Did it ever occur to you to wave at a surveillance camera? Or rather, at the person who is watching you at that moment in the control room? And how would it feel if that person would wave back and you would somehow be able to see or hear that?

By using surveillance cameras and a free motion tracking software the artists of !CoLAPseKoDe explore spaces in which innocent mouvements can have consequences. Visitors are invited to move between these spaces and by doing so, play with light, image and sound. For interested people there is also a workshop module on Fri (see below).

Players: Simon Yuill, Kirsty Stansfield, An Mertens, Pierre Marchand, Matthias Koole, Lot Jansen, Dorothé Depeauw

When: From 17 till 19th May at De Pianofabriek, Rue du Fort straat 35, 1060 Brussels

Round-up presents the results of !CoLAPseKoDe, a research process about the performance aspects of the free motion tracking software objscrs by Mangrove-Tentactile and Constant vzw/asbl, with the support of De Pianofabriek Kunstenwerkplaats and the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.
The performance is part of the Open House Festival.
Picture by Bram Goots.

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Special: Workshop with Pierre Marchand & Dorothé Depeauw
on Friday 18 from 14 till 18h

Motion tracking is based on the analysis of differences between images in a video input. We’ll propose an exploration of how these differences are built in OBJSCRS, then trace new paths from the video input to the actual motion tracker. We’ll build visualizations out of this data structure, whether on screen or in any other possible form.

More information on the workshop:

http://www.ircam.fr/colloques.html?event=1095&L=1

The idea of the staircase publication of Connection Protocols is to go deeper into the different works and ideas present in the staircase and to connect, re-edit, version, republish.
‘Do Clap Ok I See´ is establishing a link between:
- Workers leaving the Googleplex by Andrew Norman Wilson
- Ivan Monroy Lopez performance ‘Exiled Cuisine’
- Laura Esquivel’s novel ‘Like Water for Chocolate’

Objscrs will be presented as a marble game in a circuit of coloured wires. The marbles will trigger 4 different kind of voices retelling an event. This is the default score of 5′ that can be optimised and extended throughout the day:
- 1 white voice: official standard version, using the body_xy to run the text with the marble in a vertical way over the screen
- red voices: informal boosted but fragmented versions of the event as conversations, using ‘show/hide/location’ to pop up in different places
- green voice: sincere voice of the sensitive interested visitor who happened to be there, using ‘show/hide’ as small subtitles on the screen
- yellow voices: reveal the cause and effects of the event in a language that is secret to most of us

!Co LAPse KoDe is a collaboration between Mangrove-Tentactile, Constant & De Pianofabriek KWP, with the support of de Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie.

BEFORE – TESTING – AFTER

You can read their first publication here:
http://marginalialab.com/en/magazine/magazine-01

You can download the pdf of the full article with lay-out and pictures here:
http://www.adashboard.org/coLAPseKoDe_games/marginalia_article.pdf

The scores are used in a table top set-up, with a vid mask to limit the tracked space (in this case the table). Two players take place in front of each other. They take the time to concentrate on body, object, each other. They negociate who starts, without using words. They never look at the projection screen.

The audience discovers how the words materialize on screen by the juxtaposition of two ‘conversations’ going on: the one between the players & the objects, the one between the objects and the text messages.

You can watch the video here: http://vimeo.com/user4419409/objectasvoice (pass=creativelab)

More pictures

Around 15 to 20 people turned up. The great challenge for Kristy lied in getting them to participate in a warming up exercise, the idea being to clear the space of outside energies and install a collective space.
The warm up score:
* stand in a circle
* rub hands, arms, legs
* breath deep in and out, look around exhaling
* walk as slowly as possible in the space for 5 minutes

This last instruction is great to jump into concentration and focus. caused gentle creaks in the wooden floor, and be conscious about the internal and external body, space, other bodies.

Next Kirsty and An took place at the table and conversed by moving two objects. Thanks to objscrs the objects activated text on the projection screen. The players did only watch each other, not the screen. Every gesture was assisted by a breath as Susan suggested.
After the 4 machinal scores were performed, they finished and opened the space for questions, comments, conversation.
This was a strange thing to do: the collective energy and concentration was so high we could have easily invited to people present to play and let the conversations grow spontaneously.

Following comments were great feed back:
* the screen becomes the canvas on which the objects draw
* the audience are the eyes of the players
* the play of Kirsty and An had the concentration of a chess game, a serious thinking strategic game. It became very clear when people in the audience started to play, that there exist different game modes. The relational positioning of the objects creates compositions on the table. There can also be a competitive attitude (to try to impress) or an acrobatic (to try to make the objects fly f.ex.).
* during the ‘performative moment’ by Kirsty and An some people looked more at the screen, others more at the human interaction at the table; during the free play afterwards it was clear that the human game wins in attention span. We are homini ludenses.
It was great to see other people engage with the objects and each other!

Kirsty and An thank everyone one for their presence and rich comments, the shared teas and pints!

On Time inspired by Latour:
Time indicates the force of texts, messages, ideas – the longer it stays, the stronger it gets, but when it stays too long, it becomes obsolete, because it is invested by other ideas growing. Change is the only stability. There needs to be change in order to continue breathing.

Kirsty and An applied this exercise at the table for a conversation with some chosen objects. They listened and imagined a score for themselves, like f.ex. this hommage to JC:
- take sounds as a score and objects as the instruments
- perform the score with focus on time, texture, movement, force, position, weight