Post 23: Moving on from there

   I found this video on YouTube showing some interesting  Kinect experiments by the German Group Animatronik, a bit along the lines of what we, as well as Art and Myrna are experimenting with. I don't quite get the technical explanation at the end though…

   I also found this rather minimalistic strange performance  using a Kinect somewhere in  Japan.

   Then there is this great point cloud sculptural particle effect by Daniel Franke which actually requires 3 Kinects, as well as an accompanying "making of video". I have no idea what software they use or how they did it, but it is terrific…
   Even though it's mostly Windows, THE BLOG to follow seems to be KINECTHACKS.COM , where they have an interesting colorful "ribbon"piece created in Copenhagen:

I also found some info specific to the Mac on the music web site of John Bellona, which has links to download various Kinect Applications, as well as some technical videos:

       Kinect-Via- interface series

            Simple Kinect

 

Post 22: The Bridgman-Packer Workshop

  The workshop took place over the course of 4 nights 6 to 9 and one day 9 to 3 . It was intense and driven. Art and Myrna didn't waste a minute, gave us as much as they possibly could, and every student tried to get the most out of them. The first two nights were devoted to showing us their live video and projection techniques, practicing moves, and exploring possibilities. It was definitely hand on. Even I had to "dance" the first night!
  The group was diverse and cosmopolitan, made up of a majority of young female dancers and choreographers, and a few "tech guys". It was a good mix and worked well. The third night, people started coming up with personal projects, and we shot green screen footage. The 7 projects were refined the fourth night, and plans made for a show of works in progress on the last day of the workshop. That last day was definitely very intense and somewhat hectic, but Art and Myrna kept things moving and organized, and everybody managed to come up with more or less the piece they had in mind. The show started almost on time in front of a group of family and friends, and went quite well. I will post a video when I get it.
  Everybody then helped pack the equipment, and the day ended with a dinner party at my house.  

Post 22: Discovering Bridgman-Packer

   This year, the Alabama Dance Festival included a workshop on Dance and Video Technology led by Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer. I have to be honest and say I actually had never heard of Bridgman-Packer… They were apparently here a few years ago, but I was so wrapped up into Architectural Mapping at the time that I entirely missed the opportunity to discover them.My loss.
   As soon as I started watching their videos, I knew they were Masters at the game I was just starting to play with Mary, and resolved to "pick their brains" as much as I could. Not, mind you, to try and imitate what they do better than anybody, but to figure out our own way of using the new technologies at hand.
    The workshop has been a wonderful experience, even though I didn't get exactly what I was looking for technically. It was a workshop for dancers and choreographers, with support from the Nerds. Well, the Half Nerds with an Artistic bend… Myrna kept reminding us that technology was there ONLY in a supporting role, to help express feelings and ideas, and tell a story. I have no problem with that.
  First, Art and Myrna are absolutely amazing: charming, gracious, friendly, unassuming, energetic, stimulating, inspiring, and extremely generous with both their time and knowledge. 
  The workshop was very stimulating and inspiring for me, and I am quite sure every other participant felt the same,
  I met several very creative and original young dancers and choreographers, whom I am hoping to work with in the future, both on "Light Dreams 2014", and on our own "scAena lumInaria" still very loose Dance and Projection Project.
    We set up and practiced various live video techniques, black and green screen, both vertical and on the floor, with multiple video feed. And we got to try our own ideas. I was rather surprised by how much they are able to squeeze out of very basic  often outdated video equipment, and liked that very much. Years ago as a photographer, I always felt I could get better pictures out of an Instamatic than a lot of people did out of fancy expensive cameras with big fat prime glass. And to this day, I have never owned "professional" equipment. I would love to have fancy glass, but it's just too expensive, and I have done fine without it.

   The performance at the Museum of Art of their latest and most elaborate piece "Voyeur" was absolutely spell binding and awe inspiring. Saying it is intense and dazzling is a huge understatement. The grace of the movements, the interaction, the beauty and mystery of the set, the choice of images, the emotional and visual complexity and variety, the originality of the gestural vocabulary,the controlled eroticism, the rich colors, the sophistication, the attention to the smallest detail are all admirable and extremely stimulating. 
  They bring the still stylized visual world of Edward Hopper to life through light, but re invent it in a complex additive fragmented way. They constantly deconstruct and reconstruct the set, which becomes almost cubist at times.

 They are EVERYWHERE,large and small, live and canned, real and virtual in sometimes almost indistinguishable ways. The bodies merge into the projected images and vice versa. Thanks to carefully controlled live cameras, the spectator is made privy to their "private sexual life" in an almost uncomfortable way, and can eavesdrop on what is happening behind the zigzag wall of the set, now and then catching a glimpse of a body part through a window.

   As an aging Artist myself, I cannot help but notice and admire how fit, beautiful and sexy these "aging dancers" are, with no trace of make up or artifice.

   As Myrna said in the Q&A after the show, she has been dancing since she was seven, but is still hungry and thirsty for more, and it looks like that thirst is still very far from being quenched. I think we are going to see these guys create and invent and break new ground for a long time. As far as I am concerned, they have singlehandedly redefined modern dance, and raised the bar of creativity to new levels. Hell, they have come up with an entirely new bar!

