“Many prerequisites are needed to implement a feed-forward control scheme: the disturbance must be measurable, the effect of the disturbance to the output of the system must be known and the time it takes for the disturbance to affect the output must be longer than the time it takes the feed-forward controller to affect the output. If these conditions are met, feed-forward can be tuned to be extremely effective.

Feed-forward control can respond more quickly to known and measurable kinds of disturbances, but cannot do much with novel disturbances.”

Particularly this last bit about “novel disturbances.” Maybe I’m taking this too far, but wotthehell (as mehitebel says) — performance inspired train of thought. Maybe the piece was a system (a set of parameters, relations and outcomes) that between the movement and the text, the commentary and the activities (including music, movement, sound, image, etc that switch between the one and the other), establish a certain state of performance — a state of being. And that disturbances in the system (since it was not completely controlled, not completely choreographed) were “tuned” by this feed-forward system.

Okay. And then what happened was, the “half-time” show was a set of novel disturbances (different each night) that exceeded the capabilities of the feed-forward system and consequently altered the state of the performance. Then these disturbances were, in turn, brought under control by the feed-forward controls (for example, the airhorn). But the system itself had changed (the differences between the first half and the last).

A highly optimistic perspective on systems, I think, but this framework gives the performance an interesting twist for me.

But for me the interesting part of the moon was its bouncing around — as if the fabric of all we consider given is shifting under our feet and gravity, space, matter, physics, (movement), (and our ability to make sense of the universe through these things) remain in a state of uncertainty.

And maybe this requires the “feedforward” input.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedforward

“a kind of system which reacts to changes in its environment, usually to maintain some desired state of the system”

I can see that. Partly in the verbal efforts to control/maintain a system of describable movement (which keeps escaping), partly even in the floor design, partly in the movement’s relation to sports.

The first half was inventive, romantic, self-possessed. Then it got self-conscious, performance-driven, and the cultish personalities of the commentators (performers?) dominated the play. I thought maybe Neumann was simply showcasing his favorite performers.

Maybe the shift (halfway) was the phone-in sequence, when the table was moved toward center. Maybe it was about the commentators all along. Or the media- feed forward.

In the end, he sidelined the athletes, sadly, and put a mouthpiece on the mound. Why were they watching that pitch? Why were we? beautiful and bird-like though it was- Why the Moon?

Then there’s the football position, also soccer (Center Forward).

I like your comment about how “various desires and ideas overlap and erase each other.” This sounds so much like my life that I am struck in retrospect by how true to life feedforward was in that respect. I think that this disruptive instability was what allowed me to have that near-sublime experience during Mr. Medlyn’s crazy hand dance.

Oh, just thought: no one has talked about the name yet and how that might relate to the piece…