Mat Gough - Hyperchoreography

I've been looking at Mat Gough's Blog again to try to see how he can fit into both my dissertation and the Network Mashup work we've been exploring.

The following quote from his blog fits with the work of Cunningham and Cage that I've been looking at in the use of chance within a rigid structure. Also the multi-directional links he describes is what we're trying to create with the tagged data from our system.

"in a networked environment where all links are revealed and 'new' links can added by users, multi directional - two way connection enhance the perception of intertexts. no longer must the author use chance procedures to disrupt their unconscious constructions of meaning, the provision of a mechanism to explore, expand and visualise the intertexts of their authored text performs the same function."

- Mat Gough - networked choreography - ii

Mat Gough says previously to the above quote:

if the initial conditions (the movement corpus) of a dance work are small and ring-fenced (the choreographer produces, selects and controls the material) then our bias for particular semiotic readings results in a low level of indeterminacy. the only way to achieve 'maximum' indeterminacy is for the choreographer to exert minimal control over the movement corpus.

'minimal control' of the corpus need not mean 'found' choreography in the tradition of 4'33", if we define choreography as 'making structures in which movement may occur' then the choreographer can still retain some ownership of contextual meaning. presented in an appropriate structure, divergent content forms the dissonant harmony of authored indeterminacy

- Mat Gough -networked choreography - ii

I think the next quote fits with the manner in which Cage and Cuningham work in Variations V. The chance element of the dancers position to the antennae and the creation of the score using dice rolls within Variations V is the minimum control within the corpus of the work. This creates an indeterminacy within the work. However they still maintain a 'ring-fenced' approach to the work in the rigidity of the over riding structure of the piece by Cage and Cunnignham. This lowers the level of the indeterminacy by reducing the divergence of the forms within the piece. The framework is static with the chance creating the indeterminacy within the structure creating a 'fabricated' hyperchoreography as the indeterminacy of the mixing forms is limited within this static structure.

This is the small cuts I did wih Suzzane and Becks as a test for the green screen work I did I thought I'd just put them up to give an idea of progression.

Rhizome - Deleuze & Guarttari

I've been reading a section of Deleuze & Guarttari's essay 'A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. I was advised by David Cheeseman my MA tutor to look at the theory of the Rhizome as it applies to Jonathan and my work on creating adaptive creative frameworks. I don't want to attach a response to the work yet as I'm still trying to take in the language of the essay which is pretty hard going. Above however I will take out quotes that interest me and I think have a relevance to the work we're creating.

The Networked Mash-Up: Gridded Resources in Real-Time

The following is Jonathan's write up of the notes we made for our Network Mashup presentation they are originally on Jonathan Green's Blog. We worked together through this project and we will be both expanding on notes written up here.

An overview of a demonstration by a VJ (Keir Williams), electronic musician (Jonathan Green) and a dancer, of a computer network designed especially for the performing arts.

Identification of Possibilities of E-Science

Gridded technologies allow for collaborative performances. The traditional separation and resulting lack of synchronisation between disciplines during performance is abandoned in favor of a modular system which promotes learning, exploration and experimentation which often leads to happy accidents.

The gridded distribution of artists and technical know-how does not, as may be expected, decrease the strength of relationship between disciplines, but rather makes possible a more integrated performance through interdisciplinary communication. The notion of content fusion is a result of the inclusive methodology employed.

Since usability has been a priority in the conception of the system, performers (dancers, VJs and electronic musicians in this case) are liberated from the burden of poor software interfaces and are instead free to concentrate on interpersonal communications and the reactions of other performers.

We wanted to use novel and user-friendly hardware interfaces to the complex computer software we needed to use. We chose gamepads, fader boxes, microphones (audio analysis) and motion sensors. We took the idea of interfacing a little further and thanks to an iSight and motion capture software especially designed for the system, we were able to use a dancer literally as a bidirectional computer input device. The dancer provided real-time motion data and at the same time was free to react to the sense of space and the resultant projections. This interactive performance ‘loop’ became evident on several levels.
Conclusion of Possibilities

Through the demonstration we had proved that our concept of the networked mash-up had some promise. Our system allows for synchronisation between different performance disciplines. We even managed to prove the system not only in a local network, but also over the internet (see Remote-Controlled Max Patches post). Our system could be scaled up in terms of number of nodes, collaborators and geographical locations (see Future Possibilities below).

