October 2004 Archives

it's been while, i really didn't expect uea to be how it is. but that's good, a curve ball here and there. all the reading and isolated practice i'm doing has got me listening to more music, it's an odd list of artists but at the moment it's Atlas - An Opera in Three Parts by Meredith Monk. there are several 20thC composers on the list due to my reading up on graphical music notation. i'm thinking of mounting a performance of some graphical music scores as dance.

i recently installed MediaWiki (the software behind Wikipedia) on my laptop, this was much simpler than anticipated as i came across 'running mediawiki on windows' whilst preparing myself for a few hours of heartache. in the end it took me about 15 mins and a quick re-install as i messed up the MySQL config. regardless am impressed with EasyPHP so if you need a fast way to install Apache, PHP and MySQL have a look.

the purpose of installing mediawiki was to link up all the notes i have on various subjects, this way i can link up key words etc in one large data base and quickly search what i am looking for. it also shows up the gaps in my documentation.

i also sent off my 'Towards Computer Generated Choreography: Epikinetic Composition' paper to vivid that should be published next year, till then;

Epikinetics

epi - "on, at, close upon (in space or time)"
kinetic - "moving, putting in motion"

Epikinetic motion simulation is related to Epigenetic Robotics (motion as genotype) but deals exclusively with the generation of raw, unstable movement rather than controlled motion. This raw movement is then processed by a series of algorithmic modules that shape the movement and present it as animation or notation. Generating unstable, rather than stable movement provides a high level of motive agility and responsiveness. Similar techniques can be found in advanced Aeronautics where adaptive motion control algorithms are used with unstable platforms (such as the F-117 'Nighthawk') to maintain level flight and keep the aircraft 'in the air'. It is through such adaptive algorithms, with differing methods of intervention that autonomous algorithmic choreography can creative distinct narrative forms.

An epikinetic system models the Somatic Nervous System (SNS) including effectors (muscle) receptors (nerves), and control systems such as the Premotor Cortex, Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum). Our system (chorea) consists of six principal modules:

vitus (epikinetic improvisation)
koan (choreography and composition)
magnesium (contact improvisation)
zanshin (event perception / memory)
hierarchical skeleton / dynamic environment
stimuli

if you didn't make the 'progression' seminar or any other of the hothaus series seminars it will be a good read. i had the pleasure of meeting the other speakers (Simon Yuill, Dr Gregory Sporton & Robert Sharl, Michelle Kasprzak, Axel Roch) with Sadie Plant as chair for the day. i also had a good chat with Dr Sophia Lycouris, a rather good day all in all.

i'm still writing a blogg about the creative supercomputing project so look out for it.

if you have been following my work (here or elsewhere) you may have realised that epikinetic improvisation will not always generates 'standing postures'. i identify two types of standing posture, active and motive. the active postures are standing 'still', the motive postures are moving in an upright orientation (walking, running dancing etc). to generate this kind of motion whilst maintaining our goal of improvised motion a specific method must be developed that works alongside epikinetic solutions.

to achieve this i am returning to improvisation and steve paxton. material for the spine and the small dance are the key points of reference. hopefully i will be able to document his workshop at independent dance this year.

on the A19 front the makeover is looking good, liking the new link buttons, and as i'm an avid firefox user the link is good to see too (and they use thunderbird as well). tabbed browsers are great from net research at there are some great extensions to make sure you retain important bibliography information. also have a look at the sage extension if you are into RSS and ATOM feeds. needing to be that type of person i also have started using sunbird to sort out my diary.

i have several papers in the on the wheel and in the kiln, so i'll be exploring a range of issues here again..

enjoy dance!

it has been there a while but due to some 'mistakes' i have not pointed out my xdsn papaer for body space technology journal. if you want to have a read of Notation Reloaded: eXtensible Dance Scripting Notation please goto volume 4 (bst7) at http://www.brunel.ac.uk/bst/bst7/main.htm and look for matthew gough in the papers section.

errata; there are two miss linked files are and and encoding error:

• dainaemik.xml [360kb]
• dainaemik.gif [56kb]
• the axis-rotation symbol should be 'α' (greek alpha)

starting going back to uni is different from what i expected, i guess thats always the case 3rd time round (yep it sounds silly even to me, third time, eternal student !?!) however, everything seems to be progressing well.

i'm engaged in several lines of enquiry but the main thrust seems to be towards interpreting choreographic scribbles as dance animation. a graphic dance notation editor and interpreter / compiler for dance. what interesting is the new set of challenges this involves with regards to animating dance movement with varying levels of interpretive abstraction, whilst allowing a relative freedom of notation.

The Intelligent Labanotation Software Report [65kb pdf] has also been published and interestingly was missing several of the developments that i had expected to occur or at least be asked for.

my assumption is that they will come later on in the process or that they would be considered impossible to implement. i hope to address some of the issues over the coming months.. rather than now so bear with me.

anyhow now i'm in norwich for a while (been all over the place recently) things should start getting back to normal. so if you are in or around norwich and are a dancer i'm looking to take some photos for my research needs.. so drop me a note and let me know if you are interested..

talk soon...

so here i am at uea via progression (the vivid seminar) and things have started of all multi modal. Whilst issues such as office space and computers draw themselves out, the work i am here to to speeds ahead, seemingly dragging me along.

i must admit that my dance experience is already making itself known and useful. i hadn't expected my practical knowledge to come up so soon but, the unexpected is what i seem to thrive on.

during my recent reading i have found many papers that describe various dance / notation / animation systems and almost all of them are flawed, not only in the concepts of dance and movement they present but also in the analysis of dance notations (ie labanotation) and choreography itself.

i can see myself teaching dance class here to further the understanding of movement concepts.

from the computer science point of view I'm clawing my way through as much info as i can that relates to the task ahead of me and considering the practical relations and applications.

some observations that seem to be missing from the theoretical cannon;

• animation is not choreorgraphy
• notation is abstracted rather than encoded movement
• defining translations (linking motion) is an essentail part of any technique and movement per se (self or externaly defined)
• motion is abstract and context sensitive, no one motion 'means' anything, it is simply 'motion'.
• intention is differnt from impulse, niether may be observable in the resulting motion.
• movent notation must be compleate enough to discibe any motion with great detail, composite motions can use abstractions.
• there are no fixed points in space [Einstein via Cunningham]

there are many more.. but i won't bore you now..