Distributed Choreography: A Video-Conferencing Environment

Introduction

In the last few years, a variety of computer-mediated tools have begun to expand the physical boundaries of where and how we interact with others. The rapidly evolving global network of interactive computer systems, known as the Internet, now provides unprecedented opportunities for connectivity and collaboration. The convergence of artistic practices with multimedia software, computer-mediated communication, distant education, multiple site performance, and collaboration, is bringing about dramatic change in many fields.

Janus/Ghost Stories, which I choreographed, was a networked dance performance articulating the concept of "distributed choreography." ¹ The piecewas presented at the International Dance and Technology Conference in 1999, distributed between two performance locations in the United States: The Web Café at Arizona State University and the Videoconference Lab at the University of California, Irvine. It used the technology of a two-way video-conferencing system over broadband networks, rather than Web broadcasts (i.e., one-way streaming media). In its creation of choreography in a video-conferencing environment, Janus/Ghost Stories can serve as a model for future explorations in structuring distributed choreography using the Internet.

What is a Networked Performance?

Networked performance is a synchronous approach to communication; that is, a shared activity between two or more people who are collaborating at the same time. Collaborators may be located at the same place or in different places. Using video-conferencing systems, people at different locations can see and hear each other simultaneously. This can be a two-way or multipoint method of communication. The basic system consists of computer, monitor, video camera, microphone, and speakers at each site.

Software such as CuSeeMe or iVisit provides video-conferencing capabilities over the Internet. The drawback of such systems is that image and sound quality can be poor due to communication bandwidth limitations on the Internet. Basically, a networked performance serves to expand, on a global level, the "Active Space" environment for performers and the meeting place for audience participants. Active Space is a concept initiated by computer video artist John Crawford in 1993, referring to a computer-mediated environment, a space where there is mutual influence or collaboration between people and machines. I began working with Crawford in 1993 to develop and participate in a series of workshops and performances where dancers, actors, and musicians would interact with each other and machines to explore artistic applications such as live performance and installations.

As a consequence of their direct involvement in an Active Space environment, individuals have opportunities to collaborate and take responsibility for their own performance tasks while still being connected to a broad landscape of others interested in working on the same project. Text and images that are developed in parallel with the structured improvisation or choreography are cultural in origin, becoming important modes of communication that reflect the aesthetic sensibility of the artists.

In an article entitled, "Aesthetics of Telecommunications," Eduardo Kac suggests that performance applications of collaborative on-line technologies can be characterized as:

employing computers, video modems and others devices—using visuals as part of a much larger interactive, bi-directional communication context. Images and graphics are created not simply to be transmitted by an artist from one point to another, but to spark multidirectional visual dialogue with other artists and participants in remote locations. This visual dialogue assumes that images will be changed and transformed thoughout the process as much as speech gets interrupted, complemented, altered and reconfigured in a spontaneous face-to-face conversation. Once an event is over, images and graphics stand not as the "result," but as documentation of the process of visual dialogue promoted by the participants. ²

Kac's comment implies a kind of structured improvisation, one that is an iterative process between people and machines. As individuals all over the world become technologically-equipped and interested in the exchange of visual imagery and information, video and conferencing systems are becoming more well-suited to creating Active Space...