May 2004 Archives
after a silent blogging week normal service resumes, or something like that.
I spent most of last week preparing for an interview, and will spend most of this week catching up on work I put to the side. oh well that's time [miss]management for you.
well the interview was 'interesting' but I spent some time afterwards with Prof John Glauert with was very rewarding. it was good to see xml based 'gesture' notation in action. i'm not really going to talk about this now as I have to wait to hear about the studentship, keep you posted.
I have word that the new dance tech site is going to be moveabletype powered. dance tech xml feeds! I wonder if this will lead to an increase in dance tech bloggs, only time will tell.
you may have noticed that I refer to Wikipedia often, I don't know if you ever use this free encyclopedia but the dance content leaves a lot to be desired. I would like to start editing the dance content myself but it is a big task, rather I think it would be a better idea to try and get a group of people together to look at what is there and what can be done.
I plan to go to the ica this evening to see the e-merge performance. after the discussions on the dtz list and choreograph.net it will be interesting to see the actual work.
it's coming up to the end of the month and there is much to sort out, the end of July heralds a xdsn weekend, the end of this week is the deadline for a couple of paper submissions and summer and the dance course I am working on is rapidly approaching. lastly this weds I am at eight providing photographic documentation.
thoughts: content and presentation vis-a-vis notation and animation; what are the implications for xml based gesture notations.
some events that occured on my birthday:
- 427 BC - birth of Plato, ancient Greek philosopher (d. 347 BC)
- 1904 - birth of Fats Waller, pianist (d. 1943)
- 1927 - Charles Lindbergh completes the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.
- 1932 - Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
- 1952 - birth of Laurence Tureaud (MR. T) actor.
- 1956 - first airborne explosion of a hydrogen bomb takes place at Bikini Atoll
sheila was thumbing through yesterday's guardian and found this..
Impact Evaluation Officer: Arts & Humanities Research Board
Job description
This new post has been established to develop and implement the Board's strategy for evaluating the impact and value of arts and humanities research. The post holder will play a leading role in collecting, collating and analysing evidence that demonstrates delivery of the Board's mission and the impact, quality and value of the work it has funded. Other responsibilities will include developing and implementing a number of evaluation initiatives.
Applicants must hold a degree-level qualification and have at least three years' experience in a higher education, research or public policy environment. Experience of using a range of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies for the analysis of policy and programmes, and a good understanding of the issues facing research in the UK and the arts and humanities is also required.
you can find out more here, but it looks like the face of dance research funding is changing, possibly for the better.
this was in the guardian on thursday;
This is what scientists do: write papers, and pull them apart to make sure the findings are robust. We look for flaws in the experimental methods that may cause flaws in the results, that may cause flaws in the conclusions. Science is not about absolute facts from authority figures: you describe exactly what you did in the methods section, what your results were, and how wide the error margin was: then you describe your theory, contingently built on this fragile, contentious data. Without all that information, the findings and the figures are worthless [ben goldacre 13/05/2004]
okay, so dance isn't a science but there is something important here. if we are going to carry out practical research we must be more rigorous. in a slightly different context it's something that the ippr has argued for in their ' arts for art's sake ' publication. let be honest, the arts are not for everyone regardless of how many low cost seats we make available. if we are going to engage in practical research and ask for public funding we shouldn't just be indulging in our own practice without testing it.
i don't think it's enough to write about the way in which you work, documenting a single process. i know that this has become the status quo recently, used as a validation for physical practice being of equal value to academic research, yet i do not think there is parity. that's not to say practical research has no value, but the ways in which i have seen it undertaken do not match the rigours of academic discourse.
experimental methods that's what we need, experimental methods for practical dance research. now that would be interesting, universities are for the dissemination and advancement of knowledge, not a funding opportunity when the ACE or AHRB don't want to know and your regional dance agency and impresario have other agendas. universities are for learning about and advancing the state of your subject. perhaps one day we will be able to say this;
This is what practical dance researchers do: make works, and pull them apart to make sure the process is robust and of artistic value. We look for flaws in our methods that may cause flaws in the composition, that may cause flaws in the communication of our artistic vision. art is not about absolute facts from authority figures or self serving introspection: you describe exactly what you did in your process, how the work 'revealed itself', and how the dancers, audience and critics received your work: then you describe your practice based theory, contingently built on this fragile, contentious process. Without all that information, practice based research is worthless.
