Re: [-empyre-] body as code net worked performance

[cis <cis@companyinspace.com>]

> 
> To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] body as code net worked performance
> 
> In the final scene
>> of that work, the avatar no longer takes on human form but is visible as
>> collection of geometric shapes  altered dynamically( and in real time) by
>> the movement of the performer.
> 
>> The possibilities of relenquishing any direct representation of the body,
> in
>> 3DVR environments  while understanding the potential for creating
> presence,
>> interaction between shared realtime body data generating performers and
> the
>> interaction between other sets of codes,  artificial  intelligence  within
>> that world is something of a paradigm  shift  for live  performing arts.
> 
> yes im wondering how mainstream dance audiences react to this!! most dance i
> see uses technology and  media  as backdrop rather than as the integral
> medium of the work itself.  i havent had the pleasure of ever attending one
> of your performances.. but  im wondering if  you only use motion captured
> data, or  you combine other datasets or sensor or triggered code  with the
> dancers body to produce visual /audio effects.. ? almost in a " the fly"
> like monstrous hybridisation?

The reactions by dance audiences have varied,
Mostly we are attempting to attract a broader audience, who are not
preconditioned to traditional dance forms.   there is a nervousness within
20th century dance that the body will be come consumed by technoloyy.
specifically the exoskeleton wearable motion capture technology which
creates the symbiosis between the live  performer and the mechanics and
comptuer interface challenges the image of a dancer.    I like this... it is
a new place  to perform from requiring real time attention to  moment to
moment decisions, simultaneously being aware of your live augmented body
performance and the  breathing of life into  avatars as they engage within
the 3DVR world..

algorythmic data sets have been attached to specific loci on the exoskeleton
allowing her to create her own body sounds,  the amplification of voice has
been used to transform other avatars in the world.   this is as you point
out so much more that performing in front of a back drop, you are
interconnected to all of the dialogues and I believe it expands concepts of
the bodies senses as it senses in realtime the interconnectiveness of these
elements. 

In overseas contexts where dance and technology  hybrid performance has been
an agenda, the work  is appreciated then on many levels of technology and
liveness.   to un dance audience  younger ones particularly they are able to
draw references to thier own experiences of engaging in gaming worlds etc
for film and animators other aesthetics conditioning and responces are
provoked
> 
> its sort of interresting that direct represenation of the body remains a
> contested issue.. for instance i am quiet happy to see the body in wire
> frame as its seems quiet normal to me as i work with 3d, but when that sort
> of effect was used in the matrix it was highly exoticised and eroticised,
> (Like in the penetrating the body and pulling the bullet out scene// ).  or
> im also comfortable to visualise  the body as a gemome sequence in CAGT
> code.. or nice protien threads..which some would see as blashphemous
> repudiation of the essence and soul of humanity..   but im a technophile..

I too think  this is wonderful,  that is not to have to be burdened within
the imaginative spaces of 3DVR worlds to the replication of concepts of
image, borders and consequences of interaction in these virtual spaces... it
is possible to let motion files operate on their own within these worlds
and therefore not requiring them to be generated in real time,  ... at this
point  I still like the complexity of performing  with all  possible
elements in the coversations between the body the virtual space and the
physical architectures we inhabit. and with the other conversations with
artifical codes of behaviour that allow new outcomes and interaction which
engenders new  vitalities, between the performer and  AI elements.
> 
> what about teh technophobes..  im wondering if  there is a moral delima for
> an audience in all of this.. that it is  somehow wrong to reduce  ( and
> reduce does have the  negative inference that we are loseing something
> vital ) - or prehaps  recode - the body into another more abstract state..
> 
> also can the audience in any way influence the dancers body or is that a bit
> "stellarc" :)

we have donw some networked motion capture which allowed online audiences to
alter elements  in the  3dVR world, choose camera point of view, sounds, and
add in text commentry,  alter some of the parameters around the realtime
motion capture performer.  Originally the work was networked to another
motion capture performer who's data  could interact with the other remote
realtime mocap performer.   these concepts are currently being extended for
interactions to occer between sets of codes generated in realtime, however
they do not interact directly with the living body such as with stelarc
who's body was triggered to create  his body choreography.

> 
> melinda
> 
> 
> 
>> at this point in time we are researching these relationships.  the
>> technological frontiers being addressed through intelligent and
> responsive
>> programming,  but ultimately with  knowledge that the audience  live in
> situ
>> in physical space to  screens in view of live generating motion capture
>> performer will draw new sensibilities to concepts of choreography, and
>> movement of media between these  spaces.
>> 
>> we are interested to here of people thought on body as code, knowing that
>> daily online communications are building up digital representations of the
>> user through collection of their online identities accumulated while they
> do
>> their banking, search the web etc.
> 
> 
> 
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