Title: Where the Rain Comes In (AR Installation)
Concept: Arthur Clay (CHE)
Choreographie: Pablo Ventura
Dance: Vasco Ventura
Musik: Arthur Clay
Placement: Any Pedestrian Crossing.
About
Where the Rain Comes In is a static dance work that exploits new technologies like Augmented Reality and Photogrammetry and uses them to explore the relationship between what is human in technology and what is humane in technology. Conceptually, the work renders in form and motion a depiction of 21st century existence., revealing the character of the lives we live as we twitter between the on-line and the off-line versions of ourselves and each other.
Concept: Arthur Clay (CHE)
Choreographie: Pablo Ventura
Dance: Vasco Ventura
Musik: Arthur Clay
Placement: Any Pedestrian Crossing.
About
Where the Rain Comes In is a static dance work that exploits new technologies like Augmented Reality and Photogrammetry and uses them to explore the relationship between what is human in technology and what is humane in technology. Conceptually, the work renders in form and motion a depiction of 21st century existence., revealing the character of the lives we live as we twitter between the on-line and the off-line versions of ourselves and each other.
Fig. 1. Example of a single pose dance element used in the work.
Objects
In Where the Rain Comes In live dancers are replaced with 3D scanned objects by scanning a dancer using photogrammetry. The resultant “static dance-objects” are then implemented as “poses” and set into motion with a computer driven choreography in an Augmented Reality setting. The process of creating the elements of the work bring two of of today’s most interesting technologies together for all to see.
After being scanned and migrated into the virtual world of AR, the dancer seen aesthetically through the looking glass of today’s technology as a multitude of objects that are frozen in time and incomplete.
In Where the Rain Comes In live dancers are replaced with 3D scanned objects by scanning a dancer using photogrammetry. The resultant “static dance-objects” are then implemented as “poses” and set into motion with a computer driven choreography in an Augmented Reality setting. The process of creating the elements of the work bring two of of today’s most interesting technologies together for all to see.
After being scanned and migrated into the virtual world of AR, the dancer seen aesthetically through the looking glass of today’s technology as a multitude of objects that are frozen in time and incomplete.
Fig. 2. Photogrammetry setup for making 3D objects form the poses of the dancer.
Left untouched, photogrammetry scanning leaves artefacts in the form of negative spaces in the bodies of the dancer-objects, which conceptually act like holes to a reality that we too often forget. It is here that the work offers the opportunity to see the virtually-real “us” that we have created through the “peep holes” left to us by errors in human technology and conceptually “where the rain comes in”.
Music
The music that is coupled with each of the static dancer-objects and drives the choreography at the same time celebrates classical heritage in the arts through a score that is based on neo-classic patterns. At the same time the combination of media twists any impressions of past forms to the new by transporting the ideologies of classicism into the present day and presents a contemporary commentary on an epoch that has formed the basis of European society. At the same time, the combination of digital media (scanned objects and digital audio) portrays today’s society of precarity and impermanence.
Animation
Algorithmic movement of the dancer-objects make use of the many paths and intersections of any type of street crossing, making an intense flow of movement from all directions, arriving and departing, and even sometimes colliding. If understood as a sculptural work with a kinetic basis, the combination of technologies and the freedom of an AR setting, as well as the convenience of viewing the work through mobile devices, offer the “choreographer-programmer” a powerful palette of animations that allows the “dancers-objects” to float in mid air, travel with speed beyond and below that of human ability, and to exploit a time frame of durations only possible with machines.
Fig. Mock up the choreographic movement of the dancer objects at an intersection.
Fig. 3. An example of a 3D object won from the Photogrammetry setup including all wanted artefacts.
Music
The music that is coupled with each of the static dancer-objects and drives the choreography at the same time celebrates classical heritage in the arts through a score that is based on neo-classic patterns. At the same time the combination of media twists any impressions of past forms to the new by transporting the ideologies of classicism into the present day and presents a contemporary commentary on an epoch that has formed the basis of European society. At the same time, the combination of digital media (scanned objects and digital audio) portrays today’s society of precarity and impermanence.
Animation
Algorithmic movement of the dancer-objects make use of the many paths and intersections of any type of street crossing, making an intense flow of movement from all directions, arriving and departing, and even sometimes colliding. If understood as a sculptural work with a kinetic basis, the combination of technologies and the freedom of an AR setting, as well as the convenience of viewing the work through mobile devices, offer the “choreographer-programmer” a powerful palette of animations that allows the “dancers-objects” to float in mid air, travel with speed beyond and below that of human ability, and to exploit a time frame of durations only possible with machines.
Viewing
Pedestrian crossings are always lively and cultural knot in any cities downtown pedestrian traffic zone. Pedestrian flow is constant and a potential audience is always present. In the example above, the square acts as a main meeting point in the city and is an a magnet for arts and culture.
The work is positioned in this area by satellites (Geo Tagging) and is designed to use the crossing as its stage. Appropriately, the work can only be viewed through mobile communication devices. The positioning of the work via satellites allows the viewers to explore the work as if on stage, changing positions and perspective and thus creating their own unique viewing of the work.
Through proper mediation and advertisement, access to the work is immediate and open for all 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, raising the potential number of viewers to above to those expected at traditional cultural venues.