but that's enough subversion for today
the example svg I gave in my last post had about 10400 lines of code. that single image had enough data for a full xdsn score so I will show some transformations form a simple svg. the example below has 26 lines of image code:
the svg is here or take a look at the code as a text file here.
it was generated from an l-system GA. I will show a method by which the svg could be transformed into movement data. although I am showing this by hand the process can be automated by an xslt transformation from the svg to xdsn data.
the notable aspect of these translations is that you get to choose what elements map to each other, your individual and artistic interpretation of the images is retained. don't assume that you could only use the ones I use in this example.
becomes:
some transformations:
- polygon = arbitrary
- line = line
- fill = weight
- opacity = space
- stroke = flow
- pints = impulse data [mapped in sets of 4]
- x1 x2 y1 y2 = mapped to roll [x1] and pitch [y1] yaw [x2] axis rotation [y2]
I think you get the idea. the mapping is very open, there are no body locations given so it is upto the dancer to decide [in this model] what locations the impluse is attached to. the socre is the choreography, the dancer decides the composition.
amyway, thats the basics for a code based image to movement transformation.
when visiting michael and davide the subject of fractal choreography was raised. there wasn't the chance to talk about this more in depth but I has been on my mind ever since. I have always been uncomfortable with claims of fractal choreography [1,2] but i'm only just getting round to document my thoughts and reasoning. rather than referring to our conversion I look at the two posts they have made on choreograph.net that can be found here.
I suggest you read both posts and the word document first. I should also point out that the posts are dated 2002 [michael] and 2003 [davide] and therefore probably do not represent their current thinking.
michael and davide, I think that there is a difference between what you are talking about and the examples that you are giving. rather than fractals you have described Genetic Algorithms [GA], although they may be 'fractal like' they are not fractals;
fractals are not 'self-similar patterns whose parts bear a resemblance on different scales', fractals are self-similar on all scales
davide's experiment does not manifest this property [the recognisable patterns are linear and not scalably self similar] and michael's structure [whilst more fractal in nature] would create a mass of repeated movement that would be exceptionally difficult to perform down to a gestural level but technically would need to be 'sub' gestural, whilst expanding to the performance space itself. two personal points;
- I do not agree with Narayanan's analysis of motor schemas
- human movement is not fractal in nature.
fractal movement can not use whole body postures as a seed unless the 'limb trees' could replicate the global pose and transformations. davide's experiment with Nonlinear Generators is a good example of a GA or evolutionary algorithm rather than a fractal.
the GA can be observed in the treatment of the 'seed population' of ten movements he gave the dancers [the first generation pool]. the second third and 'n' generations are all generated with the same operators;
- random [selection of new movement]
- deterministic [forced addition of movements in set patterns]
- generative [accumulation of new movements and seed positions]
due to human cognitive and physical nature this 'list' evolution will [unconsciously] contain crossover and mutation operators [re mapping of other dancers movements and adaption of existing movements].
davide's experiment also fulfills the the basic aspect of genetic algorithms design:
- definition of the objective function [to create movement strings]
- definition and implementation of the genetic representation [devising and setting the 10 poses]
- definition and implementation of the genetic operators [setting out the rules for crating and adding movement]
as you can see it is genetic evolution that becomes 'complex through the interplay of variables' with and endless number of variations, not the implementation of fractals. fractal set display particular properties despite variances in variables [see here and here]. althougth this is also true for GA's, Iterated Function Systems [IFS] and other fractal like systems.
personally I think that implementing 'true' fractals as a choreographic structure would be impossible unless a particular part of the dancer was tracing and imaginary or real line that formed a fractal shape. the human body is not pliable enough, and the brain not ordered enough to represent fractal in or with the whole body of a single dance. it would be possible to have a large scale relatively static fractal with many dancers.
