Touch Terrain
(interactive Performance environment)
Yiannis Melanitis
Isabel Valverde
Kinect Programming Angelos Apostolatos
(interactive Performance environment)
Yiannis Melanitis
Isabel Valverde
Kinect Programming Angelos Apostolatos
We are resuming collaborative activity with this presentation of Touch Terrain.
Coming back to the mediated embodied experience through kinect and glastron video glasses, 2 participants at the time engage in the interactive experience. One participant is interacting with the kinect moving the virtual character that the other participant watches with the glasses and interact with.
How will be their interaction? Mirroring, contrasting, altering, developing each other's moves and behaviors?
This project was initially envisioned and presented at Monaco Dance Forum 2006 (one of the 20 projects selected by ONU Commission).
More info here: http://www. geocities.com/melanitis2004/ TouchTerrain.html
Synopsis:
Touch Terrain is projected as a participatory performance environment, where 4 subjects at the time are challenged to experience the lost of references and to alter dominant perceptive hierarchy, while interacting with the space and with one another. While wondering about a room wired with mocap sensors, through your vr vision you see a moving and mutating avatar within a blank space. Will you try following, approach? Meanwhile, as you look at this character moving, you run into something you can't see in the physical space, but to your surprise, it turns into an element of your vr landscape. A tree, a flower, a mountain appear in the virtual space you see through your glasses. The avatar is now clearly located and you can get to it easier. As you finally get in touch with this mutant, you suddenly see yourself as another avatar. Felt bodies, which only by feeling and being felt do become truly seeing bodies, sensing bodies. Inter-subjective kineasthetic/synesthesic perceptions.
The envisioned participatory experience:
Preparing for the physical-virtual immersive experience, the 4 participants put on the wearable interfaces. Then, the 2 performers enter the space while the 2 puppeteers stay outside and interact with the performers' avatars and space through a screen. The performers are in a blank space seeing a moving and mutating avatar (the mocap representation of the other performer manipulated by the puppeteers). The puppeteers make changes to attract/repulse the performers into/from one another, mutating their appearance ? dimensions, shape, scale, gender ? as well as interfering in their movement, and even type of being, and non-being/object, plus the VR environment.
Without spatial reference, the performers wonder in space until they run into, touch or intercept the objects in the room. That's when the touched objects enter the VR environment turning into aspects of its landscape, and helping locate themselves and the avatar. The objects are made of natural and artificial materials ? including cardboard, foam, fabrics, plastic, artificial flowers, etc), and wired with touch sensors. They will compose the vr environmental, rendered as landscaping elements, such as what seems like grass, flowers, trees, mountains, country house, etc, along with abstract shapes
Although without bodies, much like in video games, the performers' movement through space also helps them understand if approaching or distancing from the avatar. Will they continue building the vr landscape to get situate within the environment? Or decide to approach the avatar in search for themselves in the other? The fact is that the moment the performers touch each other's avatar they suddenly see their own avatar body.
Throughout the experience the performers choose between interacting with the environment and/or the avatars through spatial and touch interactive aspects, i.e., virtual landscaping through physical touch and moving the objects in space, or getting in touch with the avatars. If deciding to find and touch the avatar they will find out that it's of a real person and, by doing so, they can finally see their avatar, being able to watch themselves in the experience.
Touch Terrain developed after the initial collaboration in Pleasure Machine/Blind Date, presented at Monaco Dance Forum 2002. In collaboration with Motionbuilder programmer, Panos Panagiotopoylos.
More info here:
Published essay on Blind Date: Valverde, Isabel "Blind Date: a participatory installation," in Body, Space, and Technology Journal, V4, 2004 (doc)
Isabel Valverde is a transdisciplinary performer, choreographer and scholar. Develops experimental solo and collaborative performance art/dance work since 1986. Valverde choreographs embodied experiences in transversality with plastic materials (visual, audio, arquitectonic) and the somatic possibilities for inter-corporeality in mediated performative and participatory environments. Examples of work include, After the White Shower (1986), Baixo (with C.W. Schmidt, 1990), Tomar Corpo (1992), Body Designs (1996), Blind Date (with Y. Melanitis, 2002), Fado Dance: what portuguesness? (2003-present), Weathering In/Senses Places (with T. Cochrane etal, 2009-present).
