions of heroism in specific hagiographical traditions (mainly Latin, Greek and Syriac Martyr Acts, hagiographical romances and saints’ Lives) and examine implications for notions of fictionalization and/or strategies for enhancing verisimilitude and authenticity. Finally, diachronic and cross-cultural dimensions of the research hypothesis will be articulated through the study of continuity of hagiographical traditions (and their constructions of heroism) in narrative genres from the 11th and 12th centuries in the West (medieval romance), Byzantium (novels) and the East (Persian romance).
By generating an improved understanding of the impact of ancient novelistic material in different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, this project aims to contribute not just to the history of the idea of fiction but also to the study of hagiography, the early history of the novel and to all disciplines that study these literary genres."
Summary
"The novel is today the most popular literary genre worldwide. Its early history has not been written yet. In order to enhance our understanding of this history (both conceptually and cross-culturally), this project offers the first comprehensive reconstruction and interpretation of the persistence of ancient novelistic material in hagiographical narrative traditions in the Mediterranean in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages (4th-12th cent.). This period constitutes a blind spot on the radar of scholars working on the history of the novel, who conceptualize it, much to the detriment of the study of narrative in subsequent periods, as an ‘empty’ interim period between the latest ancient representatives of the genre (ca. 3rd-4th cent.) and its re-emergence in 11th/12th-century Byzantium and 11th-century Persia.
This project, on the other hand, advances the hypothesis that different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages were impacted (directly or indirectly) by ancient novelistic influences of different kinds and adopted, rehearsed, re-used and adapted them to various degrees as tools for the representation of saints as heroes/heroines. In this sense, constructions of heroism in these traditions should be understood to varying degrees as ‘novelistic’ and raise crucial issues about fictionalization and the texts’ own implicit conceptualizations of fiction.
Three stages of the project will test different aspects of this hypothesis. Firstly, the project will chart for the first time all novelistic influences in the hagiographical corpus texts. Secondly, it will analyze the impact of these influences on constructions of heroism in specific hagiographical traditions (mainly Latin, Greek and Syriac Martyr Acts, hagiographical romances and saints’ Lives) and examine implications for notions of fictionalization and/or strategies for enhancing verisimilitude and authenticity. Finally, diachronic and cross-cultural dimensions of the research hypothesis will be articulated through the study of continuity of hagiographical traditions (and their constructions of heroism) in narrative genres from the 11th and 12th centuries in the West (medieval romance), Byzantium (novels) and the East (Persian romance).
By generating an improved understanding of the impact of ancient novelistic material in different hagiographical traditions throughout Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, this project aims to contribute not just to the history of the idea of fiction but also to the study of hagiography, the early history of the novel and to all disciplines that study these literary genres."
Max ERC Funding
1 467 300 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-02-01, End date: 2019-01-31
