Dancing on the Grid – new article

20 01 2009

After reporting the first year of the project’s work in Edinburgh at the 2008 e-Science All Hands Meeting, we’ve updated this in a new article:

Bailey, H., Bachler, M., Buckingham Shum, S., Le Blanc, A., Popat, S., Rowley, A. and Turner, M. (2009). Dancing on the Grid: Using e-Science Tools to Extend Choreographic Research. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 13 July 2009, Vol. 367, No. 1898, pp. 2793-2806. [PDF]

This paper considers the role and impact of new and emerging e-Science tools on practice-led research in dance. Specifically it draws on findings from the e-Dance project. This two-year project brings together an interdisciplinary team combining research aspects of choreography, next generation of video conferencing, and Human-Computer Interaction analysis incorporating hypermedia and non-linear annotations for recording and documentation.

Keywords: Access Grid, Choreography, Dance, e-Science, Hypertext, Knowledge Cartography, Networked Performance



Research Intensive 6

14 11 2008

Performers: Louise Douse and Sita Popat

The sixth research intensive of the project is taking place over several days throughout November, the first of which was held on 13 November 2008.  The team worked in two locations, at University of Manchester and the Open University in Milton Keynes. The team comprised myself (Helen), Simon, Michelle and Louise at the OU and Sita, Martin, Anja and Andrew at Manchester. This research intensive has two key aims – (1) to explore the enhanced AG environment for distributed live performance from a purely screen-based perspective, (2) to use Compendium to map this process in order to feed into this aspect of the software development.  It was really exciting to be working across such a geographically distributed context.  Although we have worked in this way in previous Intensives, the multiple locations have been within the same campus (at either Manchester or Bedford) in order that we were to be able to firefight more easily.  So this is an indication of the robustness of the developments, that we were able to do this with a fairly short set-up time. 



MIMA Workshop in New York

10 11 2008

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I spent a week in New York (26-31 October) with New York/Berlin-based Dance tech. company Troika Ranch http://www.troikaranch.org/.  I was participating in the MIMA: Moving Image Media Artists workshop, along with ten other international artists/academics.  The workshop was funded by the New York State Council for the Arts and provided an intensive engagement with the Isadora software developed by Company co-Director Mark Coniglio.  The workshop was held at the New York City arts and technology space 3LD Art & Technology Center http://3leggeddog.org/mt/

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It was a really interesting venue, not least because of the sci-fi 2001/Star Wars interior! The workshop was excellent and pretty intensive in terms of the breadth of material covered.  The whole week was essentially spent getting to grips with the software. 

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It was led by Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stopiello the co-Directors of the Company.  It was great to have direct access to the developer of the software in order to understand something of the design imperatives that drove the development.  I think that Isadora will offer huge amounts to our development in terms of how we manage and manipulate live and recorded streamed video.  The issue seems to be around the number of cameras that can be utilised at any given time (although Mark is apparently working on this for the next piece they are currently working on) and networking capacity. I think that probably the best way to negotiate this would be to invite Mark to one of our intensives and focus on the possibilities for integrating the software.

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Post Me_New ID Forum in Dresden, Germany

7 11 2008

Last week I (Sita) was in Dresden, Germany, as a guest presenter at the Post Me_New ID Forum (31st October-2nd November 2008).  The Forum web site describes this international gathering of academics and professional artists as “a platform for reflection on how we are creatively and socially engaged in digital networks, how we perform our online and offline identities, how we have become plural and variable post human bodies.” The site includes a full record of the event, and an active blog.

Hellerau

The event was held at Hellerau (above), once the workspace of such performance visionaries as Mary Wigman (dance) and Adolphe Appia (scenography).  

The first day of the Forum was devoted to discussions around the topic of “Networked Creations”.  Yacov Sharir gave a keynote presentation, following which I conducted a public ‘conversation’ with the Australian choreographer Hellen Sky.  We discussed the fluid and expanding body in digital performance, and we explored how networked creative processes and identities are characterised by fragmentation, partial attention, and notions of ‘becoming’.  It was very interesting to hear Hellen Sky referencing her extensive background in telematic performance with her group Company in Space.

The following day explored “Multi-identities”, and Steve Dixon gave an excellent keynote on the ‘digital double’ in performance.  He proposed four categories:

  1. Mirror double – the emergence of the self-reflexive technological self
  2. Alter-ego – the dark doppleganger, the schizophrenic self
  3. Spiritualised emanation – the transcendent, mystical conception of the virtual body
  4. Manipulable mannequin – the replacement body; body of a synthetic being

These might be useful terms for e-Dance to consider in relation to the way in which we experience our ‘selves’ through Access Grid technologies.



Spatio-temporal video annotation in Compendium

7 11 2008

We (Simon & Michelle, Open U) are now working on embedding video into Compendium, to enable not only the usual temporal annotation of video, but adding a spatial dimension so that choreography researchers/practitioners/students can locate annotations in specific locations, for specific time-windows.

Moreover, annotations in Compendium are not simply free-text ‘stickies’, but hypertext nodes, embedded in an arbitrary number of other views and conversations, possibly linked to whole new networks, possibly with their own annotated movies.

