Home of the Gesture
Performance/internet/print

In 1999, I interviewed my Grandfather, George Benn in Colorado. With my brother, Yu-Chiang, as videographer, we recorded Grandpa describing his childhood home in Beijing, China. This building no longer exists. Back in NYC, Ronaldo Kiel used a rough sketch by Grandpa and the verbal descriptions to create a 3-D model of the house. He faxed several versions to Colorado for Grandpa’s corrections.

The “Home of the Gesture” became a web site with original text and graphics in collaboration with Ronaldo Kiel, web and sound designer Brett Terry and visual artist Andrea Wollensak. The site includes a Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) 3-D model of the house, a video walk-through, and examples of applications of GPS point mapping for choreography. Later, I created a print version by simply outputting the slightly adapted web pages.


The dance performance component of "Home of the Gesture" received a Finishing Funds Grant from the Experimental Television Center and premiered for the Underexposed Series at Dixon Place, January 26, 2000. Cheng&Kiel processed the video and engineered the sound. The narration was taken from the soundtrack of Benn’s interview.