October 29, 2007

New "Open" Technology-Focused Dance Blog in Partnership with Dance/NYC

I'm delighted to announce the initial launch of a new dance blog that will focus on answering technology and Internet questions related to any and all aspects of dance.

You can visit the Dance Goes Digital blog to take a look.

This blog is being produced in partnership with Dance/NYC, a branch of Dance/USA. This blog is a continuation of last week's Dance/NYC Townhall that focused on how the Internet and technology will impact the dance world.

The Dance Goes Digital Blog has a straightforward focus: The goal is to provide a forum where members of the dance community can post their questions, answers, recommendations and insights about the Internet, technology, software, video and other offerings related to dance. Questions might be very specific in nature or, alternatively, address strategic and broader issues - it's up to you.

By calling it an "Open" forum, this is what I mean. This blog is structured differently than other blogs on Great Dance. The main difference is that everybody is invited to write their own posts. if you visit the following form, you'll see that you can write your own post.

After it is reviewed, it will be published to the Dance Goes Digital blog and readers can then add comments in response as they normally would.

During the Dance/NYC Townhall meeting, I was furiously writing notes about the technology and Internet interests of the participants. I'll seed this new blog with questions based upon the interests expressed by audience members.

And, of course, everybody is encouraged to post their own questions and offer answers and recommendations as well. If the questions are not that easy to answer, I'll do my best to find somebody who has the answer.

If you have thoughts and feedback about this new blog, please share.

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August 27, 2007

Immersive 3D Videoconferencing for Dance

The TEEVE Project (Tele-immersive Environment for EVErbody), a research project from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley, is an immersive 3D video conferencing system with applications for dance.

From the site's video page, you can watch the video: "TEEVE: New Digital Options for Collaborative Dance in Geographically Distributed Tele-immersive Spaces." The video file is large - 266 MB. But definitely worth watching.

The clip gives you an overview of how dancers at two different locations can interact in real-time in a virtual landscape. The images of the animated dancers in this virtual space are not as good as I would have thought - I'm curious why this is the case. But the researchers give a good overview of how the process of capturing, streaming and rendering video works.

Screen Shots from Video

Tele-Immersive Applications for Dance

Toward the end of the video, the researchers share their thoughts about the value of this tele-immersive application for dance education and physical therapy. While I'm obviously an advocate for technology, I don't see how virtual, distributed environments can really play a significant role in dance education. I was thinking about all of the great comments to my post in which I seek suggestions on how to continue my dance education in NYC. At least for myself, I have no desire to learn about dance and movement from teachers who are not physically present in the studio with me.

But maybe in terms of different types of remote collaborations among choreographers and dancers who are working on upcoming performances, Internet-only dances and related projects, there will be more possibilities for this immersive environment.

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July 8, 2007

Dance Movement Converted into Renewable Energy

How do you convert the motion of dancers into a renewable energy source? Watch this Sustainable Dance Club video from Sustainable Rotterdam [via Switched]:

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June 5, 2007

Apple iPhone TV Ads

You can watch ads for the soon-to-be introduced Apple iPhone.

The user interface and product design of Apple products are always ingenious. I'm especially interested in experimenting with watching videos and viewing pictures on the new iPhones.

I think it's easy to predict that the roll-out of the iPhone will encourage many dancers to make sure that their videos look good on these hand-held devices.

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June 1, 2007

Experience Site-Specific Dance Performances with Immersive Media

I was browsing the Dancing in the Streets website to learn about their upcoming site-specific performances in NYC after covering the new Google street-level mapping service on Wednesday. And I was wondering what it would be like to experience a site-specific performance in an immersive theater environment with a planetarium-like dome.

The Making of Street-Level Google Maps

For its street-level maps, Google is attaching a 360-degree camera to the roof of a car, which then shoots pictures of every block in a city. One of the camera systems they're using is from Immersive Media and looks like this:

And the camera mounted on a car looks like this:

[via Boing Boing and PR. Differently]

The end result is that this camera takes street-level pictures such as this one of Lincoln Center, which you can view on Google Maps:

Record Site-Specific Dance Performances with a 360-Degree Video Camera

Now imagine that you have a 360-degree video camera and you're situated in the middle of a street. On both sides of you there are dancers propelling down buildings with rock-climbing gear. Think of this image from Microsoft when the software giant introduced it's new Vista operating system:

With a single panoramic, full-motion camera, you can take 360-degree videos so that you can record the unfolding of the Vista banner banner above as well as the same thing which could hypothetically be happening on the other side of the street.

Heading to a Planetarium

Now that you have your panoramic video, you can project it in a theater with a dome such as the ones you'll find in a planetarium. As viewers look toward the ceiling, they will feel as if they are in the middle of the street as you were and they'll be surrounded by video of dancers projected on all sides. If you watch the Immersive Media "How it Works" demo, you'll see that one of the applications is for group immersive experiences.

I don't anticipate Dancing in the Streets running-out to buy these 360-degree video cameras anytime soon. But prices always come down for new technologies and one day the cost of capturing site-specific performances will not be prohibitive.

