Lisa, I've seen a lot of work that uses light sensing technology (like the kind that turns on a flood light in your yard when someone attempts to sneak in your back door -- most are more targeted than that, but they perform the same function) to trigger events in a way that enacts no dynamic transaction with the dance environment. The performer may trigger sound or the beginning of a video sequence, but, in many of these performances there is little that could constitute "tracking." So maybe we should use a variety of language including trigger, tracking, and capture. I also want to make it clear that I'm not trying to depreciate any of these categories. I've seen each used both well and poorly. One of the best uses of motion capture and worst uses of motion tracking I have seen was in a solo concert by Bill T. Jones at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City, Iowa two years ago. Bill performed two dances, then spoke, then a screen dropped down and showed an animation of a circulatory system dancing Bill's steps. Motion capture was used to continue Bill's modernist theme of paring things down to their essence for the purpose of unifying everyone in the auditorium. His metaphor was that of growing a garden. Later in the performance Bill announced that the his movement during an extended improvisation on the stage would be tracked, and based on certain parameters that had been programed into a computer back stage, the music would transition from one track to another. He then asked the audience to choose something like five of seven musical titles. These were the songs that would inspire him to dance and that would be influenced by his dance. Bill danced and the songs changed from one to another, then the music ended abruptly. Iowa City is a community that gives big money to Bill to create new work. They understand his work, but this they didn't understand. Even to those of us in the audience who understood the goals of technology in art, it was a big who cares. It would have been just as interesting, maybe more so, if a stage tech had been switching the music. This use of technology also broke completely from the theme of the evening, which is only important in that Bill defined the evening under a unified theme. The point I'm getting at is that the value of a technology or technique rests in its ability to facilitate the completion of a project rather than its inherent qualities. A motion trigger may be better than motion tracking in a certain performance, while in another tracking may function best.
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