Here’s a first screenshot showing the node layer annotated over the video layer (from William Forsythe’s Improvisational Technologies DVD)…

This second example shows two videos running, connected by nodes…

This will be evolved into a more fully developed environment with appropriate support tools in the coming months, working closely with the choreographers as we release early and often for feedback.



Project Sandpit

14 10 2008

The whole project team (Helen, Sita, Martin, Simon, Andrew, Anja and Michelle) spent two days together in Manchester last week 9-10 October.   The focus of the ‘sandpit’ was the software development aspect of the project.  It was a really good opportunity to bring the two areas of tool development together to look at the respective purpose and function of each and to consider any overlap.  We had some particularly heated discussions around the representation of ‘time’ within the two tools and the significance of structural/relative time to absolute time. There were also some very interesting discussions concerning interface design.  We then focused on mapping out the year and thinking about the continuation of the research at the end of this funded period and what areas of activity we might pursue.  As the project builds momentum at the half way point there is a real sense of excitement about the developments we are making and the potential trajectory the research might take in the medium term.

Sandpit Discussions



e-Dance at the JISC Roadshow

6 10 2008

JISC are having a roadshow at Manchester – Advanced tools and technologies for collaborative research:  Thu 6 Nov 2008.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/manchesterroadshow

Included is a section on e-Dance within the “Specialist Access Grid Projects” discussion, and an image from one of the previous intensives is on the main flyer.

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Then at Roadshow no.2

e-Dance and other AG  (VRE projects) were presented as part of the JISC second Roadshow in London. Workshop title From motion capture to ancient manuscripts: using complex digital resources across disciplines, Given within the talk “Reasons and Experience for Needing Visualizations of Complex Remote Data Sources”, Martin Turner, University of Manchester Friday 30th January 2009. This involved also a series of visualization steering methods and example case studies from experiences at the University of Manchester and the vizNET (JISC) initiative.



MIMA Workshop with Troika Ranch

1 10 2008

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I have been selected as one of the ten artists to take part in the MIMA (Moving Image Media Artists) workshop with Troika Ranch in http://www.troikaranch.org/ New York at the end of October.  This week-long workshop will give me the opportunity to work directly with Mark Coniglio, the Co-director of Troika Ranch and developer of Isadora.  It should provide a useful context for discusson about the e-Dance software development and give me a much greater insight into the capabilities that Isadora offers.



Thoughts and Points from DRHA’08

23 09 2008

The presentation consisted of a related group of projects under the theme of interfaces; sort of sub title ‘where is the interface’. A sub-context was on tool building and their use. There were a few comments and questions during and after the set of presentations.

  • Couple of questions considered the use of ‘visualization’ tools that could be used in the creative process, and creating new processes. This was an area of obvious exploitation.
  • An issue was the new choreographic modes developed.
  • Also interest was raised in new annotation methods – and what an interface for practical purpose may be needed.
  • A comment asked what was new with this mix of telepresence; and an important emphasis needs to be the research benefits that choreography gains from ‘pushing e-science to the limits, as well as importantly the reverse that is the benefits HCI and the e-science communitybenefits from the project. Onecurrent benefit for e-science has been thinking of interface design without being encumbored by the ususl Apple/MS Windows philosophies.
  • Tool reuse – how much customisation should there be and if we are suporting the right tool base. There is a continual debate over which tools to use and if it is easier to develop or search for other tools already there with similar features to those required.

Panel at DRHA’08



Digital Interfaces in Dance Performance Environments

18 09 2008

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We all managed to get together for one day during DRHA 2008, University of Cambridge, UK, 14-17 September http://www.rsd.cam.ac.uk/drha08/ .  It was great to have the chance to catch up after a summer of really interesting activity on the project.  Sita, Martin, Simon and myself (together with Scott Palmer from University of Leeds) were all participating in a panel that we had proposed for the conference.  We presented three projects Stereobodies/Choreographic Morphologies (Martin and I) http://kato.mvc.mcc.ac.uk/rss-wiki/SAGE/StereoBodies , Projecting Performance (Sita and Scott) http://www.leeds.ac.uk/paci/projectingperformance/home.html and e-Dance (Simon and I).  The focus of the panel that brought the three projects together, was concerned with the role/function/construction of ‘interfaces’ in dance.   The panel abstract summarised the dicussion as follows; 

“This panel will discuss visual communication interfaces in dance performance environments through the frames of three current/recent projects.  These projects use digital technologies to facilitate non-co-located performances, either between dancers at different sites or between on-stage dancers and off-stage operators.  The three projects offer intersecting yet distinct perspectives on this process.  The panel will question how such interfaces are experienced by th performers, how they can be approached as choreographic environments, and how they affect the rpocess of viewing.  In an art form that prioritises physicality and embodied knowledge, how do dancers negotiate their performances with remote partners via digital interfaces?  how might such interfaces redefine choreographic understandings of embodied spatio-temporal relationships? How might spectators engage differently with performances that exist in their entirety only at the boundary of the digital interface?”

This set of presentations, together with All Hands last week served as a really good opportunity for reflection at the half way point in the project.  We also had the chance to have some good discussions about where we are heading.  The next ‘Project Sandpit’ will take place on 9-10 October in Manchester.  So that will give us the space to map out the next few months activity and chart the direction for developments with Compendium/Cohere.