[dance-tech] Interaktionslabor V, 2007

c o m m u n i q u é 


Fifth International Interaktionslabor in the former Coal Mine Göttelborn 
[Germany]
16 - 30. July 2007
http://interaktionslabor.de


Extending previous explorations of interactive design and ?sensor choreography? 
for real time installations and networked performance, Interaktionslabor is 
holding its fifth annual workshop (July 16 ? 30, 2007) in the former coal mine 
in southwest Germany. The annual laboratory has attracted artists, performers, 
engineers, and digital designers from different parts of the world for its 
intensive residency in midst of an retro-industrial environment that uniquely 
challenges the imagination. 

The 2007 lab focusses on two projects. 
The first involves intelligent garments and a new approach to 
design-in-movement. Scripting the interactional garments into a narrative, the 
group is developing both the sensor prototypes for Suna no Onna, and the 
installation-environment made out of special paper. The Suna No Onna fashion 
collection/prototypes involve movement ideas adapted from Hiroshi Teshigawara?s 
film noir  ?Woman in the Dunes?, here created for live performance with 
motion-capture derived animation. Fashion design is by Michèle Danjoux; 
performances by Katsura Isobe, Helenna Ren, and Olugbenga Taiwo; digital 
choreodesign, sensor programming and real-time sound design involve an ensemble 
of artists from diverse creative backgrounds (Maria Wiener, Doros Polydorou, 
Paul Verity Smith, Hsueh-Pei Wang, Jonathan Hamilton, Oded Ben-Tal): the 
production is directed by Johannes Birringer and will be shown at the Laban 
Center, London in December 2007.

The second project, DAEDALUS_exMachina, elucidates the experience of 
fragmentation we en-counter in contemporary modes of existence. The main 
character goes through motions of change and transformation in relation to the 
performance space, its surfaces and its depths. Nancy Mauro-Flude, Walter 
Langelaar, and Scot Cotterel inquire how this narrative relates to spatial 
simulated spaces, the sensorium and the moving body. In a classical 3d virtual 
game space, the group will embed the formal 'documentary real-time' affect a 
web cam supposes, with fictional and subjective elements such as live audio, 
intimate gesture, and location changes spurred by the actual, real on-site 
location of the performative event. The performance is in relation to human 
interface devices (HID) objects that are embedded with sensors, these networked 
objects are spread around the stage and interface with software that allow for 
a comportment of physical and digital synthesis and act as sonic and visual 
emulators.

DAEDALUS_exMachina engages with networked performance/electronic media, but 
research at the lab focuses on the concept and not the technology; the group 
sees this as a solid platform to start a more in-depth collaboration about 
physical presence in its many facets. DAEDALUS makes use of image, videogame 
technology, sensors and robotic webcams embedded in a custom built 
site-specific environment. The work is under development for presentation at 
various venues in 2007-08. 

Writer in Residence accompanying the interactional design processes is Canadian 
media philosopher/communications theorist Scott F. Taylor (Toronto). The lab is 
preparing a manifesto about contemporary ?interactive? art.

The research and development process at the Interaktionslabor Göttelborn is 
open to the public and can be monitored via our webcams and research texts 
published on the website:  http://interaktionslabor.de


Johannes Birringer,
director, Interaktionslabor
Blvd der Industriekultur
Göttelborn
Germany 
Tel. + 49 (0) 6825-94277-19

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