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April 13, 2007

The Dancing Shoe

Here's a video that demonstrates a dancing shoe that is controlled by a PC via a USB connection. This short video is in Spanish. The guy demonstrating the dancing show says that you can control four variables: rhythm, tempo, intensity and swing.

[via Engadget]

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February 6, 2007

The Future of Online Search for Multimedia Dance Content Part I of II

In this post you'll find highlights from the latest developments in Internet search technology.

This is a two-part post. In the next post, I'll describe how the search tools discussed below, with additions and modifications, might be put to work to provide dancers, choreographers, educators, students, researchers and others with new ways to search for video and other forms of multimedia content.

Searching for dance videos or specific parts of dance videos may not strike you as a pressing issue for the dance world. But it will soon become one as more and more dance videos are uploaded to the web.

How I Find Dance Videos Today

For my recent multimedia guides to Katherine Dunham, Mark Morris and Merce Cunningham, you might be wondering how I find online video clips for each of these dancers.

I start by using three video-dedicated search engines that index videos across multiple video sharing sites:

- Vdoogle.com
- SearchVideo
- Blinkx

When using the above search engines, I usually start by typing in a line of text such as the following with quotation marks included:

"Katherine Dunham" dance

Next I turn to individual video sites including YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and others - although for the most part I'm probably going to get the same results as I did with the 3 videos search engines above.

Then, finally, I go to the regular search engines such as Google and search again for videos by entering text such as:

"Katherine Dunham" dance video

The reason I go to the general-purpose search engines is because none of the dedicated video search engines is comprehensive so I have to use a number of additional tools to conduct a search.

I also came across an upcoming video search site called CastTV. TechCrunch has good things to say about CastTV's search technology, but as you can see, it hasn't lunched yet.

Image Search

When we think about search, we're really thinking about text-based searches. We type words into a search box to find matching results. But why limit ourselves to using text strings when what we're looking for is multimedia content?

Take a look at the Like Visual Shopping site. You can conduct searches where the input consists of images and not text. So if you click on the picture of a red shoe, you'll be presented with matches that have similar color, size, shape and design of the red shoe you started with. This same visual matching technology can also be used for matching people - more about that when I talk about new search applications for dance.

Here are two screen shoots that show how Like Visual Shopping Works. In the first picture - click on it for larger image - I clicked on the image of the red shoe. Like looked for other items in the database with similar visual characteristics and returned the results, which you'll see on the second image.

Pixsta also offers a visual browse and search technology. Visit Net-a-porter.com to see how this matching technology is used to search for clothing and accessories. [Via Read/WriteWeb]

One advantage with this visual matching approach is that you don't have to describe with words what you're looking for. You can simply start with a picture of what you like and these visual matching tools will find similar items.

Visual search is also available for mobile devices. With Mobot mobile video search, you can use your camera phone to take pictures of movie posters, magazines, billboards, logos and other items, and the application will return relevant purchasing information to your mobile device.

Audio Search

Here are two applications with different takes on searching for audio content:

Podzinger searches for audio content within audio and video files. Podzinger uses speech-to-text recognition technology to convert the spoken word to text files. Then you can use the search engine on Podzinger to search these text transcripts.

I used the Podzinger search engine to find references to "modern dance". The first match is for a radio program where the term "modern dance" is spoken at 13:18 minutes into the program. I can click on this time stamp and I'll be taken to a point in the audio program a few seconds before "modern dance" is uttered.

With Midomi you can search for songs by singing or humming a few bars into a microphone. This voice technology search tool will then find songs that match your input. Here's a video on Midomi on how to use this voice matching tool. The Mashable blog is sold on this technology.

Videos Authentication Tools

What I was hoping to find on the cutting-edge of video search tools is the ability to search for moving bodies within a video. I didn't find this although it may exist.

What I did find are automated video content authentication tools that allow content owners to ensure that their videos are not being used and distributed illegally. So this technology can be used by movie studios who don't want their copyrighted materials to be uploaded to YouTube for example.

This video technology is usually referred to a video fingerprint filtering. With this software a large number of video files can be examined to see if any of them contain a specific "fingerprint" that matches the videos of a content owner. I haven't been able to figure out yet how each video is actually examined - is it by color, movement, shapes or other elements?

If specific objects - such as a human body - cannot be identified and tracked using this fingerprint technology, then it really won't address the video search challenge for dance that I'll address in my second post about this topic.

Here are three companies that offer this video filtering technology:

- Advestigo just introduced Advestigate, a filtering technology to analyze user generated content (UGC). [Via SearchEngineWatch]

- Guba, which offers downloadable video content for free or for a fee, uses a proprietary software to filter video so that all content is being legally used. [Via TechCrunch].

- Audible Magic offers tools for fingerprinting and protecting audio and video copyrights from infringement. Here's November press release for its new video identification service.

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November 2, 2006

The Prototype Dance

I just came across this prototyping project on Boing Boing that fascinates me.

Here's a video of a rapid prototyping initiative that takes free-form gestures made in space and converts these movements into physical objects. This project uses motion-capture technology and rapid prototyping tools to convert dance-like motions into real furniture.

