I found the section about translating dance movements into signs transcribed onto flatland pretty interesting. Tufts used several examples to help me reimagine how dance notation could be permanently perserved, something other than video recordings. Tufts also helped me realize the challenges beneath this visual-data translation, especially when we need to decompose many nearly universal yet invisible display techniques. It was eye-opening and aesthetic to witness the flowing and graceful lines embellished by disciplined gesture, the dynamic symmetry inherent to individual and group proceedings. It became more interesting when multiplied consecutive images and de-gridding graphs enhance the depiction of continuous, three-space movement.

After reading this chapter, a work by Gabrielle Lamb, The Choreography of CRISPR (2022) during my MIT Museum visit came into my mind. The artist translated gene movement (twisting, cutting, inserting, copying, repeating, palindromes, and cluster) into choreography. For example, the double helix is analogous to a dancer’s spiralling turn. It is interesting to see how visualizations of the four-dimensional reality of time and three-space could happen in many ways. As we want to translate gene movement into something more tangible and accessible, Lamb created the chroeography. While we want to document the chroeography in a textual format, we made another visualization onto the paper flatlands.