Valverde was director of the Center for Arts and Technologies (CAT/IHSIS, 2004-2014), associate researcher at GAIPS (INESC-ID), and researcher at Pólo CIAC-UAb.. Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory (UCR), MA in Interdisciplinary Arts (SFSU), New Dance (SNDD/AHK) and Dance (FMH/UTL). Postdoc in Dances and Technologies (BPD/FCT, IHSIS, VIMMI/INESC-ID). Valverde participates and publishes in international festivals, conferences and online journals on performance/dance-technology and corporeality in the post-human condition. Her doctoral thesis, Interfacing Dance and Technology: a theoretical framework for performance in the digital domain, is translated into Portuguese, FCG/FCT (2010).
http://isabelcvalverde.blogspot.com
Yiannis Melanitis, born 1967, Paros, Greece.
Yiannis Melanitis is a conceptual artist (Greece). Lecturer, ASFA, Athens, Phd Candidate (NTUA), Athens. MA DIgital Arts(ASFA). Y. Melanitis' work initiates from an intense conceptualization on the strategies of the contemporary artist and the artwork itself, deviating from its epistemological origins, implying the use of heterogeneous artistic media, through installations, performances, critical texts, sculptures, paintings and drawings
He holds degrees in Painting (prof. X.Botsoglou), Sculpture (prof. G.Lappas) and Masters degree in Digital Arts from Athens School of Fine Arts. His art refers to the body in relation to the epistemological (biological) context which defines it. He produced the term bio-performance based on the conception of the "analogical body" (as opposed to digital), in an attempt to re-establish the corporeal status of experience, de-depenting the body from the domination of simulations or virtual allusions. The notion of the body as soft and malleable unity, forming a "liquid space" formation within space is proposed as a neo-appearance of corporeality. In his recent works (The Garden, the Diffusion of the Elements), technology is not visibly apparent, forming a magical interaction between materials and the body.
He presents interactive performances using originally designed software, as well as sculptures and drawings related to them. Recent presentations include two group exhibitions at Ileana Tounta Center for Contemporary Art with sculptures and video-works(1999), an interactive performance ‘ Pleasure Machine‘ at the 8thNew York Digital Salon (2000) also presented at the Blue Stage in the House of World Cultures of Berlin, the video-work ‘The artist as a bird ‘ at Deste Foundation (exhibition ‘Toxic' 2001). Also at the Media@Terra Festival/ De-Globalizing/Re-Globalizing, presenting ‘ Bio-robotic symbiosis' interactive installation ?(Lavrion, Sofia,Maribor, Frankfurt, 2001). At Ex Teresa Arte Actual he presented the interactive web-performance ‘Terra Ingognita‘ (a telerobotic piece) for the X International Festival of Performance Art: Life in Another Planet , Mexico City, 2001. One of his most recent performances was ‘Animal Accessories‘ for the group exhibition ?Living inside?, Athens 2002, also the interactive performance «Prometheus» performed at the Kourzoum Djami and at the Athens Academy. At the International Science Fiction Conference ‘Biotechnological and Medical Items in Science Fiction‘ he presented the paper "Biorobotic environments, interactions and hyperhumans: Interactive robotic performances exploring the potentials of an unknown space towards the potential of a renewed anatomy ", Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki 2001. His latest interest concerns "biotechnology and control of the body", where he uses his term "bio-performance" as an advanced environment -in this situation, the control of the performance is led to machines controlled by biological algorithms. Other performances were presented in Monaco Dance Forum 2002 (interactive performance ‘Blind Date'), The Garden interactive performance at Eugenidio Foundation (Athens 2005), also the interactive performance ‘The Diffusion of the Elements' at the D624 project space (2005). He writes for artzine journal and Futura magazine. Melanitis is member of Delphi Society. He is a PhD Fellow (June 2005) at the School of Architecture, Athens.
http://melanitis.com
Angelos Apostolatos received his bachelor’s degree in Computing and Information Systems from the University of Bradford and his master’s in E-Commerce with Marketing from the University of Portsmouth UK. He has been working as an analyst-programmer, software engineer, technical and project manager since 2004 in Greece.