What happens with how we conceive of dance and motion when movement can be imagined in such concrete form?

Two people leave a theater. One says, "I didn't understand the last dance." The other responds, "Oh, they were just making an office chair I pre-ordered yesterday from the dance company's website."

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October 27, 2006

I'm Perplexed

I've been curious about something for awhile:

Some dancers and choreographers work with digital and interactive technologies from the standpoint of creating performances that integrate these tools into their dance pieces. For example, a dancer might explore how a series of movements can activate desired sequence of sounds or video images in real-time. And there are many other possibilities that have been explored in the realm of dance and technology.

But what perplexes me is that dancers and others involved in the dance and technology field (including academic and research institutions) seem to have little interest in exploring how the distributed and universal nature of the Internet can be leveraged to transform the process of creating performances and collaborating with global audiences. To me this area of investigation is very intriguing given the economic challenges faced by many dance companies and the need to find new ways for audiences (and future audiences) to engage with dance in new ways.

I've written about these topics before: How can the Internet be used to give audiences on-going access to works-in-progress? How can new platforms be created so that audiences can share their thoughts and feedback with choreographers and dancers? And, how can distributed audiences be given an opportunity to contribute their own dance moves and stories via uploaded video? And, overall, in what new ways can the Internet be put to work so that dance becomes a more vital part of our culture?

I'm going to post a message to the Dance-Tech list to see what members have to say about this topic.

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October 24, 2006

Digitizing Dance Community from the Bottom Up

Tony Schultz, a physicist studying applications in human movement analysis and a contributor to The Winger blog, has a post from last month, "The Winger is a Dance Technology," in which he writes about the impact of the online world on dance:

The democratization of space for showing and talking about dance, through the internet, is transforming the way it is seen and practiced. Communication technologies such as blogs and message boards facilitate relationships between artists and opens discussion with viewers. Free video over IP services provided by sites such as blip.tv or YouTube provide an open trading ground for anyone to share dance media with the world.

He then recounts a personal story of how he used the Internet to connect with breakdancers in Paris before traveling to France:

This experience fundamentally transformed the way I think about culture making and dancing. Finding real people dancing, not on stage but in the world, made me shift my perspective on where art comes from, where it belongs and what function it serves. Those who are compelled to create and advance these forms are often not professional dancers. They train hard and sacrifice simply because they know this work is important.

Tony's post led me to think about who will lead the charge (or who is leading the charge) in terms of motivating the dance community at-large to experiment with Internet applications and related technologies in order to enhance communications and collaborations among dancers and the public. Tony pretty much answered the question. It often will be done in an informal manner by individuals who may or may not be professional dancers. And, from my experience, those who experiment with the latest Internet developments - the early adapters - will usually not be the established dance companies, presenters and other institutions and organizations connected to the dance world.

Here's one example of a dancer who puts a number of online tools to work to share her passion for Middle Eastern dancing:

ShanMonster created a blog, Because Nudity is Only Skin-Deep, on LiveJournal. She writes in her profile:

I teach Middle Eastern and tribal fusion dance, am a tribal fusion, North American cabaret, and experimental dancer, and I also sell my self-published dance costuming books. To top it all off, I maintain canadaraqs and am a co-moderator at bellydancing.

In a post "My Drill Routine," she gives a breakdown of her exercise regimen with a link to the music she listens to on Pandora.

And, in her "Warning: Contains Dance" post, ShanMonster links to a Google video of her performing a belly dance.

There are thousands upon thousands of Internet-addicted dancers like ShanMonster who are using the Internet every day to make new connections, share their passion for dance and give the public a multimedia glimpse into their daily lives. I just think it takes time for these everyday occurrences to bubble-up to the institutional level.

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June 20, 2006

Where Are the Dance Video Previews?

This morning in Rojo - my newsfeed aggregator and reader - I came across an article "Feats (and follies) of technology: Two exhibits illustrate how it can either elevate or obfuscate works" from the Boston Globe. (I subscribe to the dance feeds from Topix.net, which is how I found this article.)

So I visit this article on Boston Globe since anything that combines dance and technology is usually something I'm interested in learning more about. This article is, in part, about "Choreographic Turn," a dance film exhibit that "explores new ways to film dance." This work is the result of a collaboration between filmmaker Peter Welz and dancer and choreographer William Forsythe who is the former director of the Frankfurt Ballet and the founder of the Forsythe Company.

Now to what baffles me:

Here is a dance exhibit that not only incorporates dance film, but actually explores new approaches to filming dance. My question is if you are already working with film or video and you are intrigued by the possibilities of this medium, how is it not possible to think about creating a video preview of this exhibit for online distribution? I did a search for additional information about "Choreographic Turn," and all I find is text. I don't want to just read about this exhibit when one minute of video would provide me with a wealth of insight about this work.

So what I'm really addressing is what I continue to see as a huge disconnect between choreographers and filmmakers who work with video and the world of the Internet. These artists pretty much have everything they need to create a video trailer. They can upload a video and then encourage writers, bloggers and everybody else to link to this promotional video clip.

The end result is that more people would see their exhibits, their dance films and their dances. And the extra work involved in creating this video trailer is just not that great.