Post 21: MORE NEW TOYS: MAKEY MAKEY AND ARDUINO

   Well, in my never-ending quest for new ways to control a computer and a projected image, this is one I have wanted to investigate since last year. So I ordered a Makey Makey touch controller:

  It connects to the computer via USB, and to conductive objects with alligator clips.
  People have used it to make fun stuff like "banana pianos":

and other things as shown in this video:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkPt9MYqDW0
  But most of the stuff I found on Google is rather geeky and shoddily made, except for this "apple marimba":

and the 3D "musical drawing in the video above:

   I do like the idea of using graphite on paper as a touch trigger, and made a little experiment with a rough drawing that plays 'Twinkle Little Star" when you run your finger along the bottom "keys":

  Besides the 6 keys on the front that I used, the Makey Makey has 6 more connections in the back pre programmed for letters W,A,S,D,F and G, so it offers a total of 12 touch inputs.    I could make an instrument or graphite drawing playing a tune with 12 notes.

  Now if I could figure out how to also make LED lights turn on and off, I would be in business! That should be easy…

   Well, not so easy actually. The Makey Makey talks to the computer allright  but to turn lights on and off, the computer has to talk to the lights, and to do that, I will need an electronic interface called an Arduino:

  I am going to have to learn to program the Arduino to do what I want using the PROCESSING language and the Arduino software. 

  So I went ahead and ordered an Arduino Kit from Amazon, which on top of the Arduino Uno, includes a breadboard, a manual, and all king of gadgets to connect to it:

   I would really love to see a "music and light making contraption" at Light Dreams. It could be a big drawing that plays tunes and lights up when you run your finger on it, or stepping stones that play music and light up when you walk, or a fruit xylophone that projects matching images, or a set of lighted balloons under a conductive ceiling...

Post 20: USING THE KINECT

  I bought a Kinect a year ago, and had not managed so far to find software that could recognize joints and move an image with body movements. That would allow a person to control a puppet with Animata, make music with Ableton Live, play the Pacman or any other game Mike comes up with, or map an image to moving dancers.
  Well, I went on the quest again, and came to the conclusion I would have to learn to write some code, and that the easiest one to learn was PROCESSING, which was developed specifically for Artists. I ordered a manual and also a book about the Kinect called "Making Things See".
  In the meantime, I kept searching, and finally found a Blog that offered a practical clear tutorial: "The Blog by GLEN MCPHERSON" 
   It had a link to a great little app written by Ryan Challinor called SYNAPSE. It is available free for Mac or Windows, and allows joint recognition with the Kinect. You stand in front of the Kinect and wait till you get this:

   In order to do something with this, you need a Mac and Apple's Developer Application X-CODE  with QUARTZ COMPOSER. In order for Synapse to communicate with Quartz Composer, you also need a little app called quartz_passthrough that is part of the Quartz Composer example project+plugins on the Synapse web site. 

   Glen McPherson then walks you through the steps of using Quartz Composer:

to control an image on the screen by moving your hand up and down and around in front of the Kinect. Voila!

   It worked great the first time around, but now I am having problems getting it to work again.I keep getting a "port error" message. What the hell is a port? Something else to figure out!

Post 19: MADMAPPER, ANOTHER WAY TO MAP THE STAGE

   The problem with single image mapping is that for everything to be perfectly lined up , the projector position relative to the stage is critical, and there is hardly any possibilities of adjustment. So I tried another route using MadMapper mapping software, which allows precise mapping of different images or videos on different surfaces.
 First, I used the same single image :

  Then, I created a 1920x1080 image with 2 separate rectangular areas corresponding to the walls and the floor of the stage using two different graphic patterns:

  Then, I created a 1920x1080 image with 3 images:

   Finally, I created a 1920x1080 image with 4 different images:

   Then, I imported the images into Resolume Avenue VJ Software:

and used the built in Syphon Plugin to serve it to MadMapper software, which allowed me to precisely map each image to the corresponding wall or floor:

   Of course, I could be using videos instead of still images.

Post 18: CORNER PROJECTION TEST

   I was rather impressed with a Mapping done on a huge corner set by Nike:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzkwZfi2wew
so I built a white cardboard model corner set to play with. 
 I used my grid again to map it:

and created some sets I projected and photographed, both graphic:

 and realistic:

I photographed the results projected on the corner model stage:

    There are definitely interesting possibilities, but the floor area is much reduced compared to the previous stage setup, and it would require a bigger projector to implement. Nike must have used several projectors.

Post 17: A MODEL TEST STAGE

   In order to get ready for the workshop and test some ideas, I bought some white presentation boards from Office Depot, and made a cardboard test stage with a floor, a back wall, and slanted side walls.

   I mounted the projector upside down on an 8ft pole, angled it down to hit my "stage", and leveled it sideways. By trial and error, I ended up with this odd shaped stage on which the projected image looked good, with accented perspective:

   I projected a grid on it and marked the edges of each wall, so I could map different images to the back wall, the floor, and each side wall:

   First, I tested a set made of solid bright colors:

   When projected on the model stage with santos standing in as dancers, it lined up well, and looked good. If the "dancers" are placed front stage, they take on the color of the red floor, and contrast nicely with the blue back wall color:

       Next, I designed some stage sets with contrasting color stripes, and the results suggest some interesting possibilities:

      I also used photographic images to make realistic sets. 

   The room with graffiti could have a window panel cut out and recessed so a dancer could enter the stage through it. There could be partially open doors in the side walls.

  Hashima Island makes an interesting set with a bright green lawn:

   A room with weathered red siding and tin signs could have cracked door and windows people can slide through:

    I tried a surrealistic Steampunk clock room. The gears and clock hands would of course be animated to turn and the candles flicker:

    One could also build a virtual outdoor seaside set for "Pina Water Dance":

or a Mandala Set:

  Possibilities are endless, and that is with a single projector. Of course, fixed props can be set on the stage and mapped too.