“Ma Poupée de lumière, 1er mouvement” is an interactive piece for dance, lighting dress, piano and electro-acoustic band.

On stage, a dancer performs in a illuminating dress. A musician controls the lights (leds) that are integrated into the dress of the dancer. The dress is designed as an interface that allow us to see the dancer’s sensations, in response to music.

Extending the musical score to another dimension, the musician plays a light partition. In addition to the sound, the musician produces light pulses worn by the dancer. These are the impulses that guide the movement of the latter, making it a “puppet”. This new possibility offer alternative ways of apprehending the musical playing, and a new dimension to relationships with the body and relationships with the other.

Conceptual motivation :

Traditionnally, in dance, dancers follow the music: their gesture, either it is written or improvised, is rythmed by the music. Music emplies us with emotions, sensations. We sometimes have the impression that music penetrates us within all the single pore of our body, giving us an intense experience (that can be positive or negative). Music produces within us a large scale of emotions. How to communicate these emotions with people surrounding us? We have nowadays powerful information technologies that allow us to communicate with people all over the world, but how about expressing our intimate feelings? Sometimes it’s just media that dictate our toughts, behaviours, feelings. « Ma Poupée de lumière, 1er mouvement » offers a poetic vision on how technology can increase us but also influence us. The dancer who is wearing the interactive dress moves according to the lighting of this dress, making him like a puppet.

This project can also be presented as an interactive installation. A MIDI keyboard is placed next to the dress worn by a model or dressed on a mannequin. A computer make the interface between the keyboard and the dress. Visitors can interact with the lights on the dress by playing the keyboard. This option is very interesting as it invites people to experiment playing with lights.

The dress has 18 LEDs (light electro-luminescent diodes) fixed on it. These lights are magnifient by flowers made with a semi-transparent fabric. The dress is white and reflects perfectly the blue of the lights. It is not just lights on a costume, but lights are thought as part of the costume. The LEDs form kind of a line coming from the bottom to the top of the dress. Electric threads are hidden. The behaviour of the dress is controlled by a « Arduino » microcontroller: the lower the pitch of the played note is, the lower part of the dress illumintes; the higher the pitch, the higher part the dress shines. Furthermore, below a certain threshold, the dress doesn’t illuminate at all (making a parallel with death). Conversely, the very high pitches lighten all the lights, insufling the maximum of life to the dress. Transitions are smoothed by a fonction applied on data, to avoid the « on/off » effect.

Pictures on

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26577177@N02/sets/72157605056653058/

Video on :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsG0APKA9Yc

watch the live-performances at http://vimeo.com/6539685 and http://www.vimeo.com/903784 (video and photos: © barbara l. kastner)

AANN: Artificial Analog Neural Network (AANN) is an interactive, handmade electronic sculpture that responds to environmental stimuli in a display of light and sound. The sculpture is a 45 neuron network whose topology was influenced by multi-layered connectionist network models used in neural network computing , and by the Fibonacci based branching of natural systems. AANN’s structure is a skeletal network of analog electronic components, drawing inspiration for its design from forms observed in early plant and marine life, and technological objects of modern telecommunications (satellites, antennas, transmitter towers, etc.). Though designed to approximate neural network behavior, AANN is not a tool for running calculations; the project is meant to give a physical and interactive form to otherwise abstract computational theories used by computer scientists in pattern recognition applications.

As one approaches AANN in an exhibition space, one is confronted with an intricate frame-like network electronics, about the size of a medium sized dog, suspended at about shoulder height. The front portion of the sculpture is a dome-like structure with yellow discs (photo sensors) evenly distributed along its framework. The body of the sculpture is a radially symmetrical mass of tiny electronic components held together by bare wire, with yellow, orange, and red insulated wire connecting various parts within. The sculpture will periodically emit quick chirps or tone bursts descending in pitch, and small red lights distributed throughout the sculpture light up with each outburst. The cause is not immediately known to the viewer, but the invitation for interaction is irresistible. Waving and clapping hands, even shouting, makes the sculpture blink, twitter and chirp more vigorously, and occasionally the fragile mass of electronics chatters on its own for a few moments before settling back down. Eventually the temptation is for the viewer to adopt the sculpture’s language and to “speak” to it by chirping and whistling in turn.

AANN occupies the space between varying disciplines of art (music, sound art, media art and interactive installation, and sculpture) while simultaneously drawing heavily upon the sciences (neurobiology, cognitive science, network science, and electronics). The project follows a tradition within music of exploring generative systems — i.e. works by David Tudor, Felix Hess, League of Automatic Composers, George Lewis, and David Rosenboom amongst others — and was inspired by James Tenney’s work on harmonic lattices (pitch spaces)and by Douglas Repetto’s “Crash and Bloom”, an electronic sculpture made up of networked units that “exhibits emergent behavior similar to the ‘crash and bloom’ cycles experienced by many biological systems.”

