Chapter 6 Materials vs Content in Digitally Mediated Performance

Chapter 6 Materials vs Content in Digitally Mediated PerformanceThe Author classifies the performance in two types: one is material-driven one and the other is content-driven one. Both of works used motion tracking systems that respond to movements of the dancers and a unified methodology for using those tracked movements to manipulate the media. However there are big differences between them.1.Material-driven performance : Apparitions by Klaus Obermaier(2004)-the visuals stay within a clearly defined realm throughout the course of the piece and these visuals are visible throughout almost the entire work.-exhaustively explore the attributes of all materials used in a work.-these works are in essence, about the materials themselves.2.Contents-driven performance :16[R]evolutions by Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stopiellohttp://www.troikaranch.org/16revs/trailer-qt.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ3_AOBX6TM&NR=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rbv7n0ZgA98 (about the technology)-It presents a far more varied palette of visual imagery that is present in several sections but is significantly absent in others and in a few spots the imagery is not interactively controlled at all.-Full exploration of the narrative arc is of primary importance, and that the materials, whether they be movement, text, or visuals can be brought to bear as needed as long as they support the aesthetic intent of the piece and as long as they do not appear as deus es machina.-They attempt to join the visual imagery with the dance and theatrical sections in support of ideas. The rigor comes in relating all materials to the core narrative theme of the work.-to intensify each other in a complementary manner, so that the viewer's attention remain intensely focused on the content of the work.When attempting to combine technologically advanced visual imagery with content-based performance, we find some problem because imagery(in large scale) is seductive in a way that is quite difficult to control. Viewer also can not concentrated to the contents because viewers are seduced by the visuals to the point where the other materials became invisible or a viewer is not rigorous as a viewer.(newness and novelty of the imagery makes it difficult for the inexperienced viewer to focus on anything.)-Suggestion to move past this stageThose who are creating content-driven work must forge ahead in parallel with those who are creating materials driven work.If these two camps pay attention to each other as we present our work, and the audiences are able to experience both modes, we have the opportunity go beyond the historical model as we holistically and simultaneously develop theory, technique, and content. The technology is very fancy at first and it is getting most often used to support the performance or art works. But after a time it is not a priori. It is integrated into our experience that exhaustive exploration of it becomes unnecessary.Classifying performance in two category is a little unnatural. Material or technology is not an oppositional concept to content. I think two elements are needed to explore the art works. and make an impact on each other.Troika Ranch is a digital dance theater company that focuses on creation, education and innovation in theatrical performance. In 1990 choreographerDawn Stoppiello and composer/media artist Mark Coniglio founded Troika Ranch,Troika Ranch’s original stage works are based on a specific process of interaction between live performers and digital media.16Revolutions100,000 years of human evolution are condensed into 16 [R]evolutions. The work focuses on a single evolutionary path: how the animal drives of our pre-human ancestors have become sublimated to the point of abject confusion and disconnection. In stark contrast to this path, are exquisite three-dimensional visuals that warp and morph in direct response to the dancers movement. 16 [R]evolutions asks the question, can we reconnect with our core needs to feed, fight and reproduce while continuing to evolve into beings of light and intellect?Troika Ranch uses interactive digital media and computer technology as an essential component of their performances. Bending arm can warp a video image and the kick of a leg can recall a musical phrase.Troika Ranch’s sensory devices allow the dancers to approach a performance in a manner similar to a jazz musician: they can follow their instincts from moment to moment.Isadora® is the software “brain” behind Troika Ranch performances and is the main technology used to generate the 3D imagery for Troika Ranch’s current project. Isadora is a graphic programming environment that provides interactive control over digital media, with special emphasis on real-time manipulation of digital video. Isadora gathers movement information from various sensory devices and uses that information to control and manipulate digital video, music synthesizers, sound modulation devices, theatrical lighting and robotic set pieces.

Chapter5 Artistic considerations in the use of motion tracking with live performers

Chapter5 Artistic considerations in the use of motion tracking with live performersTopic of this chapter is motion tracking from the viewpoint of its practical uses and artistic implications.From Ancient Greek theatres, human motion is used in performance to control sounds and images. Digital technologies such as video surveillance cameras and computers became affordable in the mid 1990s. They were taken up by many technology- interested artists including Troika Ranch, Ventra Dance Company, and Palindrome, In the 2000s a kind of dialogue between actor and machine is possible.Today many audiences are tiring of digital effects and the interactive performing scene is a crisis.motion tracking : Motion tracking, motion capture and motion sensing are ex interchangeably used by artists to describe systems in which video cameras are attached to computers. The human motion data from these systems are used to generate or influence secondary media such as sounds, music, or projections in stage and installation art.realtimeinteraction: interaction is a feeling you can achieve in a performance setting. It relates to spontaneity, openness, looseness and communication in the artistic material which allows for a convincing exchange to take place. Motion tracking and interaction affect our appreciation of the theatre or dance, even if interaction is not more artistic or the goal.The EyeCon System : It is an excellent tool for dancers and choreographers to control music and sound samples with their movement. EyeCon allows a variety of parameters of input and output and compliance to the interactive systems. Compliance refers to the nature of the casual relationship, Compliance concerns the psychology of the relationship: input and output.many relevant issues that make the performance interesting and artistic: camera angle, amplification of gesture, communication with an unseen player visuals or acoustic accompaniment. They are dependent on both Technology and psychology: Education, timing, repetition, Interaction by implication and intuitive logic.Conclusion: The fascination with the means can confuse the end. Technical issues are often confused with efficacy from an artistic standpoint. when artists use the technology, they should consider developing an understanding of its implications rather than improving the technology.

