August 2, 2007

Adaptive Architectural Objects Perform Unique Choreography

Ruairi Glynn of Interactive Architecture blog writes about his latest project "Performative Ecologies" - his post and his project page.

In a nutshell, he has created adaptive objects with a light source and a twirling arm. Here are two pictures:

Each object has access to a database of stored gestural movements. (Watch short video and longer video to see examples of movements).

In performance mode, objects seek out human beings in the environment and then perform for them by pulling movements from their database. These objects are adaptive in the sense that they use facial recognition software to determine the level of interest of each audience member. The objects then select different stored choreography and combinations of this choreography to maximize attention levels of viewers. (They may also generate movements in real-time but I'm not sure).

Performing for an audience:

Using facial recognition software:

After each performance, the adaptive objects "convene." The objects with less success in the attention-grabbing arena acquire the "moves" of the more successful objects. Then there's another performance and the robots go back to work constantly modifying their choreography to have as wide an appeal as possible.

According Glynn, his project explores the nature of interactivity, not simply pre-programmed responsiveness, in architectural environments.

If I was to try and sum it up [his project] in a sentence, it is fundamentally about giving our architecture the ability to enter into dialog with us, rather than simply respond with fixed behaviours to fixed commands from us, to learm from its experiences and adapt its behaviours, to suggest new spatial configurations and see how we respond.

Very often I find that so called ‘interactive environments’ rarely enable the architecture to negotiate its behaviours, but rather follow pre-choreographed routines when triggered. More broadly, a great deal of misuse of the term ‘interactive’ is common in art, design and architectural discourse and I believe that this has diluted its true meaning and huge potential. [Read full post...]

Interactive or Responsive Dance Environments?

To what extent does Glynn's contention that the term "interactive environments" is often misused in art apply to similar explorations in the dance world? In other words, are some/many of the technology-based dance performances and installations truly interactive or are they primarily responsive?

Exploring the Nature of Dance

Following-up on Amanda's post this morning, "Dance and Film," on DCDanceblog, does this "Performative Ecologies" installation shed light on what makes the movement/dancing of human beings unique or not unique in the context of adaptive objects that can create, perform and share their own choreography?

I find it interesting that the adaptive quest of the objects in this project is completely driven by market forces. The only motivating question is how much attention am I getting and how do I get more of this attention. Could Glynn have used other objectives to drive the "creativity" of the adaptive objects? How about maximizing certain emotional reactions/states of human viewers? How about offending audiences? How about getting audiences to talk with each other? How about ignoring the humans all together and focusing on forming strong emotional ties with the other objects?

Vias taken:

- Networked Performance

- Rhizome.org

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