Coming back to the mediated embodied experience through kinect and glastron video glasses, 2 participants at the time engage in the interactive experience. One participant is interacting with the kinect moving the virtual character that the other participant watches with the glasses and interact with.
How will be their interaction? Mirroring, contrasting, altering, developing each other's moves and behaviors?
This project was initially envisioned and presented at Monaco Dance Forum 2006 (one of the 20 projects selected by ONU Commission).
More info here: http://www. geocities.com/melanitis2004/ TouchTerrain.html
Synopsis:
Touch Terrain is projected as a participatory performance environment, where 4 subjects at the time are challenged to experience the lost of references and to alter dominant perceptive hierarchy, while interacting with the space and with one another. While wondering about a room wired with mocap sensors, through your vr vision you see a moving and mutating avatar within a blank space. Will you try following, approach? Meanwhile, as you look at this character moving, you run into something you can't see in the physical space, but to your surprise, it turns into an element of your vr landscape. A tree, a flower, a mountain appear in the virtual space you see through your glasses. The avatar is now clearly located and you can get to it easier. As you finally get in touch with this mutant, you suddenly see yourself as another avatar. Felt bodies, which only by feeling and being felt do become truly seeing bodies, sensing bodies. Inter-subjective kineasthetic/synesthesic perceptions.
The envisioned participatory experience:
Preparing for the physical-virtual immersive experience, the 4 participants put on the wearable interfaces. Then, the 2 performers enter the space while the 2 puppeteers stay outside and interact with the performers' avatars and space through a screen. The performers are in a blank space seeing a moving and mutating avatar (the mocap representation of the other performer manipulated by the puppeteers). The puppeteers make changes to attract/repulse the performers into/from one another, mutating their appearance ? dimensions, shape, scale, gender ? as well as interfering in their movement, and even type of being, and non-being/object, plus the VR environment.
Without spatial reference, the performers wonder in space until they run into, touch or intercept the objects in the room. That's when the touched objects enter the VR environment turning into aspects of its landscape, and helping locate themselves and the avatar. The objects are made of natural and artificial materials ? including cardboard, foam, fabrics, plastic, artificial flowers, etc), and wired with touch sensors. They will compose the vr environmental, rendered as landscaping elements, such as what seems like grass, flowers, trees, mountains, country house, etc, along with abstract shapes
Although without bodies, much like in video games, the performers' movement through space also helps them understand if approaching or distancing from the avatar. Will they continue building the vr landscape to get situate within the environment? Or decide to approach the avatar in search for themselves in the other? The fact is that the moment the performers touch each other's avatar they suddenly see their own avatar body.
Throughout the experience the performers choose between interacting with the environment and/or the avatars through spatial and touch interactive aspects, i.e., virtual landscaping through physical touch and moving the objects in space, or getting in touch with the avatars. If deciding to find and touch the avatar they will find out that it's of a real person and, by doing so, they can finally see their avatar, being able to watch themselves in the experience.
Touch Terrain developed after the initial collaboration in Pleasure Machine/Blind Date, presented at Monaco Dance Forum 2002. In collaboration with Motionbuilder programmer, Panos Panagiotopoylos.
More info here:
Published essay on Blind Date: Valverde, Isabel "Blind Date: a participatory installation," in Body, Space, and Technology Journal, V4, 2004 (doc)
Isabel Valverde is a transdisciplinary performer, choreographer and scholar. Develops experimental solo and collaborative performance art/dance work since 1986. Valverde choreographs embodied experiences in transversality with plastic materials (visual, audio, arquitectonic) and the somatic possibilities for inter-corporeality in mediated performative and participatory environments. Examples of work include, After the White Shower (1986), Baixo (with C.W. Schmidt, 1990), Tomar Corpo (1992), Body Designs (1996), Blind Date (with Y. Melanitis, 2002), Fado Dance: what portuguesness? (2003-present), Weathering In/Senses Places (with T. Cochrane etal, 2009-present).
