The following message was posted to: dance-tech > I am interested in technologies that are >capable of translating aspects of human movement into >architectural space and into particular >qualities/properties of space. Specifically I am >looking for technologies that can recognise aspects of >human movement and interprete them as deformations or >other modifications of a pre-designed digital >environment/space. (SY) >You should look at the work of Marcos Novak. He did some work with "liquid architectures" that inverted our usual notions about motion-sensing in that it was using the body (the hands, usually) to sense a virtual object in space.> (RP) Socrates's inquiry this week, to which Richard already responded, caught my eye, distracting me from the aftermath of the Monaco Dance Forum, which many of you will have attended and formed an opinion on. [And I'd be interested in some conceptual and descriptive viewpoints on the work that was shown rather than the organizational matters only; naturally we should all be very pleased/grateful to have such a forum].... It intrigued me that Socrates would approach the dance & technology community with questions about design (and spatial/architectural research) and, I gather, software or sensing/tracking technologies that interpret movement and then, if I understand Socrates, could lead to or effect a modification of designed space. What was unclear to me was the issue of what the nature of the designed environment is - I gather it is not real/built space but projective space (in a virtual design stage?) or architectural space that can be VRML-moved through, and movement or movement behavior/attitude is envisioned to be "deformable" or impactful on the design-space. This, on the whole, raises interesting questions also for those of us working with design models for site-performances, dance environments, installations, stage scenographies, interactive and responsive environments, networked (virtual) space, and 3-d animation projects that may use motion capture data to animate a figure that moves through a world and affect it, as such 3-d worlds and game environments also are affected by animated avatars or game players.(yet how are these worlds "affected"?). I would write back and ask Socrates what architectural environments he has in mind, whether they are virtual-architecture projects or social spaces or buildings or corporate rooms or aesthetic spaces or game spaces or digital fantasies? In the latter cases we have numerous possibilities to talk about responsive environment, but in the dance-technology scene most often that refers to actions or projections (images, sound) that happen in a space and on screens. The sound or filmic images that dancers may affect through gesture and movement generally do not affect the architecture of the room directly, only indirectly through our sonic experience (of space, and the psycho-acoustics of such experience) and our visual-perceptive apprehension of something we might call imaginary space, narrative space (rather than decorative). As you can tell, I am approaching the issue from a physical and performative, experiential, point of view, not a software viewpoint, primarily. Equally interesting might be the issue of whether interactive software such as Max/Msp/Jitter, Isadora, Keystroke, Choreograph, BigEye, EyeCon, etc, infact allows us to work with spatial design for any theatrical-social or environmental performance that enables the performers or engagers to affect the built, spatially perceived and cognitively processed environment in real time. I would love to hear those of you interested in architecture tell us how an interactive movement could translate into specific qualities or properties of space you would like to see changed/deformed, and what for, and under what conceptual ideas? In terms of experimentation with liquid architecture, yes, Richard mentions Marcos Novak, and we might also mention Yacov Sharir's collaboration with Novak and Diane Gromola on "Dancing with the virtual dervish," which allows the gestural inflection of 3D design-space or design projections of images derived from parts of the body. Interesting in this case is that the "environment" (though an illusion since composited through computer-processing and perceivable only with goggles) here is a female body and not a "building". We might mention "Osmose," or the "T-Garden" project, or "conFIGURING the CAVE" (Jeffrey Shaw, Hegedüs, Lintermann et al) or Blast Theory's "Desert Rain." I think there have been a few VR projects out there that may be relevant here. What tends to happen with interactive dance performances of course, including current experiments some of us are making with the Jitter plug-in to Max/Msp which allows real-time manipulation of the camera-tracked image of the mover, is that the attention or audience perception is often directed at the transmutation or malleability or deformation of the image of the performer, not of the surrounding environment or space as such. It would interest me, however, to see performance experiments, perhaps with you, Socrates, that allow the interface to work in other directions too, deformations not only of the gesture or the mover-image, but of the entire cognitive and proprioceptive experience of the space in which this happens (including the acoustic space, or the "mystic" space that some of you may have apprehended in the recent Marina Abramovic performance in New York of "Rooms with an Ocean View"). Sascha Waltz's dance company, in their recent "Körper" performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, also worked explicitly with/against the architectural space and the huge wall/glass container, but no software involved there, just human bodies and choreographies. >From your letter it was not clear to me whether you are thinking of this experience to happen on a computer screen or in a real bodied space/shared space! The problem with Jitter and all interactive software using video output, naturally, is that we receive "spaces" that are rarely spaces with volume or mass or tactile materiality -- they are screen projections, flat and thin, since our video never obtains the spatial-illusionistic quality and tactility of 35mm film. And do we live in the postcinematic era, already? hmm. I hope we can continue this dialogue, sincerely Johannes Birringer Alienation Co. currently on exhibition with "finally a place...." Trans-Site Studio, Houston, Texas http://www.aliennationcompany.com/gallery/vs.htm ---------------------------------------- The Dance-Tech mailing list has recently moved to a new address. To post a message, send email to dance-tech@dancetechnology.org. To unsubscribe, send email to lists@dancetechnology.org, with the words "unsubscribe dance-tech" in the message body. ----------------------------------------
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