The Development Of A Kinetic Visual Vocabulary

This paper discusses a technique and a visual vocabulary called “Digital Kinetic Color Traces” developed by a new media artist/designer in collaboration with dancers and choreographers. This ongoing project investigates both choreographed and improvisational dance performance in the context of computer-generated color projection systems. From a visual literacy standpoint this paper aims to explicate the vocabulary that emerged from the digitally-enhanced method used to “paint” dancers live. It was in the latest collaboration, namely Projections, created for a concert entitled Dances We Don’t Know Yet, that the visual vocabulary was more fully refined and formalized. Introduction The use of computer technology to investigate the expressive potential of projected kinetic images and the environment (e.g., architecture) has been explored by Petronio Bendito in works such as his Technology Side Effects (Bendito, 2004; Mix, 2005b) and Digital Habitat solo exhibitions (Mix, 2005a). It was Bendito’s interest in digital aesthetics and his observation of how participants interact with projected kinetic images that led to the development of the Digital Kinetic Color Traces vocabulary. The challenge in combining technology with dance is always in finding how to make the technological innovations improve the dance, or whatever one wants to call this hybrid art product, as opposed to being superimposed upon, or overwhelming the dance. There has been an increased hybridization of computer generated technology and dance performance as there has been in most art forms. For example, well known choreographers Merce Cunningham and Bill T. Jones have created works using motion capture technology (Dils, 2002). Cunningham started to explore this hybridization in 1997 with a first performance in 1999. More recently related methods have also been explored by the Dance Division in the Patti and Rusty Rueff Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Purdue University in projects led by Carol Cunningham (Meador, Rogers, O’Neal, Cunningham, 2004) and computer graphics specialists (Meador, Kurt & O’Neal, 2003). In these works, a “virtual dancer” or dancers joined the dance, which were created in real time from the movement of the live human bodies dancing in the space. Improvisation mixed with computer-generated technology sends artists into a realm reminiscent of video games, where the player constantly feeds new choices into the game’s paradigm. Dancers and new media artists are more frequently exploring this conceptual relationship. For example, Marlon Barrios Solano has explored related intersection of dance and technology in his work at The Ohio State University (Solano, 2004). Collaborations’ Overview This interdisciplinary project investigates a technique and a visual vocabulary called Digital Kinetic Color Traces developed by designer and new media artist/designer Petronio A. Bendito in independent collaborations with dancers and two choreographers, Holly Jaycox and Hilary McDaniel-Douglas. These collaborations took place separately. McDaniel-Douglas previously worked with motion capture and video, and Jaycox had incorporated video into her works before coming into this collaboration. The collaboration with McDaniel-Douglas and Project IN Motion started in 2004 and produced three works (Untitled Solo Choreography, 2004; Untitled Duet Choreography, 2004-2005; For DeBuffet, 2005). The collaboration with Jaycox and her dance company Public Dance started in January of 2005. It produced a single improvisational work: Projections (See Figure 1). Figure 1 Projections, 2005, Improvisation. Photo by Michael Xun Chi One of the goals of these collaborations was to develop a kinetic visual vocabulary that emerged from the dialog between a new media artist/designer and dancers/ choreographers while taking into consideration the development of the Digital Kinetic Color Traces system. These collaborations investigated both choreographed