Chapter4 Saira Virous : Game Choreography in multiplayer online performance spaces

Chapter4 Saira Virous : Game Choreography in multiplayer online performance spaces -Johannes BirringerDance and game may not appear to have a natural connection in Western culture, but dance which has moved into the telematic, networked terrain shares the digital design technologies that underlie the creation of artificial environments. In dance interactive design obviously includes the body that provide data and wear sensors with all its transactional capabilities. Gestures of performer that control human-computer interaction play a important role. The interactive relationship generally involves the control of and reaction to-digital image and sound generation or animation, the mutation of media form.Performance is no longer site-specific as it joins the creative industries, the Internet and streaming media It uses techniques of moving image production or data manipulation on a microcellular level. On the other hand, since so much interactivity involves media output(video, audio, animation), performance appears glued into screen-projection media. All photos we see today of such dance performances show the dance in front of, or surrounded by, digital projections.interactive environmentssensory environment, immersive environments, networked environments, derived environmentWe witness interest in abstraction, denaturalisation and media-computational investigation in many performances which integrate 'virtual bodies' in the choreography.(eg Merce Cunningham, Bill T. Jones) This tends to contradict the general emphasis on 'realism' in favored, in the popular 'first person shooter game', a clear relationship between the player's viewpoint(performed by an avatar) and the figures in the virtual game world.Game interface design : constructing a direct view of the screen scene through the player's eyes/ matching and synchronizing player actions with changes and movements on the screen. The myth of interactivityWhat causes the aesthetics or immersive experience in the interactive works?Not a dexterity of skill nor technical skill indicates the aesthetics or immersive experience and qualitative input.Interactivity in the evolution of interactive media art is clunky, the intuitive, the sensual, the coldly mechanical and enervating interfaces. The myth of participation has to be measured against the notion of pleasure that is used by games analyst.The pleasure of gaming and telematic pleasurethe computer game is a rule-based formal system with a variable and quantifiable outcome. The player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome. They feels attached to the outcome and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable. Multiplayer online games excite the body, generate affective alliances, social formations and communal relationships for the sharing of resources.telematic pleasure is based on based on similar process of socialisation and self-organization , and stimulate pleasure to experiment with playful scenarios that would not have occurred on a theatre stage.

Chapter2 Truth-seeker's Allowance

Chapter2 Truth-seeker's Allowance: Digitising Artaud -Steve DixonSteve Dixon's multimedia theatre practice fuses digitally manipulated video projections with live theatre to follow Artaudian and surrealist ideas, and to update their notion of truth for an audience. Truth underlies comedy, the expletive insult or some men's guilt as much as sublime aesthetic image.Artaud‘s truths were centred on ideas such double, cruelty and the body and his vision of truth was a theatre of cruelty. So The Chameleons Group attempts to embrace and update this vision. The Chameleons Group, is interested in using multimedia in live performance to explore and expose serious existence issues, altered mental states and metaphysical notion. The use of technology in creating the projector enables each actor (in video recording) to reach a point of acting truth through focussed preparation. Like the language of surrealism the tension between the stage and the screen is in constant play during performances and in many ways defines the essential ontology of multimedia theatre. Within multimedia theatre the screen spaces and their images tend to explore notion of reality and truth far more than the live performers within the stage attempt. Filmic 'complexities' are doubly extended through digital manipulations and metamorphoses. On the other hand opponents contest that there is a mismatch of media and a corruption of theatre's purity as a live form. Also media projections do not enhance the intellectual power or visual spectacle of theatre. In 1929 Robert Edward Jones argued that the fusion of theatre and cinema prompted a unique and potent new for new art form. In multimedia theatre live actor would represent the character's outer self and the screen imagery the inner world of imagination, subconscious and dream. The two worlds that together make up the world we live in.Derrida's destruction of language parallels Artaud‘s celebration of theatre as a plague. The plague analogy highlights a subversion of morality and society where barriers become fluid, order disappears and anarchy prevails. While Derrida's linguistic plague darkens, divides and undermines notions of meaning and the truth by contrast, Artuad's plague is bright and blinding in its revelation, seeks transcendant, unifying meanings. Derrida's poststructualist thought is descended from Nietzche. For Nietzsche the distinctions between appearance and reality expounded by Platonium and science constituted a false whereas in his view there was only one world. Today that world is filled with new technologies and their incorporation into theatrical practice brings into being the potential for a synthesis where the two elements stage and screen make up a new world capable of expressing truth.