Valverde was director of the Center for Arts and Technologies (CAT/IHSIS, 2004-2014), associate researcher at GAIPS (INESC-ID), and researcher at Pólo CIAC-UAb.. Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory (UCR), MA in Interdisciplinary Arts (SFSU), New Dance (SNDD/AHK) and Dance (FMH/UTL). Postdoc in Dances and Technologies (BPD/FCT, IHSIS, VIMMI/INESC-ID). Valverde participates and publishes in international festivals, conferences and online journals on performance/dance-technology and corporeality in the post-human condition. Her doctoral thesis, Interfacing Dance and Technology: a theoretical framework for performance in the digital domain, is translated into Portuguese, FCG/FCT (2010).
http://isabelcvalverde.blogspot.com
Yiannis Melanitis, born 1967, Paros, Greece.
Yiannis Melanitis is a conceptual artist (Greece). Lecturer, ASFA, Athens, Phd Candidate (NTUA), Athens. MA DIgital Arts(ASFA). Y. Melanitis' work initiates from an intense conceptualization on the strategies of the contemporary artist and the artwork itself, deviating from its epistemological origins, implying the use of heterogeneous artistic media, through installations, performances, critical texts, sculptures, paintings and drawings
He holds degrees in Painting (prof. X.Botsoglou), Sculpture (prof. G.Lappas) and Masters degree in Digital Arts from Athens School of Fine Arts. His art refers to the body in relation to the epistemological (biological) context which defines it. He produced the term bio-performance based on the conception of the "analogical body" (as opposed to digital), in an attempt to re-establish the corporeal status of experience, de-depenting the body from the domination of simulations or virtual allusions. The notion of the body as soft and malleable unity, forming a "liquid space" formation within space is proposed as a neo-appearance of corporeality. In his recent works (The Garden, the Diffusion of the Elements), technology is not visibly apparent, forming a magical interaction between materials and the body.
He presents interactive performances using originally designed software, as well as sculptures and drawings related to them. Recent presentations include two group exhibitions at Ileana Tounta Center for Contemporary Art with sculptures and video-works(1999), an interactive performance ‘ Pleasure Machine‘ at the 8thNew York Digital Salon (2000) also presented at the Blue Stage in the House of World Cultures of Berlin, the video-work ‘The artist as a bird ‘ at Deste Foundation (exhibition ‘Toxic' 2001). Also at the Media@Terra Festival/ De-Globalizing/Re-Globalizing, presenting ‘ Bio-robotic symbiosis' interactive installation ?(Lavrion, Sofia,Maribor, Frankfurt, 2001). At Ex Teresa Arte Actual he presented the interactive web-performance ‘Terra Ingognita‘ (a telerobotic piece) for the X International Festival of Performance Art: Life in Another Planet , Mexico City, 2001. One of his most recent performances was ‘Animal Accessories‘ for the group exhibition ?Living inside?, Athens 2002, also the interactive performance «Prometheus» performed at the Kourzoum Djami and at the Athens Academy. At the International Science Fiction Conference ‘Biotechnological and Medical Items in Science Fiction‘ he presented the paper "Biorobotic environments, interactions and hyperhumans: Interactive robotic performances exploring the potentials of an unknown space towards the potential of a renewed anatomy ", Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki 2001. His latest interest concerns "biotechnology and control of the body", where he uses his term "bio-performance" as an advanced environment -in this situation, the control of the performance is led to machines controlled by biological algorithms. Other performances were presented in Monaco Dance Forum 2002 (interactive performance ‘Blind Date'), The Garden interactive performance at Eugenidio Foundation (Athens 2005), also the interactive performance ‘The Diffusion of the Elements' at the D624 project space (2005). He writes for artzine journal and Futura magazine. Melanitis is member of Delphi Society. He is a PhD Fellow (June 2005) at the School of Architecture, Athens.
http://melanitis.com
Angelos Apostolatos received his bachelor’s degree in Computing and Information Systems from the University of Bradford and his master’s in E-Commerce with Marketing from the University of Portsmouth UK. He has been working as an analyst-programmer, software engineer, technical and project manager since 2004 in Greece.
