Kineo | Ekmel Ertan
On Videodance, Technology and Mustafa Kaplan’s Atlas of Lost Sentences
 ,
During a collaborative process with Mustafa Kaplan in recent years, I had the chance to watch many videos he had produced. Some of them were performance documentations, some were films crafted through editing those documentations, some were performances made specifically for video, and others were standalone videos engaging with the body, movement, and space. Watching all of them repeatedly, in very different sequences over a certain period, changed the way I looked at the relationship between dance and video—or perhaps helped me understand things I hadn’t noticed until then. I was rediscovering the relationship between video, body, space, movement, and time.
 ,
My acquaintance and friendship with Mustafa Kaplan dates back to the early years of Çatı’s[1] founding—perhaps even earlier, let’s say the first half of the 2000s. At that time, I was also interested in New Media Art and, as a natural condition of new media, artistic productions that brought together different mediums and disciplines. Along with many other names, we were calling it Multimedia Art, New Media Art hadn’t yet fully begun to write its own history. Together with Özlem Alkış, we were making plans for a long-term development workshop on dance and technology, involving artists, researchers, and theorists from various disciplines. When Özlem went abroad for her dance education, we couldn’t carry it through to the end, in 2007, we were about to launch the amberFestival. Before that, in 2006, we had organized TECHNE Digital Performance Platform together with Aylin Kalem. We founded the Body-Process Arts Association in 2007, and in the same year, we—myself (Ekmel Ertan), Özlem Alkış, and Nafiz Akşehirli—initiated amberFestival. amber Art and Technology Festival was a New Media Art festival.
 ,
The consequences of the digital revolution, which began in the 1980s, started to become visible in the field of art during the 1990s. In the context of this text, it is impossible not to mention Teoman Madra, whom we have recently lost. At the time, Madra was producing visuals artworks that he had begun earlier with Amiga computers, later continued using the computers and software of the period. At the same time, he was creating works that brought together music, dance, and video in collaboration with artists from different disciplines. In the 1990s, Madra was one of the rare artists in Turkey whose practice engaged with technological developments in the world and their reflection in art scene. In fact, within the field of visual arts, he was the only artist producing such work at the time—others we might mention were working in the field of music[2]. We will likely have the opportunity to view Madra’s videos and other works once they are categorized and, presumably, adapted to contemporary technologies as part of the Teoman Madra Archive project led by Selçuk Artut. Perhaps then, it will be necessary to add new notes to the history of videodance in Turkey.
 ,
In 2007, I designed the interactive lighting for the dance piece Just Marking, choreographed and performed by Özlem Alkış and Pep Garriguez. Between 2007 and 2009, we presented this piece numerous times across Europe. At the same time, due to my curatorial role at amberFestival, I was both engaged with the international scene and immersed in the dance community in Turkey in search of developing new collaborations between dance and technology—particularly around Çatı and beyond, which was perhaps experiencing its most vibrant and prolific period. In the following years, we presented various dance and performance works in every edition of amberFestival. This was because some of the most exciting intersections of technology and art were happening in the field of dance. In its brief description, the Body-Process Arts Association (amberPlatform) stated: “Body-process arts refer to artistic forms that involve the interaction of the body with technological processes.” The body and interaction were our focal points. Especially during the 2000s, when motion tracking and motion capture (MOCAP) technologies were rapidly advancing, interaction—and the narrative forms enabled by it—became one of the focal points of New Media Art. Many works were being created and presented in which the dancer’s movements generated sound and visuals projected onto the stage, the dancer effectively controlled the visual design, lighting, and sound of the performance. We showcased several such examples at amberFestival as well.
 ,
Due to the allure of new media at the time, works that were not interactive or did not involve emerging technologies didn’t fall within my area of interest—and that included videodance. I categorized such video works not as new media art, but rather as dance documentation or video art. This perspective hasn’t changed, but videodance became a field I came very close to, yet ultimately only brushed against.
 ,
The earliest examples of videodance belong to Maya Deren, a pioneer of experimental cinema. In 1945, Deren created A Study in Choreography for Camera. In this film, featuring dancer Talley Beatty, the camera pans left through a forest, with the dancer’s moving body entering and exiting the frame among the trees, as the camera continues to move, the dancer reappears. This is one of the first and most representative examples of the videodance genre. Of course, video technology did not yet exist at the time—the film was recorded on celluloid—. Dancers only began using video in the 1970s, the term ‘videodance’ came into use much later. Deren was an experimental filmmaker and did not come from the field of dance.
 ,
I believe that artists coming from the field of dance, who work with their own bodies, use their body as their primary material and reflect on the body itself, —have very diverse understandings and creative practices. This, to some extent, also influences those who work with them.