I could have used any of thousands of examples to make my point. There are many dance videographers and choreographers using video but who are not making promotional videos available online. But in the case of "Choreographic Turn," the missed opportunity seems so blatant to me that I had to write about it.

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June 7, 2006

A Dance Vocabulary for Performance Art

On the Networked Performance blog I came across an interesting write-up about a multimedia and performance art work by Ursula Endlicher.

For this installation, "Website Impersonations: The Amazons (.at versus .com)," Ursula creates a movement vocabulary that corresponds to the underlying HTML code of a webpage. You can watch a video that shows exactly how users interact with this art work (QuickTime video file is about 27 MB):

A user sits down on top of a giant trackball as they watch two side-by-side projection screens positioned in the corner of a room. One image is projected of a performer whose movements reflect the HTML code for Amazon.com while on the other screen the performer's movements reflect the HTML code for Amazon.at. The code is generated in real-time from a live Internet connection. By moving one's butt to roll the trackball, users can determine the position of the cursor and thus the corresponding movements that appear on screen. Here's a diagram of the installation set-up and a larger version of these technical requirements are available on Ursula's site:

I think that the online presentation of this installation would be enhanced if there were a separate movement vocabulary gallery that showed, in a visual fashion, the specific connections between HTML code and the individual movements. For example, what are the specific series of movements made by a performer when he or she encounters a tag for the beginning of an HTML table? By creating this video-based movement vocabulary library, both online and in-person audiences would have a better understanding of the inner workings of this installation and would likely enjoy it more.

Ursula Endlicher will be showing her work this Saturday, June 10th at 7:00 PM at 315 Broadway, 5th Floor (between Duane/ Thomas Street) in Lower Manhattan.

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April 24, 2006

Crossing Flash Mobs and Site-Specific Performances

What would happen if you crossed a site-specific dance performance with a flash mob? I'm not sure, but you'd probably generate a large, engaged audience.

A flash mob is when a group of people -- who may or may not know each other -- use the Internet to arrange a public gathering to perform a specific act that takes place at a specific time and location. A dance flash mob would be when a group of dancers agree to meet at a designated location to dance for a few minutes and then disappear into the crowd. Here's an example of an Argentine Tango flash dance mob in Vancouver:

Or a more recent example of a flash mob took place at the University of Florida earlier this month to recreate a banned Xbox TV commercial that never aired. Here's the bizarre video of this recreation on YouTube:

The above flash mob is based upon a commercial that Microsoft never ran probably because of the excessive simulated violence -- just about everybody in the video is pointing their fingers at others as if they are going to blow each other's heads off. You can watch the original commercial:

What I find interesting is that within 12 days almost 50,000 people watched this University of Florida flash mob, which gives you an idea of what types of videos are most popular on YouTube -- ones that are inane, silly and meaningless. But I still think that there is some value that can be taken from this video and its success.

What is it about flash mobs that intrigue people? Why do people participate in flash mobs? Why do others want to watch videos flash mobs? I think it has to do with the compelling nature of spontaneous collective action. It's also an intriguing premise to consider how digital communication tools can be leveraged to bring strangers together within a very short time-frame to act in unison.

I was thinking about flash mobs when I came across a write-up on the Networked Performance blog for the upcoming Sitelines 2006 series of site-specific performances that is organized by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. You can view a map mashup that shows the locations for all of the performances:

The program kicks-off in Early May with a performance by Benoit Maubrey's Audio Ballerinas, which features dancers that wear "electro-acoustic clothes and dresses that make sounds by interacting with their environment."

I haven't figured out the answer to my opening question about the end result of crossing site-specific dance performances and flash mobs. But there must be something fun and intriguing that can be created - especially when you start with an outside performance by a technology clad dance troupe. So I ask you: how would you add a flash mob component to this performance to get more people involved and build greater levels of excitement and interest around this event?

Technorati Tags: dance, flashmob, performance, xbox, youtube

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April 19, 2006

Dancing to the Sounds of the Earth

On April 4th, Principal Dancer Muriel Maffre of the San Francisco Ballet performed an eight-minute work to commemorate the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

"Ballet Mori," performed at the War Memorial Opera House, is an improvised solo work danced to natural sounds generated from real-time seismic data. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by artist and engineer Ken Goldberg, measured the low-level seismic activity of the Hayward Fault and transmitted these recordings to the Opera House. Based upon this live streaming data, earthlike musical sounds were generated to which Maffre danced.

Resources

- Video clip of Ballet Mori [via networked performance].

- Weekend America audio interview with Muriel Maffre and Ken Goldberg.

- "Maffre, Ballet dance to amplified sounds from a fault line in a new work created in honor of '06 earthquake centennial" article in San Francisco Chronicle by Rachel Howard.

- "Shaking Up the Ballet" article in Wired by Jonathon Keats.

Technorati Tags: ballet, dance, earthquake, performance, technology

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April 6, 2006

RunBot Has Uncanny Ability to Replicate Human Movement

Despite my enthusiasm for technology, I just watched a video clip (MPEG) of "RunBot," which I found eerie. For its size (30 centimeters), RunBot is the fastest walking computer ever created.

