SentientSpace1.0 - a time space motion event Performance 2004

Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli continued their collaboration with Hellen Sky & John McCormick (Company in Space), which started at The Digi-Lounge ‘peer to peer labs’ at essexdance in February 2004. The research and development of SentientSpace1.0 began during October 2004 in the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing at Melbourne’s Swinburne University in Australia.

Both companies have been researching Virtual Reality in combination with motion capture performance for many years. The main challenge was to develop a live piece integrating audio & motion in the creation of a 3d architecture. A technical aim of the collaboration was to merge realtime datasets from two different motion capture systems. The germ of the idea came from a tech lab in Monaco 2002 and developed at Digilounge, here the wireless Gypsy system could converse with the optical Hypervision ReActor system.

In Australia the experimentation continued, in this case the systems were a magnetic polhemus and a Gypsy, this time the goal a performance rather than a demonstration. In addition the team were to present the piece stereoscopically - special projectors and glasses gave a view of the 3d graphics that appeared to have depth and spring from the screen.

Both audio and the motion of the dancers drove the creations of the 3d graphics in SentientSpace1.0. The virtual environment became the architecture of the performance. What developed was an extraordinary work, with the dancers Hellen & Ruth driving 3d graphics and controlling camera angles and composer Adam Nash creating a mesmeric score. His live audio manipulations activated the graphics in certain sections of the work. He brought his vast experience of creating environmental 3d sound installation to the project.

See the SentientSpace mini site for video and audio.

Read more about Motion Capture here