Burlap is a continuing series of work that explores the blurring of the electronic circuit and traditional two-dimensional art forms. Small interactive, physically programmed musical computers have been embedded, woven into a skin of burlap, creating an electronic music composition in the form of a reactive textile. Gallery guests interact with the pieces by casting shadows over embedded sensors. CMOS 4000 series ICs are configured into circuits which produce tones, sequencers, and dynamically behaving oscillators that respond to shadows cast by guests. Each composition explores themes of cyclical and chaotic structures, iterative sequence generation, and dynamical feedback systems. The visual form of the Burlap pieces takes its cues from traditional circuit design and is the result of a dialog between the functions of the different parts of the circuits and the nature of the signals shuttled from one part of the circuit to the next. Weaving the circuits into a canvas of burlap juxtaposes natural construction materials with electronic technologies, and thus presents a challenge to the notion of the circuit as something that is cold, calculated, and non-human. The Burlap itself is used as a semiotically rich signifier indicating, amongst other themes, the historical origins of computing in mechanized weaving, pre-industrial age textiles, and a return to reliance upon renewable natural resources.

Burlap II

Four step sequencers cycle through an 8 note melodic sequence based loosely on the harmonic series. The speeds of the sequencers are cascaded such that each successive sequencer plays 1/16th the rate of the previous one. Over all speed and direction of the sequences is determined by the amount of light falling on the photocells embedded in the burlap. Shadow falling over different parts of the piece will allow the sequencers to be heard.

Burlap III

One oscillator is playing chaotic rhythmic and melodic patterns from a set of 8 predetermined pitches. Blocking light from reaching the photocells along the bottom of the piece will reveal different sub-octaves of the single oscillator. The rhythm and rate will change as the light falling on the surface of the piece changes.

Burlap IV

Two tone generators have been programmed to match the pitch of the other. Intervention using various components prevents one from ever quite reaching the other. Shadow falling on the photocells in the middle of the piece will allow the dance of the two pitches to be heard though sometimes they exceed the limit of human hearing in their ascents.

C. 15:33 was born of a meditation on the concepts of the flicker, electronic representations of biological systems, and light as pure information. That the whole of existence is a networked system of unique elements—themselves comprised of networks of unique elements—necessitates an approach to reality that views events in terms connections and relationships. The way in which visitors interact with C. 15:33 is scripted such that local actions can be seen as having global or system wide influence.

As visitors approach C. 15:33, they are presented with a constellation of gently pulsating lights connected by a sprawling web of wire suspended from the ceiling. The structure is vaguely reminiscent of depictions interconnected neurons found in science text books. The light bulbs are spaced apart, inviting the visitor to enter the space of the work. As the visitor moves through the hanging lights, their presence noticeably alters the way in which the lamps flicker and strobe. Their movements are translated into ripples of light, pulsing and flashing in evolving patterns.

What is not immediately clear is that each one of the light bulbs is part of a single, unique individual within a network of binary relationships. Each individual is modeled after a biological neuron and consists of four sections: input, summation, threshold detection, and output. Inputs are take from two photo sensors and summed together with an operation amplifier. Threshold detection is done with a comparator circuit which controls a relay attached to the lamp. In other words, the total amount of light collected by two photo-sensors determines whether or not the connected lamp or lamps is on or off. As one light turns on, it effects others, causing some to turn off and others to turn on. This in turn causes a cascade of reactions to propagate through the network of lights, turning local interactions into system-wide change.

Connections between the elements within a network define its topology and the behavior of signal propagation through it. In C. 15:33 the connections between network elements (“neurons”) are made via light across some distance. Because total the level of light determines which lamps are on and off, the system becomes equilibrium seeking; the exact topology of the network combined with its previous state determines whether equilibrium is reached or whether dynamical and generative patterns emerge. Because the movement of the visitors through the installation is registered by light sensors, by blocking light from reaching the sensors they are essentially altering the topology of the network. Their movement is registered and encoded in a dynamical and evolving progression of flickering light.

The resulting experience is of being immersed in a constellation, bathed in softly pulsing and flickering light that ripples throughout the space, oscillating from soothing steady states to stroboscopic chaos. Playfulness, exploration, and discovery are encouraged through the interactive translation of movement into very immediate, tangible and yet slightly unintuitive shifting patterns of flickering light.