 ,
In 1966, Yvonne Rainer, one of the pioneers of modern dance, created a film called Hands Movie[3]. This work is a choreography composed of the movements of five fingers of a hand, designed specifically to be recorded (similar to Deren’s choreography/dance for camera). Naturally, it was filmed as a movie. Unlike Deren’s work, here the camera acts as a passive element—it simply observes without participating. Cinematic techniques such as editing were not used. Although this distinguishes it from videodance films, where camera and editing techniques are part of the choreography, it should still be classified as an example of videodance because it was designed for the camera and is historically one of the earliest examples.
 ,
Merce Cunningham, coming from the field of dance, was also one of the first artists to explore the relationship between dance and video. Video artist Charles Atlas, known for his collaborations with artists like Nam June Paik, worked as the resident video artist in Cunningham’s dance company from 1971 to 1983.
 ,
However, Cunningham began using technology in his choreographies in the mid-1960s, before his work with video. Collaborating with artists like Nam June Paik, John Cage, and David Tudor, he created pioneering works that entered the history of New Media Art as well as dance. These experimental pieces used electronic music or sound and featured the dancer’s interaction controlling sound and visuals. In 1965, John Cage composed Variations V for the Merce Cunningham dance company. Cage and David Tudor designed two systems that generated sound influenced by movement. In one, the dancer interrupted the light between photocells using stage lighting, triggering shortwave radio receivers and tape recorders. In the other, the dancer approached an antenna and started producing sound based on proximity, meanwhile, in various performances, manipulated television images by Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik were projected onto a screen behind the dancers.[4]
 , , , , , , , , , , ,
Merce Cunningham’s interest in the relationship between dance and technology was not only about developing new forms of expression and contributing to performance, but also about the new possibilities technology could bring to the study of the body and movement. In 1989, Cunningham collaborated with dancer and programmer Thecla Schiphorst to develop a software called Lifeforms. What began as Cunningham’s idea to use technology in movement research and choreography later evolved into a commercial software developed by Credo Interactive, a team based at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. For many years, the software was used by dancers, animators, video effects specialists, and game designers. Although it has lost its commercial prominence later developments in 3D and software technology, Credo Interactive’s software remains the only surviving product from that era of 1980s–90s software companies and is still used by a small community. Some of their dance and choreography-related software products are even available for free download on their website.
 ,
Merce Cunningham created a work called Loops, consisting of short performances with body parts, which premiered in 1971 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Hands, performed while sitting on a stool using only hand movements, is one of these pieces. There is an early recording of Hands.[5] Probably inspired by Rainer, this work is likely a TV recording or documentation rather than a videodance piece.
 ,
But Cunningham’s Loops became an inspiration in 2001 for Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar. OpenEndedGroup, founded by Marc Downie along with Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar (until 2014), created the choreography of Loops by converting Cunningham’s hand movements into data and processing them[6]. Between 2001 and 2011, they produced various digital versions, from 2017 to 2019, a VR version, and most recently, an AI version, all of which were exhibited. This work represents a step beyond videodance and can also be classified as screendance—a form of New Media Art that we will discuss later in the text.
 ,
***
 ,
Although I have been involved with dance and technology in some way, my interest in the field of videodance developed quite late—despite Dans Kamera İstanbul, which Onur Topal Sümer has been sustaining with great resistance and dedication since 2007, and with whom we have always wanted ,to collaborate. It seems I needed to get more deeply involved, to actually enter the field. Since the early 2000s, I have often crossed paths with Mustafa Kaplan around Çatı and in Taldans, which he runs together with Filiz Sızanlı, as well as in various productions, we have worked together or had many conversations. In 2022, Mustafa approached me with a proposal for collaboration or support.
 ,
In the 1990s, while working at TAL Studio, I was thinking about a project related to doors and passages. A performer/dancer inside a room would choose one of two doors to exit that room and enter another—so they would select either door A or door B and continue on their way. After the viewer chose one of the doors and watched the exhibition or short performance in the room they entered, they could not go back, they had to choose again between another set of two doors to exit. In total, they made 10 door choices and visited 10 rooms. They could watch 10 exhibitions or performances, but exhibitions or performances behind the doors they did not choose remained unseen. To see the missed performances, they had to start the experience all over again.
Due to the difficulties of finding rehearsal and performance spaces and gathering to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought about how I could realize this idea through video. This necessity presented me with a wonderful opportunity. While considering using the computer screen as a room, I found it a fortunate coincidence that the main screen of a website or many programs in the computer environment is called the ‘home’ page.[7]
 ,
Mustafa wanted to make use of the downtime created by the pandemic, he decided to pursue a master’s degree and explore the traces of his electronic engineering education in his dance practice. The doors in the choreography, which he said were reimagined in his mind, were also logic gates—the fundamental building blocks of circuits like transistors. With the limitations imposed by the pandemic and the introduction of video, the process naturally shifted to a digital environment. Mustafa and I sat down and discussed how the structure he envisioned could be transformed into a digital choreography application. We decided to develop a web-based application that progresses through videos based on the user’s choices.
