folks: you've probably seen Robert Wechsler's draft of a description of the on-going "Koerper - Computer - Interaktion" workshop at the Festspielhaus Hellerau (Dresden, East Germany), organised by the Medienkulturzentrum Dresden (July 20 - August 3). Final presentations/performances are on Wednesday night, August 2, 9:oo pm, Festspielhaus. Everybody welcome! Since the description breaks off in mid-air, I thought I'd add some notes, mostly personal observations, since it is too soon to start evaluating the conceptual process and the content of the laboratory tests undertaken by the group. Hellerau impressions: ____________________ WORKSHOP STRUCTURE: Process directed by Palindrome dance company leaders Robert Wechsler (choreogr.) and Frieder Weiss (computer engineer). Local organiser: Joerg Sonntag (video/music artist, Medienkulturzentrum: http://www.body-bytes.de) Co-directors: Guenter Haffelder, director of the Instutute for Communication and Brain Research (Stuttgart), with Christine Braun. Participants: 12, including Dutch stage designer/media artist Rene Verouden, and Spanish dancer/choreographer Angel Blasco, composer Hartmut Dorschner, visual artist Holger Herrmann, and several young dancers, musicians, videographers from Germany. 1. We work physically in the morning, after shared breakfast (everyone sleeps at Hellerau in the old arts-colony dormitories), we have access to the big arena theatre, a dance studio, and 3 rooms which we turned into the brain research center/video editing and music lab. After warm ups we design and test interactive spaces in our dance studio, with the Palindrome-developed software "EyeCon", which allows the drawing of invisible "touchlines" or "dynamic fields" in the space (monitored by cameras) in which we perform. We explore the sensitivity of the space and our movements in the interactive field, dynamic qualities, compositional potentials for the live spatial interaction with sound (tones, music-samples, voice-texts) or video (quicktime movie samples, etc), programmed so that movement in space, even the slightest motion (of a finger, an eyebrow) is registered and instantly triggers, via Midi, a sound or soundtextures. 2. Now comes the challenging part, work we do in the afternoons/evenings. Prof. Haffelder is a brain psychologist who has developed a measuring/analytical system for brain waves (with electroencephalograms and spectral analysis, meaning brainwaves are measured via electrodes, and the computer translates the waves and frequencies and creates visual graphic representations of the activity in the left and right hemispheres (measured near the back, behind the ears, nearer the deeper layers of brainwave activity, the limbian system - allowing better access to synapse transmissions of emotional states inside the brain/nervous system) Haffelder works in the field of learning optimisation (disability, blockades, trauma related accidents, etc), especially for children who have trouble learning/concentating, etc., but also with professional athletes and managers. His Institute has created a program that allows them to tap into the brain to understand/alleviate synapse problems, alleviate blockages, improve the bridge between the left and right hemispheres, stimulating low frequencies or blocked neurotransmissions thus enabling children and patients to learn better by using specially produced music-CDs, for particular clients, so that these clients listen to (Mozart) music that has been manipiulated and altered according to the frequencies and signal responses that the brain analysis suggests after the lab tests. The CDs can also help to improve motor skills and coordination in damaged neural systems (after accidents). 3. I had my spectral analysis done on Sunday, and the test (70 minutes) was fascinating, I had electrodes on my head, closed my eyes and went through the test (general questions, mathematical tasks, raection tasks, personal questions); then they showed me my brainwaves-diagrams on the computer. You can also see close-ups of areas (measured in hz, graphically laid out/mapped in time sequences as recorded, the so-called chronospectrogram). My Theta, and even Delta values in the right hemisphere (parallel processing) apparently are good, they concern the deeper visualising/meditative regions, near dreams, deep/unconscious emotions, creativity, sensibility. On the left side (serial processing: the logical,rational and speech side), I sometimes show strange patterns, flatlands, so called "Todstell-reflexe" (simulated dead reflex), you know, like when an animal feels it is trapped and pretends to be dead. I don't know what it means. 4. The next day I was allowed to do a session with the EEG that was unsual; I was hooked up to a second computer as well, and a program translated my brainwave frequencies (which are of course electrical and hz octave patterns similar to music/acoustic waves) into notes, thus I was listening to my brain making music. When I tried to concentrate and visualize pleasant or deeply arousing images, my music changed and became less melodic, because of the excitation; in relaxed state my waves sound quite harmonious. II. OBJECTIVES You will have guessed the artistic objective of our workshop. Frieder, our computer programmer, is working on writing software code that can link the electroencephalogram and its signals via midi directly to the dance interactive program that we already have set up in the dance studio, so that our brainwaves potentially can stimulate and trigger sound and video images on stage during the performance (which is something Haffelder is very interested in for his research in measuring and evaulating creative energies and potentials/implications for the neural system). Furthermore, Frieder suggested that when we do our final public performance at the end of the workshop, we invite a volunteer from the audience to sit in front of the stage, between viewers and performers, and be hooked to the EEG, react to the movement and the stories/images/sounds, and immediately, via interface between stage and audience-volunteer, we would potentially have an interface that allows us to measure the brain response (emotional) activity of the audience member, as well as allow for what is called "bio feedback": the way the person is "touched" or identifies with the movement, the way he or she also can re-stimulate the sounds and images (video projecions) we experience in the performance as they are triggered directly by the biofeedback-interface. The reactions will show us something about how the audience emotionally responds to a particular movement or sound. It is planned that the group, together and in smaller collaborations between members, develops 8 or 10 short interactive performances or installations for presentation on August 2. The workshop thus has a scientific side and a cross-over artistic side, and we are of course interested in investigating the meaning of interactivity and the artistic and emotional potentials of performing in interactive and in/with "nervous systems." We hope to send you further reports or publish some of the results on a website. thanks. Johannes Birringer c/o Hellerau Workshop http://www.aliennationcompany.oom http://www.wexarts.org/thefold/ OSU_Dance RHYTMUS UND RICHTUNG DES LEBENS, DER BEWEGUNG, KOENNEN NICHT IN DER VERTIKALEN ANGELEGT SEIN.
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