[-empyre-] Wearable Technologies: or, dances with sound

[Johannes Birringer]

dear all


-- well this last posting by Michèle is very thought-provoking, 
and makes me rethink some of responses i had to the "unspectacular" interactional performance with audio-wearables  (i had initially wanted to draw attention to other modes of reception and engagement, actually, namely the sounding of the garments-accoutrements and built in/attached sensors, but then got caught up in talking about the activiations or actuations of the sound via the gestureal and the touch. Now, obviously, there are some important sensorial processes (and cross modal perceptional tasks) as work, as i tried to connect the gestural (touch) or haptic to the sonic. 

Michèle schreibt:
>>
In response to some of the things that have been discussed to date, I think now, in the context of wearable technologies (where we are considering the internal and external architectures and augmentation of the body) that it is perhaps less interesting to talk about the notion of the ‘spectacle’ where the main concern is to create memorable appearance (unless perhaps this is to convey message as discussed below in Wonderland example) and to turn our gaze more fully to ‘Human-Garment Interactions’ (David Bryson) and the importance of both physical and digital materiality where we look to augment the senses through a better understanding of both the technological, material and inter/intra psychological dimensions.
Textile and garment technologies now have the capabilities to augment the body both inside and out,...
>>

this notion of an inside augmentation I had not thought about, as in the rehearsals in our studio (on design and performance), I mostly work on the physical performance side and how the dancer or performer is processing both the physical kinesthetic experience (of working inside augmented realities and programming environments) and proprioceptive relations, as well as the "controller functions" that are given to the human body through worn sensors or remorte control devices but also amplificatory or bioradio devices that pick up internal "movement" (pulse, etc) and also operate on the thresholds.  In the work (and research projects surrounding it) of Emio Greco | PC, in the Netherlands, we find an interesting instance of a company showing their installation Double Skin/Double Mind (2007) to  open up their physical movement practice to audiences invited to learn or enact some of the principles of choreographic, generative processes  – "inner" intentions as well as the outer shape of gestures and phrases. The company installed an interactive system in the foyers of theatres where Greco’s work was shown, inviting audience members to dance with the “living archive” of Greco’s principles of movement, in front of the digital mirror created through video, computer notation graphics and other co-descriptions. 

I wonder, Michèle, whether such augmentation (inside and outside) that you address could be displayed in such installations,  to let audiences and users explore intrapsychological dimensions, and how wearing and moving in an outfit/garment or an exoskeleton, and how interactional experiences affect / transform understanding and perceiving of inner/outer architectures?

I find it certainly quite telling that some programming in the performing arts, say the FuturePerfect festival in NY (www.futureperfectfestival.org), explicitly focusses on the perceptual psychology and immersion experiences of their audiences, (cf. the ZEE installation by Kurt Hentschläger  at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in 2009)
 

with regards
Johannes Birringer
DAP Lab
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
http://www.danssansjoux.org