Tele-Plateau_01 and _02 Networking Interactive Environments
Concept by Klaus Nicolai
The 11th festival of computer-based art CYNETart_07encounter also marked the beginning of the interdisciplinary telematic madia art project "Tele-Plateaus".
This represents a continuation of the successful artistic development and experimental work on interactive net-based environments which started in 2003. This development features translocal tie-ins of virtual walk-in spaces based on the camera-motion-sensing system EyeCon and Kalypso (Frieder Weiss).
Tele-Plateaus as first performative experimental arrangement
The objective of the performative installations Tele-Plateau_01 and _02 is to examine and link different geographical, cultural and virtual space-time situations. The hardware consists of identically-configured camera-motion-sensing systems and their network linkage is provided by a software called OpenSound Control (OSC). In this event three European locations, namely St. Petersburg (RU), Norrkцpping (SE) and Dresden (D) will form a virtual "stage" and a platform for translocal interaction open for the public to walk-in. The first event of Tele-Plateaus_01 which takes place at three different locations in parallel is an experimental arrangement which "generates" a "fourth", translocal hyperlocation. This is achieved by life performances which are delivered simultaneously. The hyperlocation is not connected to the physical performances at the separate locations singularly, but only comes into existence by the linkage of the three.
This hyperlocation is formed from the sound and visual "environments", which are created within the three live performances. In other words - the environments are "composed", "directed"and "structured"by the movements of the "dancers".
This means that the virtual hyper space, which is present simultaneously at all three physical locations, is created by the generation of data. These data are availible for operation on all three computers within the OSC-network. Different types of "movement parameters" (speed, location, dimension, etc.) are digitalised by the camera-motion-system and exchanged among the computers at the three separate but identically configured locations. The numerically coded movement parameters are then transformed into sound and image processes at each location. The audiovisual hyper space will at the same time be the environment of the respective live performances. This is achieved without delay in time.
After it has been presented on 16th November 2007 the performative installation Tele-Plateaus_01 is open for to all interested visitors in Dresden, Norrkцpping and St. Petersburg. It serves as translocal platform for audio-visual encounters. Similar walk-in "world stages" open to the public have already been tried out between Dresden -Coventry, Gцrlitz - Zgorzelec and Dresden - St. Petersburg temporarily in 2005 and 2006. This development can in a certain respect be seen as the future of telematics. The virtual hyper spaces which have real walk-in characteristics provide a new way of meeting people at different spots in the world. This doesn't just lead to new "ecological"
ways of cultural communication, play and artistic performances, but also includes multi-faceted applications - ranging from an interactive classroom to an interactive living and children's room.
In this process the human body itself is the most significant interface of communication! The respective technical-artistic configuration merely provides an audio-visual, sensorial and cybernetic platform, which serves as more or less dynamically synaesthetic and kinaesthetic "translator" (Transformer) of performative interactions. Every user of the virtual translocal interaction space can take part and contribute to the creation of technical-artistic contexts and their specific environments.
The creation of translocal virtual environments
The development of Tele-Plateaus, which implies translocal virtual spaces of physically real interaction integrally touches on various disciplines and involves completely new ways of communication and co-operation. Virtual hyper spaces can only exist if the work carried out between separate sites is on equal terms - artistically as well as technically speaking - and leads to one virtual space of sound and vision. This process gives rise to a new kind of permanently corresponding artistic research and development within the hyper space itself. This means that the translocal hyper space doesn't simply exist as the sum of separate virtual environments which link, transform and "reflect" performative interactions. The process of creating, configuring and composing the hyper space is the product of itself and its realisation lies within the hyper space.
Every kind of virtual environment design (audio and visual) has to be integrative towards a translocal hyper space. This aspect pertains to conception, configuration and composition. The virtual environment can only find its place for field trial inside the hyper space - being the integral of all local operations. Therefore artistic work is in every case a co-production, a process of correspondence and permanent co-ordination, testing and exploration!
Every lack of correspondence with regard to the significance and resonance to be established for the locally identifiable sound and image processes leads to "defects" which cannot be compensated. These defects affect the performative and interactive potential of translocal and virtual environments. The "effect" of a hyper space encounter can only be accomplished if the process of creating such environments in itself remains translocal. This means that the hyper space has to be prepared, physically tested, modified and extended in correspondence.
This can in a certain way be compared to an international space station: all technical systems, forms of works, objectives and strategies have to be focussed on a site, which doesn't have a specific local or territorial assignation.
Unlike an international space station, the Tele-Plateaus represent a more or less successful synthesis of locality and translocality, which can be danced and grasped. Therefore they serve as model for a world stage rehearsing world civil life, with elements of simulations and imaginations.
The objective of all operations in a worldwide network of Tele-Plateaus, which are open to the public to walk-in is to provide a platform for physically real interaction between citizens of the world (virtual locations of world cultures). This encounter - and this is a
crucial aspect - doesn't have to overcome distances. The individuals don't have to drive or fly and don't require vehicles or aircrafts, where passengers are fastened to a seat belt. In this sense an encounter in the hyper space of Tele-Plateaus_01/_2 can only be made by way of directly corresponding body movement.
Characteristic sounds - inlcuding spoken languages - of the respective cities serve as baseline for the integral environments Tele-Plateaus_01 /_2, which are joined in correspondence within a hyper composition. A specific and local sound material can for example be moved at each location. These sounds will have to come together and make one sound within the translocally generated body-re-composition. This of course doesn't preclude dissonances if on the whole they make sense.
A translocal body-sound-regulation can be realised by an activation of separate wave-files. Each dancer moves individually and in parallel at each site. This means that the files are modulated, transposed, granulated and made to sound at different speeds in backward and forward direction.
Technologies such as MAX/MSP, PureData, Kalypso e.t.c. are used for the visuals. With respect to the camera-motion-sensing control system and the generation of sound and image, they can provide multiple real-time tie-ins between body-inter-actions and audiovisual processes
Outlook
Until 2009 various sites will become a network of virtual environments. This will enable direct audio-visual real-time interaction between technically identically configured locations and stages where the public can walk in or act.
Humans in St. Petersburg, New York, Coventry, Prague, Florence, Melbourne, Wroclaw, Bejing, Toronto, Johannesburg, Rotterdam, Paris, Berlin, Dresden etc. can be linked via a server and appropriate network technology. Their bodily movements can join, they can dance and play together. They can create images, sounds and light effects simultaneously without operating additional interfaces.
This means that the previous activities of Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau (TMA) and its partners are developed further and will grow sustainably, especially with regard to the transnational network of telematic tie-ins with interactive public walk-in locations.
The future growth will apply to the artistic use as well as technical and building extension of the interactive exhibition pavilion in the city centre; a further temporary and quite sustainable network linkage of the festival theatre in Hellerau with other similarly configured locations in Europe, Asia, America, Africa und Australia. It will also affect the intersciplinary development, testing and application of network-linked interactive image-sound-light-spaces. Respective workshops, presentations, performances as well as permanent project-specific operations will be positively influenced. This includes the provision of institutional and technical requirements.
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