This robot, according to a New Scientist story, "is controlled by a simple program that mimics the way neurons control reflexes in humans and other animals." It's this partial replication of life-like movement that struck me as I was watching the video.

You can watch an additional RunBot video on the We Make Money Not Art blog where I first came across this story.

How good can computers actually get at replicating human movement? Will they dance one day with grace and dexterity? Is this threatening to dancers?

Here are three screen shots from the RunBot video clip:

RunBot initiates step

RunBot has large gait

RunBot falls flat on its face!

Technorati Tags: robot, technology

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April 5, 2006

A New Business Model for Dance Companies

Since starting my blog in September of last year, I've come across many depressing stories about the economic perils faced by dance companies. Some dance companies simply can't survive or their economic health remains tenuous.

In an article in today's New York Times [via Downtown Dancer], choreographer Bill T. Jones is quoted:

"You don't make a damn cent in dance."

That succinctly sums up the problem.

The question for dance-makers is the following: Given the constant financial challenges, what new approaches can be taken to improve the economic conditions of dancers and dance companies? Or, better yet, how can more dance companies ensure that they have a healthy and secure financial future?

I have a two-part answer:

1) Dance companies should broaden the sources from which they seek financial support, and

2) Dance companies should seek commissions for dance works that have both a live and online component.

Science and Dance - A New Partnership

Before providing an explanation of my two-part solution, I need to highlight a trend that has potentially wonderful ramifications for dance.

Over the past half year, I've noticed that a number of dance companies have been exploring scientific and technological themes in their works.

Here are just a few examples:

- Rambert Dance Company: "Constant Speed" (Physics)

- Australian Dance Theatre: "Devolution" (Robotics)

- Liz Lerman Dance Exchange: "Ferocious Beauty: Genome" (Genetics/DNA)

- San Francisco Ballet: "Ballet Mori" (Earth Science)

These dance works are very intriguing because they offer examples of how human movement can serve to give audiences a different and enhanced way of reflecting on science and technological developments.

There is also an economic component to the fusion of dance and science. Focusing on scientific themes makes good business sense for dancers. There happen to be thousands upon thousands of scientific, technological, medical and related companies that need to market and promote their products and services. And the art form of dance is already showing itself to be a compelling means of explaining, exploring and grappling with scientific and technological developments and changes.

So what better partnership could there be than for dance companies to seek commissions or other forms of financial support from private companies in the scientific and technological arena?

Plus, there is one more element that I want to point out about companies in the technology/scientific realm: They appreciate the importance of leveraging the Internet to reach their customers - I'll elaborate on this point in just a moment.

Back to My Two-Part Solution

As I just explained, dance is a wonderful way to explore and make vivid a huge range of scientific topics. So the first component of my plan is straightforward: Seek commissions/funding/sponsorship from companies in the scientific, technological, medical and related fields - or funding from associations, foundations and related entities that represent these companies.

The second component of my plan is a little trickier because it has not been done yet - but it represents a huge growth area for dance.

The economics of dance companies, which, as Bill T. Jones explained, is miserable, is not going to significantly change until dancers find financially profitable ways to exploit the Internet. The logic is simple. Even in the best of circumstances, you can have only so many people who are going to buy a ticket to watch a performance. The Internet, on the other hand, allows you to reach an audience of potentially unlimited size.

So in addition to seeking commissions from scientific and technological companies, you'll want to propose dance works to these corporations that are designed for the theater as well as the online world.

This dual-track approach to performance will be much more compelling to potential sponsors. Not only will they receive the traditional benefits of sponsoring a dance performance, but they will receive the many benefits that come with helping to underwrite the Internet-based version of your dance piece as well.

From your perspective, you'll be able to raise more money, there will be good synergies between your live performances and their online component, and you will be able to generate additional revenue from online sales.

But I'm leaving out one critical component: What is the structure and nature of the online component of your dance performance and how specifically will you make money from it?

To be continued...

Technorati Tags: business, dance, marketing, performance, technology

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March 30, 2006

Getting Started with Podcasting

On Tuesday I wrote about picture blogging for dancers. Today I want to talk about audio podcasting.

One of the benefits of photo blogging is that you can focus on sharing pictures of dance rehearsals and performances as opposed to spending a lot of time writing posts a few times a week for your blog.

The same time-saving benefits also hold true for adding audio messages to your blog. I think it would be great to be able to listen to dancers and choreographers talk about their work and other activities on a regular basis. Say, for example, I could go to Bill T. Jones' new blog and listen to him talk about what he's up to in the world of dance. Maybe he could record a five-minute audio message three times a week. I think that would be incredibly compelling. Of course, if hundreds of choreographers and dancers started to do this, we'd all have to pick the ones that we listened to.

The beauty of podcasting is that it's fast, cheap and usually easy. You can either record your audio messages through a microphone connected to your computer or you can pick-up a telephone and leave a voice mail that is converted into an audio message that can be listened to over the Internet.

