Mind Waves - Created by Elizabeth A. Miklavcic
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The Child Skips
The child skips the rock three times upon the surface
of the lake saying, " Look how far that went Dad!"
I wonder if this rock thinks as it is sinking, "I just spent
a million years getting to the shore. Now I have to start
all over again."
Wedded to the liquid of the lake. Rolling with small
waves and swells created by mountain storms. A
million years later the rock, a little smaller now, arrives
on shore again.
A small child picks up the rock and ....
BAM 01/05/06
Mind Waves was created by Elizabeth Miklavcic as a part of the larger InterPlay: Dancing on the Banks of Packet Creek that conceptually addressed the overwhelming tenuous devotion that we have toward the inundating wave of digital information and non-experiential knowledge.
The poem above was the springboard for Mind Waves; the concept of something in stillness that is moved to action, and that action has a cause and effect. The performance work started with a sand filled Zen Garden, a hidden Gardner (Elizabeth Miklavcic) and a Little Girl (Kate Bradford) knitting on the side. The Little Girl symbolized the birth of an idea; in this case, she knitted a Web that represented the World Wide Web.
The shadow of this Web idea moved into physical space, by the Little Girl as she walked, skipped, jumped and turned during the process of weaving a yarn web in Salt Lake City. Participants in Boston collaborated by also stringing a web at their performance site. This extended the web virtually from one place into another and looked as if both sites were connected literally and figuratively.
Beginning with the simplicity of a traditional Zen Garden, the Gardener then added non-traditional things such as, glitter, statues, beads, seashells and much more. It was the creation of a world, but as the world continued to build, it became chaotic, too full with unnecessary things. The Web became a hindrance into which the Gardener became entangled as she tried to continue to build her world. Throughout the piece, Boston cellist Junko Simons' entanglement in the Web increased as well. With too much stuff everywhere, the Little Girl led the Gardener away from the mess. They turned into shadows, as they left behind the chaos to begin again with a new idea.
Mind Waves was an artistic reflection of the commodity Internet that started with a few users, but is now full of many things, some good and some bad depending on your point-of-view. The issues of network neutrality, freedom of usage, and censorship all come into play as the Internet - the World Wide Web, becomes filled with too much stuff and people become entangled in the labyrinth of the Net. Images