a danced present with its audio future. Filmed and edited Feb 24, 2023 in Philadelphia, PA. Music by Ulla (“foam”)
And now, this. Filmed May 27, 2020 in Durham, North Carolina. Performed, filmed, and edited by Justin Tornow. Original sound score by Ultrabillions. This video was created by invitation of the American Dance Festival with support from The Forest at Duke.
… it is perfectly legitimate to see connections between objects that are intentionally produced at a distance from one another.
If this were not so, one would have to conclude that what is important in the description of phenomena is the intention of their creator, which is not always the case.All of us know far more than we think we know and say far more than we think we say. The entire culture of an age speaks, to a greater or lesser extent and to a more or less profound degree in all our work.
It is precisely by not producing hierarchies and ghettos among texts that we can discover recurring trends that distinguish “our” mentality (in this case our “taste”) from that of other periods. It is only by pursuing the unlikely connections that we shall discover— if we allow ourselves the benefit of the doubt— how that mentality and taste might develop.
— Omar Calabrese, Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times (1992)
“Justin Tornow is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, researcher, and Ph.D. candidate at Temple University. Tornow is the founder of the COMPANY collective, a core group of art partners that work across sound, light, film, maps, and movement. She produces co-creative performances and Happenings as simultaneous artistic situations in public spaces; is the creator and producer of PROMPTS, an artist series that showcases new and in-progress works; and a co-founder and co-organizer of Durham Independent Dance Artists (DIDA) 2014-2020. Tornow teaches workshops and college-level courses in movement forms, repertory and performance, and dance composition.
Tornow’s dissertation research historicizes 20th century figures from American philosophy, art, and education whose work radically rejected institutional conventions and called into question the social function of both art and education. This research recontextualizes these 20th century rejections and radical practices to suggest 21st century reorientations of mind, values, and aims in art education. ”
for a small hill. Filmed July 15, 2020 in Todd, NC. Performed and edited by Justin Tornow. Score: "Voiceless Essay" by John Cage, the score to Merce Cunningham's "Points in Space." Method: Movement improvisation with gimbal. Sound track chosen post-production, Spotify shuffle (not random, algorithm).
Reps : Researching dance as a responsive practice
Performed, filmed, and edited by Justin Tornow
Sound score: Mount Kimbie, Tunnelvision
Description: A danced praxis of theory in motion, this spontaneously improvised composition explores the relation between sound, impulse, dance, person, objects, space, and digital variations as they emerge from a remembered experience.
Research notes: There are three variations that act as surrogates for the original recording, in which only the sounds that the dancing makes in the spatial-sonic context of the material space as I was dancing to the music using headphones. The process of creating variations with altered starting points for the sound score offered a theoretical rabbit hole of sense, perception, and memory as it intersects with editing software.
Filmed and edited June 2022.
RESIST! dogma, propaganda, exploitation, passivity… (bold = links)
* Some useful information on labor, rights, and organizing in the U.S.: AFL-CIO / AAUP (academia) / and TUGSA (the Temple University Graduate Student Association)
* Check for hidden bias in news sources: Allsides / Consider the role of your own biases in how you consume media: Learning for Justice (SPLC) / More reliable news sites: The Associated Press and Reuters
* Accessing the books you need, banned and otherwise: see Monoskop, Open Library, and archive.org