Once you start your podcast, you can then make it accessible through your blog and services such as iTunes so that these audio programs can be transferred to iPods. I create my podcast in a much different manner than I'm describing in this post because I conduct interviews by telephone. But however you go about it, you can create a channel like I have on iTunes - you need iTunes software to view it or click this image for larger view:

Click for Larger Image

Here are some applications that you can use to create an audio podcast:

- Audioblog was one of the first (maybe the first) audio podcast services. Prices start at $9.95 a month. You can record audio messages by telephone or through a web browser. I've used this application. It works well and you can post your audio recordings automatically to your blog.

- Odeo also lets you record and share your audio programs. You can record messages by telephone or through a Flash application. You can even add an Odeo link on your blog/website so that visitors can leave voice mail messages for you. Odeo won the podcasting category of the Web 2.0 Awards. Odeo is free. I've used this service very briefly just for the purpose of sending a voice message from the home page of a blogger - a fun feature.

- Evoca is a very new audio recording and sharing service. I experimented with it for a few minutes yesterday. It's easy to record an audio message, but as of yesterday, you could only post your audio messages if you used Blogger. I'll experiment more once they support MovableType - my blogging software. Evoca is free for a basic account and $4.99 for a professional account.

- In addition to recording your own audio blogs, you can have the text from your blog converted into audio messages. Services such as Talkr and Feed2Podcast create synthesized voice versions of your posts. The voice on both of these services really annoys me. But for some of your blog readers it may be more convenient to have access to these audio transcripts.

- Here's a listing of more audio and podcasting services.

- And here's another listing of podcasting, audio and music services - they are at the top of this huge list under the "Audio" category.

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March 17, 2006

Projects for Dance and Technology Students

It's been nice to receive more emails lately from students at colleges and universities who are pursuing studies in dance and technology or are taking a class or writing a paper that relates in some way to the fusing of dance and digital tools. I'm happy to help answer questions, if I can, or forward your messages to others who can answer your questions or give you suggestions.

I was thinking that there are a number of projects students could work on that would be both worthwhile research endeavors and wonderful ways for dancers around the world to learn about the latest developments in interactive performances, new media tools and related technologies.

I would be delighted if you were working on any of the following projects (or related one) and could make your final research public for others to access:

- Annotated picture guides of interactive performance tools and technologies: Let's say that you are taking a class or doing research on motion tracking options for dance performances. What I think would be great is if you take pictures at every step of the process so that people who view your project could have a solid understanding of how motion tracking worked. You could take pictures of your camcorder, dancers, software screen shots and other elements and upload these pictures to a photo gallery such as Flickr. Then you could add annotations to each of your pictures so that viewers would understand every part of the process. I'd be delighted to link to these pictures or pull them into my blog for people to access.

- Annotated video guides to interactive performances: In this case, I have the same idea in mind as above except that now you would work with video. You could take video to show how motion caption systems (or other technologies) are set-up and then used to capture the movement of a dancer. Then, you could edit this video and add a voice over that describes specifically what is happening. Finally, you could upload this video to You Tube, Google Videos or other free video hosting services.

- Documenting dance performances: You can, of course, take videos and pictures of works in progress and final dance performances that you're working on. Then you can upload these videos to the web. One of the things that I haven't seen that I think would be very worthwhile would be if you upload two versions of each video. With the first video of a rehearsal or dance performance, you upload it with the musical track. With the 2 version you create an audio track where you and other dancers/choreographers explain what your performance is about - essentially this is like the second audio track on a DVD where you listen to actors and directors discuss a movie.

- Performance blogs with videos: I'd love to see more experimentation with weblogs where the choreographers and dancers start posting to their blogs from the day of the first rehearsal through the actual performance. I enjoy getting inside the creative process and understanding how a dance work is developed from the initial idea to the final result - your performance. So at every practice, you can take video clips and post them to your blog. These videos would let your readers follow your progress and also provide a forum where visitors who watch your videos can offer you feedback.

Those are my thoughts for now. I'm sure there are many other possibilities.

Please let me know if you are going to pursue any of the above projects or other ideas you have for sharing your experimentations, research and performances with an online audience.

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March 14, 2006

Virtual Kate Moss on the Runway

Style.com features a video clip of the Alexander McQueen collection at the 2006 Ready-to-Wear fashion show in Paris, which took place earlier this month, that includes a pre-recorded holographic-like image of Kate Moss projected on to the runway. To watch this captivating effect, you first have to watch the opening video ad. Then, go to 5:40 minute mark of the video to watch the 3D image of Kate Moss. (via reBang weblog).

An Associated Press article describes the virtual appearance of Kate Moss as a "symbolic resurrection for the supermodel, who lost several advertising contracts after she was pictured in London tabloids last year linked to drugs."

The apparition of Kate Moss is not a holographic image as the MIT Advertising Lab points out. The 3D image is actually an example of Pepper's Ghost (Wikipedia), which was first used, as The Independent explains, in the 19th Century by John Henry Pepper in a production of Charles Dickens' "The Haunted Man."

Click for larger diagram
Visit diagram description

As the Wikipedia article explains, the Pepper's Ghost effect uses plate glass, special lighting techniques and a hidden room to create ghost like images that can appear and quickly disappear or morph from one character into another. The set-up at the Ready-to-Wear fashion show was an updated version of this technique that used pre-recorded video and a projector - and, I'm guessing, a transparent screen of some type but there is no further explanation.