Practicalities of a Distributed Performance System

The system is based on a number of nodes. In our demonstration we had three computer nodes (network devices, in other words). It could be argued that the dancer herself is a node, since she feeds and reacts to other nodes. A node, therefore, does not have to be a computer or a traditional network device.

Some example of possible nodes:

* musical instrument (audio analysis, done at source, provides the control data)
* sensor networks (motion capture and environmental data)
* RSS feeds (the internet as a node)

Our gridded system is open to data generated externally. A real-world example of why this might be absolutely necessary: random numbers. Computers cannot generated entirely random numbers. During our demonstration, we accessed a website which publishes random numbers generated by the beta-decay of Krypton-85.


What is Distributed?

* computing power – we could not have done video analysis, audio synthesis and real-time video processing on a single computer
* data – any computer on the network could contribute data or pull down any data and then transform it in a specialised manner

In contrast, the following is not distributed:

* specialist performer skill of specific disciplines
* function – each node carries out its own specialist function

An important concept here is that each node does not need to know how other nodes function, only what data they produce, and even then, each data packet does not have a sender’s address.

At the moment all data exists in a relatively flat hierarchy (like MIDI). There is no means of filtering out unwanted data according to characteristics, type, source or any other meta data. This would certainly be a limitation if the system were expanded.

Data is broadcast in a sterile format that does not favor any particular discipline. It is up to a particular node to filter the data in a way which is appropriate to the function of that node.
Future Possibilities

As explained above, we are limited by the data protocol. At the moment, we are using MIDI which is non-descriptive. This not only makes it difficult to use, requiring a separate document giving a description of each stream of data, but also limits scalability. By tagging data with meta-data, we solve not only issues of scale but also usability. By using a more human-readable protocol (such as Open Sound Control) we can draw a parallel with existing, proven data filtering systems employed by Flickr, YouTube and del.icio.us.
Conclusion (Social Impact)

The notion of distribution, whether computing power, data, knowledge or responsibility is suggestive of the Open Source paradigm. Open Source projects often have a wide user-base and community of enthusiasts. Collaboration is taken for granted.

If scaled up, the Networked Mash-Up idea could bring together artists from diverse backgrounds and working practices in a non-location specific manner (although the location of nodes could be conceptually exploited).
Resources

* Network schematic screenshot
* E-Science Max Patches (used in demonstration)
* Photos from the E-Science workshops on Flickrr> * Remote-Controlled Max Patches – notes on expanding the system
* Video of performance on YouTube

Green Screen Revisited Video and photos

Green Screen - Revisited

Well yesterday myself, Steve from Film Cafe and Suzanne from Birmmingham Dance Colllective had a green screen dance adventure. Continuing on from my previous visit to the green screen studio I decided to get the lighting and shots sorted. Previously I tried using side lightinng to fill Suzzane and Becks out from the backdrop. This didn't work and meant the key out was difficult and left the dancers looking flat. With the multiple skills and equipment of Steve we lit Suzanne with two back lights to seperate her from the back lighting. We then used fours lights from either side to both key and fill the space. This worked wonderfully and we got some beuatiful shots with a nice flat green back drop to key out.

As I've said Steve runs Film Cafe a production company. He has a large range of equipment which includes a Camera Jib. This jib allows the camera to move freely on all axis including up and down. This allowed me to get shots of Suzanne where the camera could 'dance' in repsonse to her movement. Above are the stills and video I shot on my camera phone. Watch out for the footage of the shoot as the week goes on.

Variations V notes

The interest I have in this piece stems from the date, 1965 and the manner in which it incorporates many different art forms. Wagner talked about the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk . This simply put means,' total work of art' or 'complete artwork'. Wagner used it to 'refers to an operatic performance encompassing music, theater, and the visual arts.' 1 It can also be translated as a synthesis of arts. The fusing of art forms into a continuous whole. This can also be looked at in terms of the Inter-disciplinary and the Multidisciplinary. The inter-disciplinary is the fusing of artistic elements so that they become one. The multidisciplinary approach is described in Wikipedia as, 'examining multiple subjects from different disciplines but only uses the methods of one discipline in its examination.'2 To me the multiple subjects are the individual art forms and the one method of discipline in its examination can be the framework and facilitation created for the work. It allows a distance between the artistic forms whilst maintaining a a common framework or format within the piece. Rudolf Frieling in his essay Reality/Mediality Hybrid Processes Between Art and Life3
puts forward the idea that John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Robert Rauschenberg, "...placed their stakes not on holistic aspirations but on artistic autonomy and difference." He goes on to say that this is an extension of Bertolt Brecht's argument against the Wagner idea of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' in 'Notes on the Opera (1930):

