“Exploring Embodied Sonic Meditation through time and space” was premiered as part of the International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO) at Arizona State University (ASU) in 2019. This project is a collaboration with Dr. Jiayue Cecilia Wu (University of Colorado) and Dr. Lauren Hayes (ASU). Digitally generated video is displayed using floor-scale projectors that encapsulate the performers and the audience i.e. all humans sit within the frame of the video feed and additional screens surround the performance space. This work was developed specifically for the 8.2 Meyer surround-sound speaker system and video projection capabilities of the iStage at ASU.
This project artistically explores new ways of using human movement data to manipulate auditory and visual feedback in real-time in a group performance. Three different digital musical instruments/audio-visual systems are implemented using body-sensing/movement technology and body-audio-visual mapping strategies. The collaborative performance initiates a dialogue between eastern and western media artists who design and use their own technologies and artistic tools. Through this performance, we explore how individual artists and their systems can work as a whole under diverse cultural backgrounds through their gestures and music expressions.
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The projections on the floor (and some of the screens) were generated using a self-designed 3D system using Touch Designer software (metaballs in a particle system using attraction/repulsion forces to disturb cubes), these were controlled using a Nintendo Wii Remote. It’s a little hard to see what’s going on in the documentation at times so I’ve rendered out a silent 60-second demo as an example of what was happening visually. When physically present in the large space with projection on the specialist floor, the visual effect was that of the floor disintegrating and the perceiver being drawn inside an alternative digital space. Very hard to capture well (especially with a GoPro), but I’m very keen to work with floor-scale projections and further explore this area again.
Links to Online Documentation
- MOCO 2019 (project overview on johnrobertferguson.com)
- MOCO 2019 International Conference on Movement and Computing (program)
- Embodied Sonic Meditation MOCO (abstract)
- MOCO 2019 Online schedule
- MOCO 2019 Documentation on Vimeo
- Demo of floor projections generated in Touch Designer for MOCO 2019 on Vimeo