GA's however are more easier to implement as davide has shown. there are many different operator that one can choose from and apply to trees, lists or arrays to create movement or structures. there is also the option to use GA's to make dances 'on the fly' or to use GA's to create set scores which the dancer performs. both options are valid and have differing uses and applications.
I am starting work or a dance based on Lindenmayer systems [l-systems] whose recursive, self similar, fractal like nature can be used to describe plants and complex branching structures such as the nervous system.
various l-system based examples can be created, some that you may have come across; fibonacci numbers, cantor dust, a variant of the Koch snowflake [only using right angles] and more interestingly [for 'realtime' movement generation] median space filling curves such as Levy's dragon curve [non intersecting curves which can be iterated to produce more and more complexity]
rather than setting out only to use realtime creation I have decided to created movement scores based on the results of non deterministic and context sensitive l-system GA's. this re interpretation of the results [graphical representations] leads to less fractal like systems that although having self similar properties are somewhat more complex and abstract. this approach also is suited to experimenting within the xdsn notation system. in addition to the set scores i will also use realtime GA's for movement generation.
this is the type of image i am working with for the fixed score. this is a small gif file for quick preview, it does not show much detail but it gives the idea.
you can download the svg of this image if you have an svg viewer or want to examine the code in a text editor
yet notwithstanding my own approach I would love to see further investigation into realtime implementations of GA's. I can't think of anyone who is doing this. I don't know if davide still has an interest in this but i'm sure that some interesting work could result.
rather than being just a choreographic tool the use of math in this particular apllication is and site and context specific.
[1]
A good day's work. Morning with Jill on some 'fractal choreography' - building up simple rule sets which create a self-evolving, complex dance that never repeats itself http://creations.morle.com/portfolio/performance/shift/[2]
In "The Gism from the schism of the isms: hey but where's the egg, Mama? (in truncated form)," Suber juxtaposes the aesthetics of movement with the quantitative theory of mathematical indeterminacy. While none of the movement in "Gism" is predetermined, it is not impro visation. There is order to this chaos. Together with the dancers, Suber created a complicated sequence of movement that included 412 different steps and eleven phrases, as well as directional, sequential and orientational twists. While Suber out lined this concept of the fractal dance, it is up to the dancers to meld the fragments creatively into aesthetically pleasing, fluid movements, to balance the complexity and order inherent in the process."It is like a jigsaw puzzle," explains Suber. "We mix up the phrases, steps, sequence and direction, and then we try to put it back together. I like to think of it as graceful twister." In addition, Suber has been writing text that reflects the same indeterminacy of the movement, lighting and sound.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/3.7.96/dance96.html
[*]as a note of interest some areas of robotics are using GA's in higher functioning robots [20 degrees of freedom upwards] to automate limb functions.
the mail i posted to dtz had some interesting replies, you can examine them at the dtz list archive here. [fixed link] the archive is updated at regular intervals so you can track progresion there.
I have an interview for a studentship (phd) at a university and the end of the month, my work seems to be paying off. I can't help but be thankful to the professor who supported my application. a dance artist applying for studentship in a computer science department [without having a formal computing background] is very unusual.
also in the works are: a paper I will submit to dance theatre journal, an artist in residence project in brighton, and the training weekend for xdsn.
been in the studio to get ready for my writing
working hard for change, new perspectives. recently completed a paper about xdsn and submitted it to a journal for review with a view to publication, 4000 words on xdsn, and i still have 3 more papers in my head. by they will have to wait as i have some applications to fill out.
the end of july brings the first weekend course for xdsn and will teach a basic working knowledge of the written version
i managed to destroy a large chunk of my work when a backup program decided to shred instead of backup, the result is that my machine readable version is no more just as it was about to be. and so i start over ...
