Jacquelyne Boe And David Janesko
Build. 2023
9x12cm glass plates, redox traces and the investigation of living and non living matter with Glass
Stroboscopic Drawings
Long exposure photographs lit by a strobe of Boe performing motions based on the choreography she was developing. The shapes and lines that emerged due to the overlapping exposure were digitally traced and used as the building blocks for vector drawing executed by a pen plotter.
Emerge, 2022
11X14 Pen on Paper
2019 To 2021 Residency At The Lawndale Art Center In Houston, Texas.
Together they Explored movement and drawing through sets of rule based actions in multiple media types. Boe’s work as a dancer is inherently ephemeral, like a river, its dynamic nature exists only in the moment, the shape of her ideas and emotions continually coming into being within the motion of the body through space. Their collaboration began with Janesko’s interest in the ways unknown or unseen interactions and phenomena can be visualized and that those visualizations reveal the hidden nature of the systems and methods used to record and represent them.
Boe: Balance on left leg, right leg passé. Hold for 2 minutes. Laser drawing on cyanotype (5X7)
Janesko: Balance on left leg, right leg passé. Hold for 2 minutes. Laser drawing on cyanotype (5X7)
Machine Drawings - Lines and Floors
16x20. Ballpoint pen on tracing vellum.
The drawings presented here are made with a computer controlled two axis plotter that “prints” a vector graphics image of closely spaced parallel lines using a ballpoint pen on tracing vellum. The vellum is placed directly on the worn yellow pine floors of the Lawndale Center’s artist studios.
Boe and Janesko’s collaboration began as an extension of the type of rule based iterative drawing methods Janesko was exploring with drawing machines. Drawing machines reduce drawing to an interaction between the pen and paper. This reductive approach allows the subtle artifacts and errors that arise as information is translated between different states to not only become visible, but the main subject of the drawings.
Laser Drawings
16X20. Silver gelatin paper.
Some examples of the initial work in using lasers exposed directly onto photographic paper as a way to track body movements.
In a darkroom. Hang a sheet of photographic paper on the wall. Hold a green laser in hand and make a quick motion while pointing it in the direction of the photographic paper. Do this at 30, 10, 5 and 1 foot away.
Boe
Janesko
Project 1
Boe and Janesko are in the process of completing work for a large-scale live performance to be debuted at the Lawndale Art Center in early 2021. The piece takes its general structural from the drawing methodologies and visual forms Boe and Janesko are exploring concurrently in the studio. However unlike the drawings that have a general trajectory of a reduction of complexity, this piece aims to build a complex dynamic system starting with a few simple parts.
The dance piece explores how emotion through movement in the body is innately understood by humans, without the need for verbal communication. Using a hierarchical model that separates human consciousness into 17 levels, Boe created foundational gestures representing the physical manifestation of each level within the body. These gestures were then built upon in the studio to create a 17 chapter performance, each chapter corresponding to one of the consciousness levels: Shame, Guilt, Apathy, Grief, Fear, Desire, Anger, Pride, Courage, Neutrality, Willingness, Acceptance, Reason, Love, Joy, Peace, and Enlightenment. These 17 Straight Phrases were further expanded to a Stationary Phrase and a Duet Phrase. At the beginning of each chapter, each one of five dancers will be directed by Janesko as to which one of the three Phrase Variations, Straight, Stationary or Duet, they will be performing. Janesko developed a system of radio transceivers located within the performance area and attached the dancers bodies that will be used to determine this. The radios will also be controlling the volume of each dancer's unique musical score based on their positions in the performance space. The goal of all this complexity is to create a dynamic system that is different each time it is performed.
Homemade camera
Boe and dancer Lindsey McGill working in studio at Lawndale developing Base Gestures and creating a Straight Phrase.
Slit Scan Photography
Dancers working at Lawndale for Project 1.0 the Straight Phrase.
Documenting Rehearsals - The Straight Phrase, Stationary Phrase and Duet Phrase.
Project 2
As a reaction to COVID-19 Boe and Janesko moved their in person collaborations and rehearsals onto video chat.
Subconsciously moving through a movement prompt for 5 minutes, Boe and dancers allow the body to exhibit patterns that exist within, through action.
Boe is creating phrases from those movements, then the sequence of movements are performed mirrored. Boe and Janesko are interested in the Innate imbalance within the body. Janesko used motion tracking software to capture the dancers movements. These motion vectors were then digitally mirrored, rotated and blended to create bilateral and radially symmetric compositions. Below are some of our first results made using a pen plotter.
Chirality
A piece comissioned by the Society for the Performing arts Houston. Boe & David Janesko created Chirality, a new dance work, compiled from six consecutive livestreams and inspired by the quality of asymmetry in things that can’t be superimposed with their mirror image.
Dancers, in order of livestream:
Lindsey McGill
Britt Wallis-McGrath
Siri Cyan
Sinclair Davis
Rachael Hutto
Jacquelyne Boe
Chirality features original music by Houston composer Jeremy Nuncio. Watch it HERE
Chirality II
Isolation. Transmission. Feedback. The world in a mirror - Chirality.
A drive-in experience at Lawndale Art Center Chirality II, was a new dance film by Jacquelyne Boe and David Janesko. From the safe isolation of the audiences car they watched the film and a live video installation while tuning in to the original score on their car radio.
One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the drastic reduction in the ability of artists to share their work. This has been especially true for live performances such as dance, there is just no way to continue the present dance as it has been and to keep the dancers and audience safe. At the start of the pandemic Jacquelyne Boe and David Janesko decided that rather than being limited by these restrictions they would work to build something new out of them. The result is a three part multimedia work titled Chirality.
The new work began with a series of video calls in which Janesko would give Boe and a group of dancers a movement-prompt highlighting the spatial dichotomies unique to the bedrooms, backyards and living rooms that had become each person's lockdown-studio. Imbalance, symmetry and grid geometry began emerging as unifying themes and became the guiding concepts of the work going forward. Boe took recordings of these sessions and identified patterns and gestures unique to each dancer. She used these as building blocks to choreograph a two-part mirrored phrase for each dancer. In response to these pieces Janesko created a series of video feedback loops using a webcam and a streaming video application. These elements were edited and layered to create the final film.
Chirality is a term used to describe an object and its mirrored pair, such as the right and left hands. It's used here in reference to asymmetries within individuals and screen mediated communication.
Jacquelyne Boe and David Janesko are a collaborative team and current residents in the Artist Studio Program at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston, Texas. Boe is Houston based choreographer, dancer, and educator interested in collaboration and experimentation. Janesko is an artist exploring the emergence of complexity using an experimental approach that encompasses a wide array of mediums, technology and subject matter. Together they are exploring movement and drawing through sets of rule based actions in multiple media types.
Chirality II was performed by Jacquelyne Boe, Siri Cyan, Sinclair Davis, Rachael Hutto, and Lindsey McGill, with live video projections by David Janesko and original music by Jeremy Nuncio.
