This video explores the concepts behind a proposal for needed amendments
to the choreographic copyright laws.
No longer an incomplete commodity,
dances can now be bought in virtual online markets
to be performed by avatars
to communicate and experience the worlds of online gaming.
This proposal will suggest a new set of protocols
for protecting the reproduction of choreography in digital bodies,
especially when sold for cash value.
This proposal will demand that the use of dances
too short to be protected under current copyright laws
be included when being reproduced as code.
This proposal will not attempt to change the laws
concerning social dances being reproduced by real bodies,
as it's important to highlight that coded dances are a product of labour,
which requires compensation or accreditation.
This video is not the proposal,
but rather an exploration of the dancing body as a commodity.
(HAUNTING MUSIC WITH GENTLE BEAT)
Tonight, I'm going out dancing.
The club is an hour's journey for me.
One train and a bus.
I don't like getting dressed up.
It is more important that I am comfortable.
I must not forget my phone and my earphones.
I will need them for the long journey.
Currently, I'm listening to the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack.
It's a weird choice,
but I like to replace the ceiling of the train
with open blue skies and a light breeze.
For a moment, I go someplace else.
I do my favourite dance.
I like to do it in slow motion,
as I like the way my hair moves.
I am not myself here,
but I can see myself having fun.
I take out my earphones when I get to the club.
It's noisy and quiet at the same time.
I can no longer see myself.
I feel heavy and tired.
I'm not sure why I came here,
or what I'm supposed to do in this space.
(HAUNTING MUSIC CONTINUES)
What if our bodies could exist in imaginary spaces?
Could they be separated from our physicality?
The iPod commercial proposes the space and body.
The iPod is a digital device which allows your body to transcend into a non-space.
You're both dancing and still at the same time.
Whose body is it?
Your own?
Or is it the body of another?
This body isn't necessarily real, but the experience is.
It is even more fleeting than moments of real dancing,
but also can be perfectly repeated over and over again in your mind.
(MUSIC SKIPS AND REPEATS)
It's important to address the notion of property
as it's central to this work.
Property is something of ownership,
a possession.
It's transferable and therefore able to exist separately
from its creator or manufacturer.
For property to be transferable,
it must be materialised to a certain extent.
This materialisation takes the form of a product.
If creative expression is the product,
it must exist in a material form -
– a score, a book, a script, a record. – (CLASSICAL MUSIC)
Regardless of whether we're looking at the product of mass production
or creative expression,
it's clear that the labour can be estranged from the product.
But what happens when the labour is the product?
(SLOWED-DOWN DANCE MUSIC)
The act of dancing is both product and service.
For it to become a product, it always requires the service of dancing.
In this sense, it can never be a fully materialised commodity.
Let's return to the notion of disembodiment.
But not this one.
With the aid of media, dance can exist on the screens of our phones.
It's able to exist in some way as a material object.
Here we are not dancing, but possessing and consuming it.
To experience dance,
we no longer have to rely on attending a performance or a party.
(SLOWED-DOWN DANCE MUSIC)
It's always at our disposal.
An arm's reach from our pocket or bag.
Not in a body.
But this is not dance in its fully digitised form.
Motion-capture technology allows for human movement to be recorded
for the use of moving image and video games.
This technology is used to make characters more believable,
as the dynamics of human movement are difficult to recreate without a body.
By using motion capture,
a record can now be created.
This is the separation of labour and product
that can allow creative expression to become a form of transferable property.
(♪ HEAVY ROCK)
(MUSIC STOPS)
If the creator of a work is illiterate in the technology and economy
that allows it to become a form of property,
this can create a complicated relationship between author and product.
There's a lot to be said about the battlefield
as a place to express oneself.
(BASS-HEAVY DANCE MUSIC)
(RHYTHMIC GUNSHOTS)
The battlefield in this sense is the setting of a game,
and the expression is a series of coded gestures.
Gaming companies own these emotes and sell them for in-game currency,
which is purchased with real-life currency.
This is how games like Fortnite make their profit.
It's through the various add-ons that allow a player
to personalise and customise their avatar.
The dances, therefore, become an item for ownership.
The emote menu acting as one's pocket or bag.
(SLOWED-DOWN BEAT)
The choreographic material is not created by the game, however.
The first versions of the game saw dances copied from internet,
TV and music video sensations.
Fortnite's developers were taken to court by dancers,
musicians and actors for the use and renaming of their work.
The dancers lost their cases.
For some, it was because they didn't register their work
for copyright beforehand.
For others, it's because the phrases were too short.
After these court cases, Fortnite adopted new modes of generating choreography.
Instead of working alongside choreographers or dance makers,
they used social media sites like YouTube and TikTok
as sites of production.
They did this by using the dance-challenge phenomenon popularised on TikTok.
Winners were awarded their dance turned into an emote
as well as in-game currency,
which cannot be exchanged into real-life currency.
It's here that the choreographer became the labourer
as opposed to the artist,
– alienated from the products they create. – (DRAMATIC CLASSICAL MUSIC)
Dance challenges become assembly lines for products
that allow people to express themselves on the battlefield.
In the age of surveillance capitalism,
our personal actions and activities are being flipped for profit
for the benefit of someone else.
We've become increasingly alienated from the products of our labour,
and, at times, are unable to recognise these actions as labour.
With a long history of dancers fighting for authorship
and protection of their work,
gaming companies have beat them to it
by successfully turning our dances into products.
It could be helpful for us to begin to consider our actions as property.
As the digital realm can seem just as ephemeral as the moving body,
a Google search can be as fleeting as a flick of the wrist.
But put together they become a product which can be sold.
(SOMBRE MUSIC)