this is a not a small quote, but it reflects my position well
Perhaps the advent of movement improvisation as an artistic practice in the sixties is closely related with the popularity and explanatory success of the communicational and information theory paradigms in science and technology, particularly in psychology of perception and biological studies. Perhaps information and systems theory as the main representatives of the communicational paradigm, became a model for human embodiment and its actions that allowed dance artists to de construct and dynamically re-conceive the dance making practices as a non fixed, flexible and mutable therefore apparently improvisational.In the other hand, I have also witnessed and experienced how some movement improvisation artists and theorists, (eg: Steve Paxton, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, Simone Forti) as specialists of the phenomenology and aesthetics of human movement have reached theoretical and practical insights about human interaction and embodiment that are closely related to the ones that are found recently in the fields of artificial intelligence (embodied robotics), cognitive science (embodied cognition) and new biology (self-organization and emergence). Improvisers and robotics scientists, apparently placed in two poles, are experts in cognitive interaction. Both have to study, with different methodologies and goals, the interaction between bodies and their environment. Perhaps some contemporary practices in dance, such as improvisational performance are closer, epistemologically to digital technologies and robotics than modern and contemporary dance practices.
Marlon Barrios Solano 2004
not that i put myself in the league of paxton et al but i consider my dance technology insights have been driven by my improv practice.
- well i'm working hard to document what's in my head in relation to:
- notating / mapping imporv. simulating human movement with xdsn.
- a fresh look at degrees of freedom and movement creation,
- cognition of movement, thoughtfull acts?
- minimal data simulated movemnt control
-- this is an email i sent to the dance technology list server --
the eMerge scripting language is rule based with commands using everyday language. it seems to have good handling for multimedia and cueing, but there seems to be no provision to describe movement. I wonder if the emphasis on natural language would prevent the system for creating a 'script' for performance using fractal, chaos etc based techniques. potentially this could allow for more 'emergence' than a human based set of rules or serve to blur the human computer interface in the work.
Turner's 'dance, chaos and complexity' has similarities with Hagendoorn's 'Emergent Patterns in Dance Improvisation and Choreography' this growing trend towards creating emergent dance works via rule or task based improvisations can be perceived as a reiteration of Lisa Nelsons Tuning scores. Marlon Barrios Solano claims that:
some movement improvisation artists and theorists, (eg: Steve Paxton, Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen, Simone Forti) as specialists of the phenomenology and aesthetics of human movement have reached theoretical and practical insights about human interaction and embodiment that are closely related to the ones that are found recently in the fields of artificial intelligence (embodied robotics), cognitive science (embodied cognition) and new biology (self-organization and emergence).
[ http://dancelab1.dance.ohio-state.edu/~barrios/cord.html ]
indeed hargendorn discusses his techniques in relation to algorithmic dance improvisation [ http://www.ivarhagendoorn.com/research/articles/Hagendoorn_Leonardo.pdf ] and raises the question of the quality of human and synthetic dancers:
Comparing the performance of a robot and a human dancer may thus not only reveal movements overlooked by a dancer but may also tell us more about the implicit (aesthetic) choices made by a dancer when improvising and by viewers who later watch the movements
although he claims that his techniques are too complex for simulation I feel that he is looking at the problem from a human, rather than machine point of view. Humans use improv tasks because we find it difficult to shed our movement habits and bias. A computer / avatar / robot does not have such limitations unless they are programmed in. therefore (when it is possible) there will be no need to set tasks for the synthetic dancer/s.
which returns us to the issue of scripting performances. what other kind of scripting languages do mediated dance works use, if at all. why do we continue to try and use natural language in our computer interface rather than learning new languages and even natural language approaches may force us to learn new syntax. ted nelson argues that we should stop trying to simulate paper on the computer as it limits what is actually possible. perhaps we should take a similar approach with our computer languages before we either have no idea of what is behind the natural language interface or we severely limit our scope of possibilities.
although there is much to be said for simplicity there is also and issue of structure and standards. we in the field of dance and technology seem to lag behind in terms of innovation compared to other technology fields. I believe this is partly due to the many incompatible file formats and software in existence. admittedly the plethora of standards in the technology world is excessive but with so many artist working towards similar goals some standards would be useful.
the advantages of being able to share common tools, developments and resources is clear in terms of cost and time effective research. moreover there should be a push from the dance practitioners themselves to propose and develop these standards to enable us to have useful tools rather than adapting ones given to us.
the interface of dance and technology has many facets, more than defining their names we must also find common methods to explore the full potential they have to offer.
