Posts Tagged ‘technology’

We’ve all heard the hype. DSLR cameras are the new darlings of Indie and DIY filmmakers. The gods of technology have allowed us to take a still camera and use its high-end lens and gorgeous shallow depth of field to make videos that rival the look of big budget films.

The biggest advantage of using a DSLR over a camcorder is the shallow depth of field. When filmmakers talk about depth of field, they are referring to the amount of the image in frame that is in focus at any one time. When the depth of field is deep, everything in frame is in focus, and it is very difficult for the filmmaker to highlight the parts of the shot that are important to the story. The shallower (or narrower) the depth of field, the more ability you have to pinpoint the crucial parts of a scene, and draw viewers attention in. Most camcorders, including the highest end, have deep depths of field. Now, with the new DSLR cameras, videographers can achieve a cinematic look without needing to break the bank or lug around a huge piece of equipment. Read the rest of this entry »

National Conference
Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth (UK)
8-10 September, 2011

Digital Futures in Dance is an opportunity for artists, promoters, producers, venues, academics and creative and digital companies to come together to discuss future possibilities for dance and technology. With an increasing growth in interdisciplinary practice, Digital Futures in Dance investigates how new digital technologies create new conditions for choreographing and presenting dance. The conference is structured around three interrelated themes explored through presentations, workshops, performances and installations:

The Expanded Stage: Stage, screen and bodies – What will be the stages for dance in the future?

New Body Intelligence: Body data as raw material – How will new intelligence of the body influence choreography in the future?

Social Interaction: Mobile and interactive technology devices – How will increased interactivity influence the creation and reception of dance in the future?

The programme will feature international artists and researchers across the dance, technology and media spectrums including Jonah Bokaer, Billie Cowie, Marlon Barrios-Solano, Harriet Macauley | Pair Dance, Johannes Birringer, Renana Raz, Mark Coniglio, and Marina Tsartsara.

See the full programme here.

Today at 4am USA Eastern Standard Time, and 6pm in Brisbane Australia, the interactive Waterwheel platform will launch with a crew of collaborators and audience members from around the world converging online in real time. Waterwheel is an ongoing interactive, collaborative platform for performance, presentation and exchange exploring water, as a topic of politics, science and metaphor. The brain child of Brussel’s born Suzon Fuks, a media artist, choreographer and director, the project developed out of her growing interest in global water politics and the richness of the topic for artistic expression.

Last week as the site was in its final stages of tweaking, Fuks gave me a tour of the platform and showed me all the things it can do. Along with her team of technicians and artists Fuks has created a very sophisticated site, one that works as well or better than most social media sites or online conferencing platforms. With years of experience designing intermedia and live networked performances, Fuks knew what she wanted, and what was needed to achieve the intentions of the site. Each section of the site is modeled to emulate some function of water, with the net result that it “flows” together seamlessly, and feeds and regenerates the overall experience for everyone who uses it.

When you first encounter the site on the homepage there is a beautiful wheel with 40 concentric rings that ripple with the latest media content that has been uploaded to the site. From there you can explore the raw media, or you can enter one of the “Taps” which are highly sophisticated real-time spaces to hold networked performances, presentations, workshops, or exchanges. All of the media up-loaded to the Waterwheel by users is available for real-time mixing and integration on the Taps as well as live video, audio, and drawing tools.

Another component of the site is a map showing “Fountains” going on all around the world. A Fountain can be anything flowing from the Taps (ie current or up-coming Taps), or they can be events about water that users submit to the site. These could be a performance or presentation, an exhibition or conference, a book launch or a film premiere. The Fountains are the place for users to promote their projects or events, or find other similar projects of interest and upcoming events happening nearby or around the world.

While the Waterwheel is focused on water, the platform itself is incredibly facile and could be useful for any group that wants to converge around a specific area of interest. I asked Fuks about whether she would be making more platforms like this in the future. In her reply, she emphasized that exploring water topics remains her primary motivation, however she does see the marketability of the platform they have designed and they are considering commercializing the technology as a means of funding Waterwheel.

The success of the platform is in the hands of the people who use it, so dive on in and splash around in the beautiful liquid world of Waterwheel.

Details of the Launch Event:

On Monday 22 August 2011, the new Waterwheel project and website will be launched at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane from 6pm, and online on the Waterwheel website with a program of free performances.

Richard Daniels saw an opportunity. The 60 year old choreographer and photographer was recovering from a shoulder injury in 2008 when he got the idea of making a series of dances for the small screen. At the time iPhones were the hottest thing since Gutenberg’s printing press, and Apple’s new app store was just beginning to explode. Daniels no doubt looked around and saw that there was an app for everything under the sun, except modern dance.