As I was watching the video clip of Kate Moss I was wondering what types of applications there could be in the dance world for this updated version of Pepper's Ghost. It would be especially intriguing if this ghost-like effect could be created in real-time so that an apparition of a dancer at one location could be dropped-into the middle of a dance performance at another location.

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March 9, 2006

Interview with James Oliverio of Digital Worlds Institute

This morning I interviewed James Oliverio, professor and director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. He discussed the many collaborative programs that the Institute has organized that have united artists from multiple continents via the high-speed Internet2 and advanced video conferencing capabilities. A thread that ties these programs together is how the networked connections that join remote sites help to breakdown cultural barriers among participating artists.

Click here to listen to audio interview (MP3 format - Stereo - 8.55 MB - 18:40 Minutes)

Background

James Oliverio is a professor and director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida. He is an internationally known creative artist, educator and producer with over 20 years of experience in film and electronic media. He's been awarded five Emmy Awards from the Atlanta chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and has received numerous grants and symphonic commissions.

The Digital Worlds Institute, which he heads, conducts interdisciplinary research and educational programs that unite engineering and arts disciplines by using the latest developments in digital technologies and networking to bring together cultures and artist from around the globe.

Collaborative Dance Performances

On the Digital Worlds Institute website you can learn about and watch archived videos from many of their programs. (View research and production projects to access these programs.)

Of particular interest to dancers are two programs that you'll want to explore: "Dancing Beyond Boundaries (2001)" and "Non Divisi (2003)." Here are two images from Non Divisi:

Click pictures for larger images

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March 8, 2006

Dance in America Launches Audio Podcast

Regional Dance America is the first dance organization that I know of to launch an audio podcast focused on dance. You can listen to the first podcast by visiting the Dance in America Podcast page.

I'll write more after I finish listening to program.

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Internet2 and Expanded Opportunities for Arts and Performance

I spoke with Ann Doyle this morning. Ann is the manager for Arts and Humanities Initiatives at Internet2, a consortium of universities, industries and government that are developing and deploying advanced networking applications and technologies. (Beth Miklavcic and Jimmy Miklavcic, whom I interviewed yesterday about their InterPlay performance, use the Internet2 for their distributed programs).

You should definitely visit the link to the Arts and Humanities Initiatives that I just mentioned above. There are some fascinating resources about a range of distributed arts programs. I happened to come across an interview (PDF) with James Oliverio, director of the Digital Worlds Institute at the University of Florida, whom I'll be interviewing tomorrow about their dance and performance programs that unite multiple locations around the globe.

I first contacted Ann Doyle because I wanted to learn more about the "Cultivating Communities" dance program that she hosted for Internet2 in 2002. If you visit "Cultivating Communities," you can learn about a series of dance performances that brought together dancers from multiple locations using motion tracking, motion capture and other interactive technologies in conjunction with the near TV broadcast quality of the Internet2 infrastructure - you'll also find a number of videos for these performances.

Ann believes that there are two important ways that the Internet2 project contributes to fostering new types of artistic possibilities and performance opportunities.

First, the network infrastructure delivers near broadcast quality video and audio to participating sites. Plus, there is very low latency, which means that the "roundtrip interactive time," as Ann says, is virtually nil. With top-notch video and low-latency, there are opportunities for distributed spontaneity that really didn't exist before when collaborating with remote colleagues and artists.

Second, this network infrastructure provides an opportunity for dancers and other artists to "think digitally." For example, if you go back to the "Cultivating Communities," a new choreographic question arises. Choreographers now have to think beyond the fixed borders of a single stage and consider their work in the broader context of multiple locations joined together by a digital network. These types of distributed programs raise many questions about the choreographic process and dance in general.

They also raise the question of how dancers and other artists are being prepared for distributed programs at the college and university level. Ann mentioned the Manhattan School of Music (MSM), which has been a leader in leveraging the Internet2 for conducting master classes and performances. Here's an article by Christianne Orto about the educational programs at MSM. Orto is the director, recording and distance learning at MSM and you can read an overview of their Distance Learning programs. Ann also directed me to dance programs at universities that are using Internet2 to conduct performances and classes - I'll be following-up soon with these contacts.

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March 7, 2006

Interview with Another Language About InterPlay

Today I interviewed Beth Miklavcic, the artistic director, and Jimmy Miklavcic, the executive director, of Another Language, an interdisciplinary dance company, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, that they started in 1985.

Click here to listen to audio interview (MP3 format - Stereo - 9.1 MB - 19:18 Minutes)

During this interview Beth and Jimmy discuss their InterPlay series of performances that unite multiple venues in a real-time collaborative program that relies upon high-speed video conferencing over the Internet2 backbone.

Their next program, "Dancing on the Banks of Packet Creek: RealTime Distributed Surrealistic Cinema" will take place March 31st through April 2nd 2006 at multiple locations from the University of Alaska Fairbanks to the University of Maryland where I plan to watch this performance.

