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wizard fingers plays nice with zeus' beard:

This is a dance collaboration utilizing the Wizard Fingers system.

This is an experiment in embedding a semi-autonomous system into a live dance performance. The dancers will be given substantial control of the system throught the use of RFID and accelerometers. This will allow for an open event-based performance. The Wizard Fingers system will autonomously generate music that tracks the tempo of the dancers via accelerometers and the dancers will decide when the system changes states and how the music progresses by using their own interactions as facilitated by the RFID sensor and tags embedded in their costumes.

The dance will consist of interactions between a soloist and a duet. The soloist will be given the control of a musical conductor by the addition of the RFID sensor attached to the palm of the hand. By touching the RFID tags embedded on the bodies of the duet the musical events of the performance will be decided. The duet will also have a more subtle control of the tempo of the performance via an accelerometer attached to the lower back of each dancer. The accelerometer will track the movements of the dancers and extrapolate an average tempo for their movements, allowing the system to adapt it's performance to fit the movements of the duet.

The drama of the dance performance is in the tension between control and freedom. The soloist will attempt to control the duet like puppets via transmission of information and supernatural forces, while the duet never ceases to resist this control. Even the unpredictable Wizard Fingers will prove to resist most attempts to control it. Ultimately the dance and the device will reach a peak of self-destructive energy. A sort of crescendo.

The audio and movement will be generally loud and active. Moving from controlled and syncronized to chaotic and wild. Ultimately, the system and dancers will be left spent of energy.

Wizard Fingers Plays Nice with Zeus' Beard Performance Video from Eric Thompson on Vimeo.

A performance at Chapel in The Good Shepard Center in Seattle, WA 2007

This is a performance of some of the choreography. The interaction between the dancers and the system are still under development. So wizardfingers still needs a human "technician" to control the tempo.

There is new choreography for the piece that has changed the direction entirely. The new choreography is so full of energy as I had intended so much so that now the system will simply keep tempo with the movement of the dancers. I find this to be the simplest and most elegant connection between the two elements. The dancers move so well and with such dynamic animation that wizardfingers need only track their movement to create and interesting composition to follow the dancers.

I find this to be the most fascinating element of the piece as a whole: the contrast between a composition invented by a machine and the movement created by a human body. Experiencing the two together shows us the elegance and beauty in humanity as compared to the cold and dirty of technology. It is a juxtoposition that proves our worth. It is human versus machine. And I find that human, intuitively, has the advantage.

I have had the excellent opportunity to explore this theme due in large part to my experiences in DXARTS473(mechatronics) and DXARTS366(dance composition) together. This combined with the opportunity to engage in an independent study led by Heather Raikes has allowed me the chance to critically engage the contrast between technology and human performance.

Through my investigations in this curriculum I have explored technology directed choreography in the form of describing potential embedded technologies (but withholding them) during choreography so that the dance can be informed, natural, and unhindered by technology. I have as well explored tempo mapping of group movement to musical playback so that a dancer might not be hindered by static recorded audio. And in conclusion I feel I have found an excellent way to combine a dance performance with a creative AI musical system.

More video to come...