Comment

Comment by Rich Dionne on August 30, 2012 at 5:53am

Vince, I think you've expressed very well what I seem to have been unable to! While this kind of technology may not be groundbreaking its availability and visibility is definitely new. (Anybody see this Old Spice video? I highly doubt he's actually controlling the instruments by flexing--that's a level of physical capability I'd be awed to believe was possible--but the fact that the video exists, and as part of the cooky Old Spice branding campaign, suggests that the idea non-traditional interfaces and control is becoming more "main stream.")

As Vince said, this kind of work is a milemarker; our students will see this kind of work (or the Old Spice video, or the thousands of Internet videos of people using WiiMotes to make music, or playing music on hard drive motors) and for some, new possibilities will be opened up that might never have before occurred to them--and, I believe, they'll develop the aesthetic and storytelling techniques that best utilize interactive control, gesture control, and the like.

Maybe that's just the naive, ever-hopeful believer in me talking. :)

Comment by Vincent Olivieri on August 20, 2012 at 12:00am

One of biggest challenges to using this kind of interactive performance technology seems to be balancing the diegetic aspects of the event with the non-diegetic aspects of the interactivity. Over ten years ago, I was peripherally involved in a project involving students at a well-known interactive technology/arts program and a major regional theatre. They worked together on a play that had design attributes that were directly modified by various bio sensors that some members of the audience wore. It was an interesting idea, but the effect was entirely lost on the audience. The audience could see the sensors, but there was no way for them to identify how the sensors had any impact on their experience.

So, John is right that the idea of interactivity is far from new, and in the last few decades, creative advances have not been plentiful. But Rich is also right. The price points of the technology has gone down to the point where it's affordable by almost anyone in our field, and the learning curve has reached a point where you don't have to be a code wonk (and I mean that in the best sense of the word, John!) to be able to figure out how to turn a gesture into a controllable device. It's not the technology that's the breakthrough here. It's the fact that the technology has reached a point where it's usable by a whole mess of people whose primary focus is NOT the technology. 

My group, Push The Button, is interested in the audience experience and tying it directly to content, but I don't come from this kind of interactivity/show-control-y background (I've only been using Max for about 5 years, and I took John's course for one period before I had to drop it due to a class conflict). I come from a design/composition background, but these developments in technology have allowed me to engage with the technology to a point that I couldn't have before without having spent many years learning code, etc. And that's where I think the breakthrough comes. The ease of use and shallow learning curve will allow hundreds of new artists to investigate, and THAT will be the source of the artistic breakthrough.

As flashy as this video is, I don't think it's as much of a game-changer as I'd like it to be. The technology is still quite tough to grapple with (and I've taught quite a few very talented designers who brick out when it comes to this kind of interfacing), but as a very clear mile-marker on a trajectory, I'm really looking forward to what's next. 

And in the meantime, it's rad to watch.

Comment by John Huntington on August 19, 2012 at 8:12pm

Also been done :-)  When I saw this show 8-9 years ago, my date didn't even know it was interactive until the post-show talk.  I guess my point is that we've had all these tools for a while and they don't seem to be catching on...  I talk about this in the show control chapters of my new book edition and it's one of the research areas I want to get to next.  It seems to me that performers actually seem to like time code...

Comment by Rich Dionne on August 19, 2012 at 7:36pm

John,

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks for taking the time to quibble! Perhaps "game changer" is hyperbolic--I probably shouldn't write these when I am tired!

The question you pose is a good one, and from it I can see I wasn't making my point very clearly. I would agree with you that beyond the viral video aspect, a performance like this is only compelling in that it is splashy--it lacks substance, frankly, and only exists to showcase the technology used to create it. But what I find interesting in the video is the possibilities it suggests for new ways to approach the process of storytelling.

I have been reading about the Apollo moon missions. One of the most notable things about those missions is that they served no purpose beyond the doing of them. There was little real "science" done on the moon; the engineering feats were the act of getting there. However, these engineering feats changed our lives: no one goes to the moon, now, but I'm using materials and technologies sparked by those missions to type this response.

I am in no way suggesting that this video project is ghe equivalent of Apollo 11. However, I do think that the more projects like this one push the envelope of what is possible back, the more we'll see innovative storytelling arise out of it. I can envision, for example, a modern dance choreographer working with a sound designer and this system set up on stage, where the dance movements directly impact effect processing, loop playback, or whatever. Imagine, too, a synergy, a back and forth, between live musicians and dancers. We are doing a production of Medea this Spring, in which many of the choral parts will be musical and physical responses--sometimes without the playwright's lines. Imagine if those movements could directly affect the music in some way!