“A performer/dancer inside a room would choose one of two doors to exit that room and enter another—so they would select either door A or door B and continue on their way.” as Mustafa wrote. The performer/dancer choosing the doors was replaced by the viewer/user in Atlas of Lost Sentences. Thus, we embarked on a project that was among the most discussed and widely produced during the vibrant era of new media: developing a nonlinear, interactive storytelling. Although I say “we,” it was Mustafa who developed the narrative, while I was the one opening and closing the doors.
Nonlinearity is one of the fundamental characteristics of new media. Compare writing by hand or typewriter with your experience of writing in today’s digital environment. Our way of thinking has also changed with digital media. Perhaps if we accept that thought has never been truly linear, new media has freed the way we express and communicate our ideas. Mustafa’s narrative is built precisely on this freedom. It does not tell a story with a fixed beginning and end, rather, it shares its own retrospective—with all its changes, transformations, recurring patterns, and emotions—reflecting 30 years of an artistic life with the audience. While life may be linear in some ways, art is not.
This was not a simple structure. The user chooses door A or B and progresses based on their choice. In the simplest case, with only two doors, after the first choice there would be 2 videos, after the second choice 4 videos, but a total of 7 videos (think of the videos as different rooms). If the progression were linear—meaning no backtracking or repetitions—then after the n’th door, 2^(n+1) – 2 videos would be needed. So, as Mustafa illustrated when explaining his idea, if the viewer were allowed 10 choices within the flow, he would have needed to prepare 2,046 videos. This initially scared us. Moreover, in our structure, sometimes there were two doors, sometimes three, and most often four. Our solution was, first, to produce a sufficient number of videos, and second, to create a choreography that allowed for backtracking and repetitions.
I set up the interface and started the software development. Mustafa established the choreographic structure, worked on the dramaturgy, defined the rules of the flow and the scenario, as well as prepared the videos that make up the content. Since he was going to reflect on his own practice, he actually had a rich video archive consisting partly of performance documentations and partly of recordings of performances created specifically for video.
To work on the retrospective concept, I selected videos from my own archive, some of these videos were site-specific works, while others were created for the stage. Some of the videos I chose from my archive were long. I shortened all the selected videos to between 1:45 and 2:00 minutes. To create continuity in the flow of the new performance/choreography I was producing, I created new short videos. Using all the movement and framing possibilities available in the
program, I produced short videos that can be described as ‘videography.’ I also converted texts and photographs into video format.
At first, we started working with the existing videos, then, when considering the viewer/user experience, we began to reflect on the video durations, the dramatic structure of the content, and the narrative’s flow. The viewer/user chooses their own path, they determine how long to watch, pause and play videos in some rooms, isolate sounds, watch in full screen and go back—thus diversifying the viewing experience—but they cannot decide the experience’s ending themselves…
Mustafa edited and reshaped all the videos, creating a videodance catalog composed of dozens of videos, out of these, 140 were used. On the other hand, he also developed a dramatic structure that would allow the entire user experience without losing meaning or coherence.
This is where my redefinition of videodance deepened, none of these videos were simply documentation of a performance anymore, nor recordings of performances made for video. Each one began to be seen as an independent videodance work standing on its own within the structure we created. Mustafa calls it “videograf,” which might be a more accurate term for our example, still…
Videodance is a genre that positions the camera not merely as a recording tool but as an active subject of choreography, while also utilizing all the possibilities of editing. Beyond the technical capabilities of the video medium, it internalizes the conventions and aesthetic norms of all genres formed around video and film—such as news, music videos, documentaries, cinema, and motion graphics—creating a unique expressive field. In Atlas of Lost Sentences, all of these are further enriched by new media’s features and conventions, like interactivity and nonlinearity. Mustafa’s use of the term “videograf” gains meaning in this context, because none of the videos were created as standalone works but rather to be used within this structure, their meanings unfold within this whole.
Like a photograph, I think of videograf as singular video recordings of a moment or situation, this is the association I have with the term. In English, there are the words videographer and videography, but the term videograf does not exist—at least, it is not commonly used. However, I find this term meaningful, like a photograph, you press the shutter and get a photo, you press the record button and get a videograf. It is the moving image of that singular moment—raw, straight from the camera. The closest equivalent in cinema might be a “shot”, but a shot is part of a scene, a scene part of a sequence, and a sequence part of the film, which ,are meaningful units only within the language of cinema. ’. Of course, there can be a single-shot film, but even then, we call it a film. A “clip” is another term we use for video, but a clip can be anything, beyond being a short segment, it has no particular meaning or aura.