So long as the expression ‹Gesamtkunstwerk› (or ‹integrated work of art›) means that the integration is a muddle, so long as the arts are supposed to be ‹fused› together, the various elements will all be equally degraded, and each will act as a mere ‹feed› to the rest.… Words, music, and setting must become more independent of one another.4

If we look at the performance Variations V and the framework constructed for it we can see this exemplified. The dancers perform in a media constructed space in that there movement within the performance space generates and triggers sound. This is then filtered and constructed by the audio artists. On the back drops mixed television images and film are projected but unaffected by the performers other than there placement within the physical space. The dance and music score was decided by using a coin to determine the position of each element. The elements consisted of 35 remarks dealing with structure, components and methodology. This randomness combined with a selection of predefined structural elements including the physical space fits into the idea of separation of the art forms whilst contributing to a constructed whole.

The reactive performance space isn't constructed to allow the dancers to have total control of the musical score. It hasn't become a direct instrument in the traditional sense. The music triggered by the dancers is controlled and filtered by the audio artists and the selection of the sounds that form the bases of the electronic score. There is however an element of control for the performers in that they have the feed back from their movement in the form of music, therefor allowing them to repeat actions that generate specific sounds or effects. The sound triggered by the dancers is controlled and filtered by the audio artists and the selection of the sounds that form the bases of the electronic score.

This control of the sound by the performers is an element in the overall control of the music artists and engineers. Equally the dancers movement and expressio is still controlled by the initial movement vocabulary and choreography of Merce Cunnnigham. The elements of chance in the consruction of the score and in the movements relationship to the sound acts as both a connectino between the forms and a disruption. The staginbg of the film and vidoe work has an influence on the other art forms by being part of the pre constructed placement and framework thus becoming part of the physical and 'collaberative' space. There is however an overall control of the enviroment and framework of the work that is to me static in it's nature. The elements within it are able to interchange to an extend but there seems to me to be a strong elemnt of control and individual, in Merce Cunnignham, John Cage and David Tudor.

On the artmuseum; web site the blurb for the piece states:

'The anarchic nature of Cage's work, with its bold acceptance of indeterminacy (chance) as an integral part of its composition, later encouraged the composer to extend this new found freedom to include the participation of the audience. Cage, inspired by Zen Buddhism, revels in an anarchy that dethrones the artist as the heroic, all-powerful arbiter of creative expression. He proposes instead a shift to an inclusive, participatory art that encourages interaction between artist, performer and audience.'5

I would argue that the Cunningham, Cage and Tudor are in fact the opposite. The rigidity of the overlying framework allows a meeting and transference between forms but does not allow for the individual forms to feed, pick up and alter the framework it's self. You are therefor left with a space that promotes multi-disaplinary actions it is the prescribed framework that is the result of an, 'all-powerful arbiter of creative expression' or in this case three arbiters.

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk
2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-disciplinary
3.Need to refrence for now: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/performance/print/
4. Bertolt Brecht, «Anmerkungen zur Oper ‹Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny›,» in Gesammelte Werke 17, Schriften zum Theater 3, Frankfurt/ Main 1967, pp. 1010f. (Brecht quoted after Henry M. Sayre, The Object of Performance. The American Avant-garde since 1970, Chicago, 1992, p. 108).
5. http://www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/timeline/Cage.html

Variations V - John Cage

John Cage
Variations V
Photo by Herve Gloaguen
Courtesy of Merce Cunningham Dance Company

The film of the performance can be viewed HERE at the Media Art Net Site.

Variations V is a piece I am currently looking at for my Masters thesis. Media Art Net describes the piece in the following way.