I think that is what I find so compelling about this video; the technology is readily within the grasp of my students--much more so than 20 or 30 years ago. Which means they are more likely to be able to bring it to the table as a possibility; which means that artists may be more likely to adapt new storytelling techniques to the technology.

Just because I have trouble visualizing the possibilities, doesn't mean my students can't dream up amazing ones. That is what I most hope for.

Comment by John Huntington on August 19, 2012 at 5:06pm

Thanks for the great and ongoing work on this blog.

I saw this video a couple times, and I thought it was interesting.  But my one quibble with what you wrote is that this technology is a "game changer".  I saw this same kind of thing back in 1991 at the "CyberArts" convention, running on a proprietary system on an Amiga.  Here's a video from 1991; the "Mandala" system was running on Amigas in 1986.  Interestingly, that video led to a bit of digging and it turns out this same guy--Vincent John Vincent--went on to found a company, Gesturetek, that apparently licensed technology for the Kinect.

So the technology's been around for a while, and this brings up the larger question (as part of a larger rethinking I've been doing lately): "Does anyone want to watch this kind of stuff?"  It seems to me that, beyond a novelty (like a viral video), I would say that the answer is no.  

Of course it's very fun to play with the stuff!  But I don't think it makes for compelling performance...

Comment by Glen A Dunzweiler on August 13, 2012 at 2:33pm

I agree to it all!

Comment by Rich Dionne on August 13, 2012 at 2:27pm

Glen,

I think you are right that a lot of directors can lean on technology when performers--or even the script--aren't telling the story well. But that is a constant tension in our field, isn't it? I have seen lighting effects or sound effects or even just huge acenery used to overcome these limitations, with just as ineffective results.

The TD (or automation designer, or mechanical designer, or what have you) lives in a wierd place in the production process; an effect can be way overblown for a particular narrative, but it isn't exactly our place to make that call. In my opinion, the best we can do is say something along the lines of, "this will cost X amount in materials and labor; are you sure this is the best use of our resources?" After that, we have to move forward and create the best version of the effect we have been tasked with.

To your other point, yes, stability can be a problem. But that goes back to system design, I think; there are lots of folks on this business who have figured out you can connect a couple of devices with a MIDI cable, or find other ways to cobble a control system together. Unfortunately, just plugging devices into each other and tinkering until it works doesn't guarantee a robust system. That really begins earlier, by identifying what you want to happen, what systems need to integrate together, how you plan to accomplish that integration, and, most importantly, by ensuring that you've identified ways to single-failure-proof your system. By building a system from the beginning with stability in mind, you can overcome most intermittent issues before they even happen.

Anyway. I don't think we disagree, really. And I think your cautions are worth keeping in mind. (FWIW, I have built my fair share of spectacle effects that outweigh narrative purpose or otherwise prop up a bad performance; sometimes, you just have to decide to enjoy it for what you can get out of it, right?)

Comment by Glen A Dunzweiler on August 13, 2012 at 2:04pm

This stuff is great. And I do agree that it opens us up to blur tech into performance, but it has created a bit of a slippery slope for directors that I've worked with. The effect can be so awe inspiring and can make a human character so big that I've seen tech want to be used to compensate for the lack of power in the performer. It's almost as if directors for live production are adopting a 'let's fix it in post' strategy.

Unfortunately, there is no compensating for performance. If a guy can't fight, it doesn't matter how shiny the armor is. The battle is not going to end well.

The tech I use is no where near as complex as the above example, and stability is always an issue. I think experiments are awesome, we just better make sure we can deliver when it goes into performance. Yes?

By the way, this is in no way an insult to directors. I think it's just a warning.

Comment by Vincent Olivieri on August 10, 2012 at 4:48pm

Oh, hah!  Well, let me see what I can dig up...

Comment by Rich Dionne on August 10, 2012 at 4:30pm

Oh, gosh, Vincent--I hope I didn't misrepresent myself! I didn't work on this project; I stumbled on the video, was amazed, and wanted to share more about it, primarily because I have a keen interest in control systems and audio.

I'd love to hear more about your project however; do you have sites to link to, or would you be willing to share more about your process and your results?

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