passus: A Choreographic System for Kinaesthetic Responsivity
Susan Kozel, Gretchen Schiller
Simon Fraser University
http://www.meshperformance.org
Summary
‘passus’ is an choreographic system that corresponds to
the 2006 Subtle Technologies topic of architecture and responsiveness
in several ways, and across several modalities. The social interactive
architecture of ‘passus’ is of bodies, video, screens, aluminum
and software/hardware. The physical bodies are those of participants
as they wander through a forest of screens, and also the bodies of dancers
as these are dissolved and re-corporealised through video capture, editing,
and projection techniques. The screens are the organs of the installation,
21 of them, each animated by its own motor, permitting the screen to
spiral in both directions. The architectural structure, 13m X 16m, is
self-supporting, suspending the screens and framing the immersive experience,
and the software architecture is custom written, allowing us to choreograph
the experience across its many layers. A custom built pressure sensitive
floor locates multiple visitors on an xy grid, software conveys their
position to screens near to them, instructing the screens to move. Visitor
location causes the video projections to respond, effectively creating
a visual-physical choreography across people, screens and images.
Biography
Susan Kozel and Gretchen Schiller are dancers, choreographers, and artists
working at the interface between interactive technolgies and the human
body. They have collaborated for several years, and work on their individual
projects. Together they are directors of Trajets Net Ltd, a company
dedicated to the research & production of projects spanning responsive
technologies and corporeal experience. Schiller’s speciality is
translating movement into visuals, while Kozel works across movement
and philosophical concepts. Both have a passion for understanding the
world kinaesthetically and developing hybrid media projects that expand
our corporeal approaches to computational systems and evironments.
