The Topological Media Lab conducted a series of experiments – called Ouija – regarding movement and intentionality, June 25 – July 18, 2007, at Concordia’s EV Hexagram-Blackbox.
Choreographers Soo-yeon Cho & advisor Michael Montanaro , 7 dancers, media creators from the Topological Media Lab, and collaborating researchers held a series of experiments in structured improvisation exploring the emergence of collective intention in a field of movement. The field of movement includes un-prepared everyday “un-conscious” movement, pre-conditioned but un-rehearsed movement, as well as fully phrased movement. The experiments included dancers and non-dancers, sometimes identified as such, sometimes not. Themes included entrainment, camouflage, calligraphy and exchanging initiative and momentum between dancers and media.
All these experimental events lived in a set of responsive substrate media supplied with Oxygen’s calligraphic media and gestural sound, WYSIWYG’s sounding tapestries, and some proto-jewelry. See the TML Showcase of Cosmicomics, Meteor Shower, WYSIWYG, and Excitable Sites for related work.
A public presentation was held on Wednesday July 18.
Soo-yeon Cho, Choreographer
Prof. Sha Xin Wei, Director
Dancers
Mike Croitoru
Kiani del Valle
Veronique Gaudreau
Rebecca Halls
Marie Laurier
Joannie Pharand
Olivia Foulke
Oxygen
Jean-Sebastien Rousseau, Calligraphic video, videography, visual effects, production
Tim Sutton, Gestural sound design and programming, production
Emmannuel Thivierge, State engine, camera tracking, production
Filip Radonjik, Live ink painting
WYSIWYG
Marguerite Bromley (XS Labs), Tapestry design and weaving
Elliot Sinyor (IDMIL McGill), Tapestry mechatronics
David Gauthier, Tapestry mechatronics
Freida Abtan, Sound design & programming
David Birnbaum (IDMIL McGill), Sound design & programming
Doug van Nort (IDMIL McGill), Gestural motion feature analysis
Josee-Anne Drolet, TML Project Coordinator, production, videography, editing
Harry Smoak, TML Research Coordinator, production support, research advisor
Ma Zhiming, Production
Special thanks to Faculty Colleagues
Prof. Michael Montanaro, Contemporary Dance, Ouija movement experiment design
Prof. Marcelo Wanderley, IDMIL, McGill University, WYSIWYG gestural control of sound synthesis
Prof. Joey Berzowksa, XS Labs, Interactive textiles
Thanks also to affiliates of the TML and the SenseLab for artistic and research support: Michael Fortin, Elena Frantova, Olfa Driss, Rene Sills, Raul Gomez, Paul Melançon, Antoine Blanchet, Younjeong Choi, and Shermine Sawalha.