Kinaesthetic Traces Across Material Forms : Stretching the Screen's Stage

This chapter explores the body screenographies of performer Loie Fuller, the movement mapping by Scientist Etienne Jules Marey, and the art form of cinedance emerging from both. In trajets, the screens and visiting public together alter patterns in the installation space, which affect the screens' direction, velocity and rotation, and the visitors' pathways or movement trajectories. These interactions, which also include projected images collectively, constitute the choreography of the installation. Loie Fuller and French scientist Etienne Jules Marey created techniques that mediated and materialised bodily movement beyond its ephemeral ever-changing nature. Both of them sought to expand the scientific and artistic scope of movement perception and transformation. Marey isolated the body into a controlled environment to capture quantitative shifts of movement over time with 'movement-mapping' techniques. Fuller, on the other hand, created an expressive 'body-screen', which transformed her body and its surrounding space into animalistic and elemental metaphors. They both contributed to what constitutes movement and kinaesthetic knowledge, on by framing, amplifying and converting movement into linear, sequential, two-dimensional representations, and the other by creating performances which transfigure the expressive materiality of bodily movement. The installation trajets uses mutually constitutive processes of bodily movement techniques to map feedback encouraging the visitor to feel movement vs simply looking movement. The screen is not only a projection surface, but also a dynamic participant in the screenography. Cinedance is an art form that extends both what is cinema and what is dance. This art form extends the body-medium of the audience through movement empathy and haptic perception with cinematic techniques of shifts in point of view, referential framing, decor, montage, compositing and so on. The choreographic interaction still depends on the physical participation of the general non-specialised public, but unlike trajets 2000 it no longer uses computer vision to track the movement of visitors in the instrallation. In order to capture more people simultaneously and with more accuracy, the team pursued the design of a pressure-sensing floor. Movement mapping, body screenographies and cinedance principles contribute to the choreographic research. The artistic research also indirectly reflects the microcosm of a larger, technically mediated socio-kinaesthetic condition we experience in daily routines.

Materials vs Content in digitally Mediated performance

Mark Coniglio refers to Two mediated works: Apparitions by Klaus Obermaier(2004) and 16[R]evolutions by Troika Ranch(2005). He says that both works use motion-tracking systems to interactively generate three-dimensional visuals that respond to movements of the dancers, and both rely on a unified methodology for using those tracked movements to manipulate the media. However, he thinks a work like Apparitions is, in essence, about the materials themselves. On the other hand, the work of Troika Ranch is content-driven. He also thinks that the term materials-content is changeable with these terms: materials-driven and content-driven camps, abstraction and narrative, dance and theater. He proposes that those creating content-driven work must forge ahead in parallel with those who are creating materials driven work. Only if there two camps pay careful attention to each other and audiences are able to experience both models, we have the opportunity to go beyond the historical model as we holistically and simultaneously develop theory, technique, and content.

Artistic Considerations in the Use of Motion Tracking with Live Performers : A Practical Guide

In this paper Robert Wechsler concerns motion tracking, especially its practical uses and artistic implications. He thinks "Motion Tracking" is very popular like 'Motion Capture' and 'Motion Sensing'. 'Motion Capture' means the recording of movement data for later processing. 'Motion Sensing' was coined by Frieder WeiᏰ in 2002 to describe EyeCon and systems like it. While these three terms are interchangeable, there's one distinction: some systems lend themselves more easily than others to realtime media manipulation. He says that in terms of 'Interaction' it is what we are not doing now. He thinks that interactivity depends on a certain degree of looseness, or openness in the artistic material. It is interaction that you can achieve in a performance setting and relates to spontaneity, openness and communication. He also introduces the EyeCon system and several input and output parameters applicable to the system. In the Artistic implications section, he explains mapping and other relevant issues. He says that three aspects to mapping are input, output and compliance which refers to the nature of the casual relationship. Also he thinks there are situations where multiple mappings can be extremely effective, but it causes a diffusion which increases with the number of simultaneous mappings. Then he points out the pitfall of position tracking. From the technical side camera doesn't see the entire stage from above because of the low ceiling of theatres, so the computer will see one person instead of two. From the artistical side the movement takes time, and this time frame defeats a convincing interactive effect. Second, position tracking tends to fail is that it is rarely a physical experience. Finally, location in a space is simply of little interest to us compared to parameters such as shape, acceleration, height, and so on. In the last section, he refers several things that make interactive art interesting: amplification of gesture, communication with an unseen player, visual or acoustic accompaniment and that make interaction convincing: education, timing, repetition, interaction by implication and intuitive logic. In conclusion, he thinks that the central challenge that this field faces is not one of improving the technology, but rather one of developing an understanding of its implications-the changes in the mindset and sensibility of artists as they put it to use.