With his winning idea, Daniels garnered support from the Baryshnikov Art Center to develop “Dances for an iPhone” over two years as an artist in residence at their facilities. In another genius stroke, Daniels chose well-loved, seasoned modern dancers such as Carmen deLavallade, Megan Williams, and Deborah Jowitt to perform his choreography. The resulting volume of six short videos, are neatly packaged in an app now available for free on iTunes.

Perhaps my expectations for “Dances for an iPhone” were set a little too high. On July 15th Gia Kourlas, gave the app a glowing review in the New York Times, for its artistic approach to filming dance, but when I downloaded and looked at the works, all I saw were a bunch of short dance videos that looked like any other rehearsal footage found on YouTube. The handheld camera is shaky most of the time, and often zooms in on the dancer’s face, cutting off our view of the movement and choreography. The lack of focused lighting causes the dancers to go in and out of silhouette, and I was constantly aware of the fact that they were performing for us in a dance studio, rather than transporting me to a world of the artist’s making. For me, the framing of the camera should fundamentally change the dance and make it exist on screen in a way that it could never be in a live performance. I didn’t see any videos in “Dances for an iPhone” that gave new meaning to the dances performed, instead I wished I could see them live rather than on my tiny screen.

Furthermore, I question why these are “Dances for an iPhone” at all. As an “application” the package doesn’t give you much to play with. It’s really just a collection of short videos, with a bit of biographical text for each. Surely you could accomplish the same thing by making a video podcast (also downloadable and viewable on an iPhone, iPod or iPad), or a YouTube channel for that matter. When I think of an app, I expect there to be in interactive component of some kind such as the infamous “Brushes” app that was used to create two New Yorker covers by artist Jorge Colombo. If it isn’t highly interactive, then I expect an app to offer me something new to explore every time I open it, such as my new favorite, the “NPR Music” app that consolidates all of the latest NPR music content in easy to search categories that are up-dated daily.

I suspect that Mr. Daniels saw an opportunity to package his art in a way that was so exciting and novel, it would succeed no matter what. He can now say that he created the first iPhone app featuring modern dance (although that might be debatable as I saw an app for the Korea National Contemporary Dance Company that came out in 2010). The fact that it has no business being an app is besides the point, in the high stakes game of technological development, he who gets there first is the winner.

Still, I’m glad someone in the modern dance world has taken the plunge to create an app. The proliferation of apps is not going to die down any time soon, and we may be seeing a new revolution in the media industries: the way television superseded film and radio, mobile is now threatening to do the same. Since Daniel’s app has left much room for improvement, let’s hope that new upstarts will jump into the ring soon and give us better ways to capture and experience dance in the palm of our hands.

Kinect Installation at Singapore Dance Fest

When Microsoft unleashed the Kinect last fall as an add-on for Xbox 360, hackers and geeks the world over were chomping at the bit to break in and figure out what it can do. That’s because the Kinect is a $150 piece of equipment that contains a super sophisticated camera that can detect depth (3D), color, speed and motion, as well as stereophonic microphones that can place sounds in space. As a result it’s basically a rudimentary brain that has both sight and sound senses and can capture and respond to the world like a sentient being (almost).

The list of Kinect hacks has been piling up since it was released last November, and it will keep growing thanks to Microsoft’s new Kinect Developers kit for Windows (apparently a Mac kit is in the works). Among the coolest developments is motion capture software like Jasper Brekelman’s Brekel that enables anyone to create their own mo-cap animations using the Kinect. Here is a preview of “Under the HUD” by Triangle Productions, an animated series using Brekel and Kinect’s motion capture capabilities. Although the choreography is not so impressive, they give great insight into how they are using the technology.

The sensors on the Kinect make it a powerful tool for intermedia performance. Amazing live interactive animations like those of Chunky Move’s “Mortal Engine” can be obtained using the Kinect for a tiny fraction of the cost and technological know how. Here is an example of an artful performance with live video projections using a Kinect developed by the media and design firm 1024 Architecture.

There have been many technological precedents to the Kinect, but for a much higher price tag. In the dance world this kind of technology was formerly only available to universities and world class dance companies with loads of funding. The prototype of Kinect’s camera and microphone alone cost $30,000! How can Microsoft charge only $150 for the same technology? Well the answer is in the popularity of the device, which has already sold 10 million units and counting.

The fact that this device is called Kinect and was designed to track the motion of the human body seems to be a dream come true for dance artists and movers. I can’t wait to see what artists and geeks will come up with next.

To learn more and see loads of videos about hacks for the Kinect go to: Kinecthacks.net