John Cage made «Variations V» in 1965 for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He and David Tudor settled on two systems for the sound to be affected by movement. For the first, Billy Klüver and his colleagues set up a system of directional photocells aimed at the stage lights, so that the dancers triggered sounds as they cut the light beams with their movements. A second system used a series of antennas. When a dancer came within four feet of an antenna a sound would result. Ten photocells were wired to activate tape-recorders and short-wave radios. Cecil Coker designed a control circuit, which was built by my assistant Witt Wittnebert. Film footage by Stan VanDerBeek and Nam June Paik's manipulated television images were projected on screens behind the dancers.
The score was created by flipping coins to determine each element and consisted of thirty-five «remarks» outlining the structure, components, and methodology. The specific sound score would change at each performance as it was created by radio antennas responding to the dancers' movements.
In this photograph «Variations V» is performed for a television taping session in Hamburg. The photocells were located at the base of the five-foot antennas placed around the stage. Cage, Tudor, and Gordon Mumma operate equipment to modify and determine the final sounds.
The project was also presented at the Philharmonic Hall in New York, 1965.

Above I have given my notes an ideas around the use of collaberatino and framework within this piece.

My Brain

I'm tired and can't be bothered to write up my notes. So here is a Dub controlled video of how my brain is feeling right now. I used the same grid system plugged into Modul8. The brain is actually mine and is manipulated from an MRI scan I had done for someones research into dyslexia.

This is the video of the performance. As you can see we've got Susan dancing in front of a video camera. This is then analaysed and sent into the grid. In turn this is picked up by myself as a midi feed and video feed into my VJ package Modul8 . It was also available for the sound program on Jonathan's computer which interprited the midi data, creating a sound scape. We then layered a set of controls on this allow myself and Jonathan to control both the video and audio from any point on the grid. The controllers were a midi mixing desk and a usb control pad.

Well here is a image of the performance taken by the photographer Mike Priddy.

The Networked Mashup - Key Note Presentation

Well here's the start of it. The keynote presentation myself and Jonathon used after the demonstartion of the system. I'm just editing hte video and will include it and a flickr images of the performance.

As I haven't yet had a chacne to write up the notes for our project yet I've included a link to Robert Sharl's blog, Futurilla which has som einteresting comments about the day.

Norman Mclaren

I recently met Matt Gough, Dancer and programmer through the eScience wokrshops the VRU unit have been putting on. He saw some of my green screen work with Susan and showed me apiece by Norman McLaren that he thought I'd be interested in. It's amazing how much it fits with the ideas I've been wokring with for a few years. It really facinates me because it was made in 1953 using film and an optical frame printer, no final cut magic here.

VRU eScience Workshop

Well the workshop went ahead as planned and I think myself and Jonathan got the ideas behind the work across to the audience. Ill be adding a description of the project, our keynote presentation as well as youtube and flicker feeds tomorrow [Monday].

Multi Suzzane...Damnn

Here are a couple of videos I made form the first green session with Birmingham Dance collectives Suzzane.

Our workshop for the eScience VRU workshop project is on Friday. So myself and Jonothon Green have been experiemtning with our setup. We introduced Susan, one of the contemporary dancers I've been working with into the space today. We practiced with her in the space and talked about her use as an input device into the creative grid we've created. This is interesting because we're intereseted in setting up this complecated system and then removing a level of control. So with sound we have reduced the control of the sound that she is creating by being in the space, by using a game pad. With the video control I'm effecting the VJ program from a remote computer using a set of audio faders and nobs.

Experiments in Dance

These images are from some Green Screen experiments I've been doing with a pair of Dancers in Moseley, Birmingham. I've been taking classes with them every morning and they work together professionally. This means that directing the for the filming was joy. Unfortunately I haven't got the lighting quite right yet so they get a green inner glow. I am working with Steve from FilmCafe who is a master of all things lens based. I'll put a Youtube version up soon.

Piece for Power Book and Cello

My Live Feed Adventure

These images are stills form my a piece myself and Jonathon Green are creating for a workshop at the Ikon Gallery this Friday [10th Nov. 2006]

We've been using a mashup of Modul8 and Max_msp. Basically we have a video feed from one computer on the net running image analasys through Max_msp and then sent to the next computer as a udp stream. This is then picked up on the other computer in a Max patch and transformed into a midi stream. This is then used to control the Modul8 VJ program with live feeds from the video analysis form the other computer.

Hello World

Right this is the first post I've tried so I'm going to put up some random images to see what happens.