[-empyre-] Welcome to Week 3: New Year:/New Tools and Technologies in performance based work

Tue Feb 24 14:11:34 AEDT 2015

Thanks Simon for sharing your work especially Crosstalk. I am wondering if
there are other folks on empyre that also construct augmented
environments.  It would interesting to hear a bit more about the
logistics.  We have  been focusing this month on some of the tools and
technologies that enable our conceptual ideas.  Simon would you mind
giving us a cue as to how all this works.  I am particularly curious about
how the voice and the interpretative language systems work.  I presume the
engine is programmed or relies on a coded system.  Curious if your are
using any proprietary software or something that you have innovated?  Just
giving us a few more logistics would be interesting for our subscribers
who may also use similar systems.  Best.   Renate

On 2/22/15, 11:17 PM, "Simon Biggs" <simon at littlepig.org.uk> wrote:

>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>Sue Hawksley (choreographer), Garth Paine (composer) and myself (media
>artist) have completed a couple of works in this area, most recently
>Crosstalk.
>
>Documentation can be found here:
>http://www.littlepig.org.uk/installations/crosstalk/index.htm
>
>Crosstalk is a collaborative interactive performance work for two
>performers whose movement and speech are re-mediated within an augmented
>environment employing real-time 3D motion tracking, multi-source voice
>recognition, interpretative language systems, 3D visualisation employing
>a custom physics engine, large scale projection and surround-sound audio
>synthesis. The acquired speech of the dancers is re-mediated through
>projected digital display and sound synthesis, the performers causing
>texts to interact and recombine with one another through their physical
>actions. The elements in the system all effect how each adapts, from
>state to state, as the various elements of the work - people, machines,
>language, image, movement and sound - interact with one another.
>Crosstalk reveals social relations, as articulated in language acts of
>various kinds (the performative), as a generative ontology of self-hood:
>an assemblage for 'making people'.
>
>In respect of technological inspiration, the work borrows from Alan
>Turing's concept for the original Turing Machine. Turing wrote:
>
>..an unlimited memory capacity obtained in the form of an infinite tape
>marked out into squares, on each of which a symbol could be printed. At
>any moment there is one symbol in the machine; it is called the scanned
>symbol. The machine can alter the scanned symbol and its behavior is in
>part determined by that symbol, but the symbols on the tape elsewhere do
>not affect the behavior of the machine. However, the tape can be moved
>back and forth through the machine, this being one of the elementary
>operations of the machine. Any symbol on the tape may therefore
>eventually have an innings.
>
>Alan Turing, 1948, "Intelligent Machinery." Reprinted in "Cybernetics:
>Key Papers." Ed. C.R. Evans and A.D.J. Robertson. Baltimore: University
>Park Press, 1968. p. 31.
>
>In Crosstalk the 'symbols' consist of people, their actions and the words
>they utter, combined with the sounds, texts and images generated by the
>system. These are all recursive elements that are all part of a feedback
>loop, often composed of other feedback loops, which ultimately determine
>the performance. The 'tape' is simply the duration of the performance in
>the interactive space. The output of the system consists of texts, sounds
>and the relational dynamics between all the elements, including the
>performers. The audience can also be part of the system.
>
>best
>
>Simon
>
>
>> On 23 Feb 2015, at 14:27, Renate Terese Ferro <rferro at cornell.edu>
>>wrote:
>> 
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Over the next few days I thought I would introduce a new thread and open
>> it up to our subscriber list especially those of you interested in
>> performance based work and technology.  Just this past week the
>> choreographer William Forsythe was in residence at Cornell University;
>> Bill¹s latest work revolves around the choreographic object.
>> 
>> Forsythe writes:
>> A choreographic object is not a substitute for the body, but rather an
>> alternative site for the understanding of potential instigation and
>> organization of action to reside.  Ideally, choreographic ideas in this
>> form would draw and alternative, diverse readership that would
>>eventually
>> understand and, hopefully, champion the innumerable manifestations of,
>>old
>> and new, of choreographic thinking.²
>> 
>> Several of his latest works use objects such as the 400 pendulums
>> suspended on overhanging sleds in his piece Nowhere and Everywhere at
>>the
>> Same Time
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59QRpcLgPOQ
>> 
>> 
>> Or the robotic arms used in his piece Black Flags
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDVLfuQTafQ
>> 
>> 
>> Additionally, Forsythe in collaboration with others at  Ohio State
>> University created a motion databank which can be seen at the website
>> http://motionbank.org/en/content/about
>> 
>> Hope those of you involved in somatic practices and technology will
>>share
>> some of the tools, technologies and conceptual ideas that are inspired
>>by
>> them with us over the next few day.s
>> Renate
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Renate Ferro
>> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,Cornell University
>> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
>> Ithaca, NY  14853
>> Email:   <rferro at cornell.edu <mailto:rtf9 at cornell.edu>>
>> URL:  http://www.renateferro.net <http://www.renateferro.net/>
>>      http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
>> <http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net/>
>> Lab:  http://www.tinkerfactory.net <http://www.tinkerfactory.net/>
>> 
>> Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu
>> 
>
>
>Simon Biggs
>simon at littlepig.org.uk
>@_simonbiggs_
>
>http://www.littlepig.org.uk
>http://amazon.com/author/simonbiggs
>
>simon.biggs at unisa.edu.au
>Professor of Art, University of South Australia
>http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/staff/homepage.asp?name=simon.biggs
>
>s.biggs at ed.ac.uk
>Honorary Professor, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh
>http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/edinburgh-college-art/school-of-ar
>t/staff/staff?person_id=182&cw_xml=profile.php
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
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