March 27, 2007

Chunky Move's "Glow"

Australian-based dance company Chunky Move just wrapped-up its performances of "Glow" at the Sydney Opera House.

"Glow," a solo work choreographed by Artistic Director Gideon Obarzanek, incorporates a real-time video landscape generated via motion tracking technology and designed by interactive software engineer Frieder Weiss. Performances alternate between dancers Kristy Ayre and Sara Black.

You can visit the following page on Weiss' site to watch extended excerpts from "Glow." (You have to click on the link for the "Glow" performance underneath the video player). Here's a screen shot from the video:

From Weiss' home page, you can watch more videos of his work. These are among the better dance and technology videos that I've seen.

"Glow" Reviews

Blog write-ups:

- Jhuny the Boy in "Possessed by Technology."

- Chris Boyd reviews "Glow" in his "The Morning After: Performing arts in Australia" blog. (I'm confused by when he saw this performance.)

- David Williams writes review in "The dance of the screen savers...."

Newspaper reviews:

- "Moving to the algo-rhythm" in The Sydney Morning Herald.

- Article from Sydney Stage - this can't really be a review - it's a bit over the top with its praise.

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April 12, 2006

Drift, a Flash-Based Animated Dancer

Koert van Mensvoort, an artist and scientist from the Netherlands, created "Drift," an engaging Flash-based animation that features a dancer consisting of moving balls.

Watch Drift - "An interpassive Flash clip of a dancer without a body" - as Koert describes his creation.

Drift features the moves of dancer Nancy Mauro-Flude, which were captured via motion capture technology and converted into a Flash animation.

Koert van Mensvoort describes Drift as a form of interpassive cinema because users can experience the work as if it were either a movie or a computer game. In movie mode, a user simply sits back as a passive spectator and enjoys the animated movements and music. In game mode, the user moves the mouse and the bubbles and music react to the movements of the cursor.

You can read an interview with Koert van Mensvoort about Drift.

Technorati Tags: animation, art, dance, flash

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March 1, 2006

Additional Motion Tracking Software

On Monday I wrote about a demonstration by Troika Ranch which featured the EyesWeb motion tracking software program.

Here is some brief information and links for two additional motion tracking software programs - I'll be writing more in-depth about these and other motion tracking applications in the near future:

- Cyclops, from Eric Singer, is a Mac-only plug-in for the Max/MSP visual programming environment that analyzes and tracks live video. With the Cyclops Max object, you point a video camera at a dancer and then analyze the grey scale and color information from the live video feed. This data is then used by Max to control audio and video images in real-time. You can also learn more about Cyclops on the Cycling '74 website, the developers of Max/MSP.

- The second program is EyeCon from Palindrome. EyeCon is also a motion tracking software program, in this case for Windows PCs, that facilitates interactive performances and installations. By analyzing a video feed, EyeCon can track movements that can then serve to trigger specific actions such as the playing of sounds and videos. Here are some video clips featuring Emily Fernandez that show examples of EyeCon at work. (Robert Wechsler of Palindrome pointed out that some of Emily's solos use EyeCon, but most of them use a software program called Kalypso - another software program from the same engineer, Frieder Weiss.)

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February 27, 2006

Troika Ranch Demonstration Video

Yesterday afternoon at the "Who's in Control?" event at the Eyebeam center in Manhattan, Mark Coniglio and Dawn Stoppiello of Troika Ranch described and demonstrated an inexpensive and effective system for staging interactive dance performances.

I've included below a link to a video clip that shows the entire demonstration - Thanks to Mark and Dawn for allowing me to post this video clip to my blog.

Click here to watch the video now in Windows Media Format. And you'll want to read the below details to learn more.

What Mark and Dawn demonstrated was a motion tracking system that enables the movements of a dancer to generate, in real time, images, graphics and sounds that are projected on a screen right behind the dancer. What's intriguing is that to stage this type of performance, you just need a video camera, infra-red lights, a Mac and two software programs: 1) Isadora from Troika Tronix to design this interactive performance, and 2) EyesWeb, a motion tracking software program.

This low-cost motion tracking system is the exact configuration that Troika Ranch used for its recent 16 [R]evolutions performance in New York. You can read about the motion tracking system used for this performance by visiting their technology page.

Click here to watch video demonstration (Windows Media Format - 14:17 Minutes - 23:35 MB - Encoded at 256k) - this is the same video link as above.

Screen Shots from Mark and Dawn's Presentation

(click on images to see larger pictures)

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September 28, 2005

Kick Ass Kung-Fu Embodied Gaming Experience

I just came across the website for the Kick Ass Kung-Fu immersive game experience. This large-scale real-life/virtual game combination is intriguing and parallels some of the developments in motion analysis and tracking that I wrote about yesterday when discussing the motion performance.

The videos on the home page and in the Gallery are fascinating to watch. A player starts by standing in a 5 meter cushioned playfield and then does battle against virtual enemies. A video camera captures the image of the player in real-time and inserts this image on two screens in a virtual environment. So as the player kicks, jumps and moves, these motions are tracked and represented in the virtual space.

From the Kick Ass Kung-Fu website, I can't get a good handle on how the real-time capture system works. It appears that players don't have to have any type of motion tracing devices connected to their bodies for the computer system to create a 3D image of the players.

Posted by Doug Fox at 6:09 PM - Permalink | Comments (1)