There is also the term screendance.[8] Instead of emphasizing technique (like videodans and video), screendance highlights the medium itself, screens are objects introduced into our lives by the digital world. Screendance includes not only video but also the technologies that came after it—digital technologies enter the frame. Once digital technologies are involved, the camera is no longer necessary, and the concept of a “shot” loses its meaning. Terms tied to specific techniques or technologies become detached from their original context but continue to be used, while new terms are added to the terminology.
Modern dance embraced video technology early on. Dancers have always been very close to video. Beyond its ability to document ephemeral performances, an important reason is that it served as a substitute for notation—a kind of dance writing technique. Cunningham also used Lifeforms for this reason, as a research and notation tool for choreography. Video, however, became much more widespread, affordable, and easy to use.
As I mentioned, some of the videos in Mustafa’s archive are performance documentations, some are performances made specifically for video, and some are videodance works. For Atlas of Lost Sentences, Mustafa uses these videos as source material, but not as they are, he produces new videos from them—videos that I watch each as a standalone videodance piece.
However, in Atlas of Lost Sentences, the focus is not on individual videos alone, nor are you watching videos randomly one after another or side by side. There is a subtle weave in how the videos appear side by side on the screen or in their relationship to the new videos you access by clicking (opening the door) on one of them. It is a choreography based on relationships and interconnections. These relationships are sometimes formal—similar movement, a moment, a shape, sometimes based on sound and music, sometimes on period associations, sometimes on emotional content, and sometimes connected through irony. The choreography appears on multiple layers: within the individual videos, sometimes as recorded, sometimes as edited, in the arrangement of videos side by side on the screen, in their visual, auditory, or thematic content, and in the relationships between screens connected by choosing one of the possible doors…
 ,
I believe Atlas of Lost Sentences is very important in many respects, Mustafa presents his retrospective not as a series of video recordings, documents, or documentation, but as a new and different work that unfolds his 30-year artistic life and career as a dancer and choreographer. This work, on one hand, bears witness to the artist’s change and transformation as a kind of retrospective, and on the other hand, it reflects traces of dance, the body, choreography understanding in Turkey, along with various references to the cultural and artistic scene as well as social and political life.
Mustafa set out to investigate the influence of his engineering background on his practice, but in the end, he surrenders to that influence. The mathematical order present in all his works, the solid structure that never lets the viewer fall into a void of meaninglessness, and the strong sense of rhythm perhaps truly stem from his engineering formation. Ultimately, this work, where he combines dance with technology, is likely shaped by that as well.
On the other hand, it is a work without precedent in the Turkish dance community. It is (also) a work that can be classified as interactive storytelling.
You can find and explore/use Atlas of Lost Sentences at https://mustafakaplan.net.
***
Mustafa’s videodance pieces made me curious about similar works by other dancers in Turkey. Some time ago, I had the idea to organize a screening featuring videos created by dancers (that way, I could watch them too :)—but not recordings or documentations of dance performances . I knew what I wanted to watch wasn’t films typically categorized under contemporary art or visual arts as video art or video installations. In a way, it was a broad but also quite narrow range in my mind. Yes, we were talking about videodance, but the works had to be made by dancers, dancers have a different sense of space, body, and time, and a distinct language compared to visual artists.
Ekmel Ertan
May 2025
 ,
 ,
[1]
Çatı Contemporary Dance Association, https://www.cati-dans.org/, https://www.instagram.com/catidans/
[2] Ekmel Ertan, Dijital sonrası Tarihçeler: Türkiye’de Yeni Medya Sanatı, https://forumist.com/dijital-sonrasi-tarihceler-turkiyede-yeni-medya-sanati/
[3]  ,https://vimeo.com/475658456
[4]  ,https://www.mercecunningham.org/the-work/choreography/variations-v/
[5] ,The date and location of this recording could not be found. It is known that it was recorded on Japanese TV, in later years. Link can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6snBoOfyypo
 ,
[6] The Loop version by OpenEndedGroup, which generates 3D motion data captured from Cunningham’s dance, along with audio and visuals, is available as open source and can be downloaded from their website. http://openendedgroup.com/artworks/loops_chor.html
[7] Mustafa Kaplan, Creation of Choreography in the Context of Engineering Discipline, https://mustafakaplan.net/assets/thesis.pdf
[8] Actually, all this effort to categorize feels rather meaningless to me, instead of categorizing works, reflecting on the categories themselves is meaningful and necessary. We don’t become free when categories don’t exist, but when we learn to disregard the categories we create. Naming something lets us know what it is, naming brings classification and clears our minds.Robin Williams, in her book The Non-Designer’s Design Book (Peachpit Press, 2004), explains the importance of naming through the example of trees, saying that if you know the names of the trees and plants around your street, you begin to really see them. My own effort to name and categorize aims to liberate readers interested in the subject. Ultimately, nothing truly fits into any category
 ,
