“Softwareness” is a sci-fi dance performance based on the idea of living in the cloud.
It thoughtfully challenges conventional perceptions of reality and offers a glimpse into a future where humanity finds solace, excitement, and even despair in the fantasy of the cloud. The cloud is a virtual storage space such as iCloud. In the cloud, everything is just information. The performance places the logic behind virtual space under scrutiny while revealing how its workings influence the logic behind structuring dance.
What would it be like to be uploaded to this virtual space as a file? What would happen to the body when the mind would be embedded in the cloud? What would happen if we uploaded our senses and consciousness into this imaginary storage? Would this turn out to be something completely alienating, something that ignores one’s essence? Could we learn from this experience? In what way can we practice dance, which is only information, and what principles of movement does it produce?
The concept considers the body and its physical record as a medium for the transmission of information. The performers are interested in how the data-based perception of the body influences the development of movement potential. Despite their total physical commitment, they are only information and are not concerned with anything other than information itself. Not trivial information that can be calculated, however, but information about the form of existence itself. They also concentrate on the information that is transmitted through touch, from one system to another, from one body to another. Inspired by the functions in the cloud, they discover a different approach to the body, dance, and choreography. They lose the usual sense of time and space in order to just dance in virtuality.
As if in a dream, the project presents the coexistence of the real and the illusory, thus providing us with insight into a future that we are already embracing. We embark on a journey through the softly aware universe, allowing the dance of data and the sound of the information world to stimulate our supposedly useless senses.
Concept: Julija Pečnikar
Dance: Alja Branc, Sara Janašković, Julija Pečnikar
Music: Balázs Pattantyús, Bálint Pattantyús
Costumes: Sara Brundula (design and implementation), Neža Dapčevič (base)
Light design: Borut Bučinel
Video: Tin Silvaši Meštrović
Graphic design: Bálint Pattantyús
Mentor: Patrik Kelemen
Expert advice: Marten Spangberg, Denes Tornyi
Production: NEST Institute
Co-production: Nomad Dance Academy Slovenia, Kino Šiška
Supporters: Workshop Foundation, Life Long Burning, European Union, City of Ljubljana, KUD Pozitiv, SIN Cultural Centre Budapest, V Glavnem Initiative
Special thanks: HUNDREDTOES Collective, Jasmina Založnik, Andreja Kopač
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
