Ensemble Coordination, Distributed Gesture, and Rhythmic Organizations
Introduction
Coordination between moving bodies motivates this work.
There are countless examples from the real world: a bustling kitchen, a crowded cross-walk, a group preparing an afternoon tea. Taking off from LeFebvre and Laban, we can characterize these interactions according to their different rhythmicities. We investigate not only the characteristics of a moving body in time, but the relations between moving bodies.
There are countless examples from the real world: a bustling kitchen, a crowded cross-walk, a group preparing an afternoon tea. Taking off from LeFebvre and Laban, we can characterize these interactions according to their different rhythmicities. We investigate not only the characteristics of a moving body in time, but the relations between moving bodies.
Motivating Questions
The above gives rise to some open questions:
- how can we describe ensemble activity? as a field? an ecology? as a network? as a dynamical system?
-what does coordination in performative situations suggest about other contexts?
- what dynamics emerge when no organizational roles are pre-determined (string quartet)? Or how to these roles diverge from prescription (conducted ensemble, orchestra w/ concerto soloist)?
-how do we account for implacable elements within ensemble interaction -- those entities which can't (don't?) anticipate human movements? a basketball, the creaking floor, a cart with a squeaking wheel passing by? What about non-human organisms?
Experiential Approaches
We use responsive media to parameterize the conditions of our empirical work. Our primary apparatus for this work is the Ozone system, a "new media choreography system based on layered, continuous physical models, designed for building a diverse range of interactive spaces that coordinate arbitrary streams of video and audio synthesized in real-time response to continuous, concurrent activity by people in a live event." (Sha et al. 2010).
In our empirical events, we employ different sensing modes which allow a sensitivity to ensemble dynamics. We deploy wearable sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers to movers' bodies to track a given parts orientation and change in speed. Other examples include EMG sensors, which give a sense of muscle tension. Overhead camera tracking allows for measures of motion across the floor; we employ computer vision techniques such as HS flow wit having to tokenize specific bodies. We also build digital/physical hybrid systems in which media feedbacks are created by the movement of physical system, as opposed to the human body.
Real-time media feedbacks include sound, light, and projected video.
In our empirical events, we employ different sensing modes which allow a sensitivity to ensemble dynamics. We deploy wearable sensors such as gyroscopes, accelerometers to movers' bodies to track a given parts orientation and change in speed. Other examples include EMG sensors, which give a sense of muscle tension. Overhead camera tracking allows for measures of motion across the floor; we employ computer vision techniques such as HS flow wit having to tokenize specific bodies. We also build digital/physical hybrid systems in which media feedbacks are created by the movement of physical system, as opposed to the human body.
Real-time media feedbacks include sound, light, and projected video.
Scientific Challenges
Overview
Challenge
Ensemble interaction presents messy swathes of agency, individuation, and intention. The challenge scientifically is to bookmark those sophisticated notions and return to phenomenological fundamentals for empirical study.
Methods
As a framework, we work abductively to develop activities which motivate coordinated activity. These activities might be go by many names : games, activities, exercises, icebreakers even; we refer to them unilaterally as movement etudes. A movement etude is, in essence, a set of directions scaffolds playful activity. There may be objectives or goals, but not in the teleological sense that they can be completed or achieved. Kicking the can or passing the football, these are activities which are not driven by interpersonal competition.
Our data may include phenomenological reflections, visualizations of phase spaces, etc.
Technical
Challenge
Ensemble interaction presents messy swathes of agency, individuation, and intention. The challenge scientifically is to bookmark those sophisticated notions and return to phenomenological fundamentals for empirical study.
Methods
As a framework, we work abductively to develop activities which motivate coordinated activity. These activities might be go by many names : games, activities, exercises, icebreakers even; we refer to them unilaterally as movement etudes. A movement etude is, in essence, a set of directions scaffolds playful activity. There may be objectives or goals, but not in the teleological sense that they can be completed or achieved. Kicking the can or passing the football, these are activities which are not driven by interpersonal competition.
Our data may include phenomenological reflections, visualizations of phase spaces, etc.
Technical
Overall Significance
Literature Review
This research hybridizes work from various areas, including dynamical analysis of movement, process philosophy, phenomenology, enactivism/embodiment studies, and posthuman studies.