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March 3, 2006

Video Cams for Contact Improvisation

I came across this wearable video recording set-up yesterday for less than $600. With this portable kit, you can save video of any events you wish throughout the day with a mini video camera connected to your glasses.

After interviewing Yacov Sharir yesterday about his research into wearables and performance, which can include contact improvisation between a human dancer and a 3D avatar, I thought it would be interesting to equip multiple dancers with these wearable video recording systems.

It would be interesting to get 10 dancers to participate in a contact improvisation experiment. Each dancer would be equipped with a video headcam to record their perspective of the dance. And then after the performance the 10 different video feeds would be made available online for people to watch the performance from each dancer's perspective. I guess there's probably also a way to output the video in real-time via a wireless connection to a projector so that you could switch among the 10 different video feeds as the program was taking place.

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Devolution - Robots and Humans Share the Stage

Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) is premiering today its newest work, "Devolution," at the Adelaide Arts Festival in Sydney, Australia. Artistic Director Garry Stewart collaborated with machine designer Louis-Philippe Demers to create a performance that puts dancers and robots on the same stage on an equal footing.

I wish I could find some good pictures of what these dancing robots look like. Short of that, here are some articles and interviews about the performance:

- Interview in RealTime with Garry Stewart about his thoughts on dance and robotics

- "Closing the Gap Between Man and Machine," in The Age

- "Danger! Machines in motion," in Thee Advertiser

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Pictures from "Who's in Control" Program

I happened to stumble across these pictures on Flickr taken by floorvan from last weekend's "Who's in Control" program that I attended.

Here's a shot of Arthur Elsenaar preparing to have his facial muscles activited via electrical jolts sent through the electrodes you see attached to his face.

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March 2, 2006

Yacov Sharir Interview - Wearable Computers and Performance

Today I interviewed dance and technology pioneer Yacov Sharir about his research in wearable computers and performance. In this post you'll find a profile of Yacov Sharir, pictures from his research, and external links to related articles and performances.

Click here to listen to audio interview (MP3 format - Stereo - 8.85 MB - 19:20 Minutes)

Profile - Yacov Sharir

Yacov Sharir is a choreographer, dancer, technologist and innovator. He is a professor of Theatre/Dance and Virtual Environments at the University of Texas-Austin and artistic director of the Austin-based Sharir Dance Company.

He has performed under the direction of Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins, Jose Limon and Anna Sokolow. Sharir is the founder of the American Deaf Dance Company and the Sharir Dance Company. As a multiple recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowship, he has choreographed for the Bat-Sheva Dance Company, Hartford Ballet, Dallas Ballet, the Kibbutz Dance Company of Israel, the Utah Repertory Dance Theatre and others. He was a recipient of an "Arts And Virtual Environments" two-year fellowship awarded by the Banff Center for the Arts and is engaged in extensive international lectures and workshops directly related to the issues of virtual environments, cyberspace and computerized choreography.

Image Gallery - Wearable Computers

During the audio interview Yacov Sharir refers to the below pictures.

Click on pictures to view larger images

Links - Articles, Papers and Research

- Yacov Sharir - Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance at the University of Texas-Austin

- Yacov Sharir Studio

- Explorations in wearable computers

- Cyber Human Characters and 3D Worlds

- Virtually Dancing

- Interfacing Virtual & Physical Spaces through the Body: The cyberPRINT Project by Yacov Sharir and others (PDF)

- cyberPRINT project and performance

Posted by Doug Fox at 11:16 AM - Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Dancing - The New Computer Interface

Thanks to Microsoft research, you can now manage and manipulate your email and pictures through a "step user interface" like the one used by the computer game Dance Dance Revolution. You can read about this research and watch a video. (Article from CNN and post from We Make Money Not Art.)

Click for Larger Image

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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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February 23, 2006

Harvestworks - "Who's in Control? New Interfaces for Artistic Expression

I'll be in New York this coming weekend at a program offered by Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center and 3-Legged Dog Media and Theater Group called "Who's in Control? New Interfaces for Artistic Expression." The performances and educational sessions will take place at Eyebeam.

This symposium explores developments in computer interfaces for the visual and performance arts. I'll write about the programs and performances over the weekend or next week.

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February 10, 2006

New Dance and Technology Directory

The new Dance and Technology Directory is up. Please take a look and share any comments. I'm especially interested in feedback about the category and sub-category names - I'm going to continue to make changes to them.

Please feel free to add your listing. Just go to directory section where you want your listing placed and click "Add Link" at top of page.

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February 8, 2006

Interactive Performance Chapter for Upcoming Book

I'm starting to do research and interviews for my upcoming book "Dancing into the Future." You can read a detailed Table of Contents to see the scope of the book.

I'm starting with Chapter 11 that deals with interactive performances. For example, I'll be covering a range of technologies such as sensors, motion tracking, motion capture and related tools that enable dancers to trigger pre-determined responses based upon their movements. A bending of a dancer's right elbow, for instance, could activate a sensor that plays specific sounds or projects animated images on to the screen.

My goal is to explain in straightforward terms how each of these technologies works, provide specific examples of how