INVITATION
From Real Virtual Games to Weathering In/Com Tempo:
developing a dance-technology remote collaboration

Performative Paper by Isabel Valverde and Todd Cochrane

DHRA 2010 Annual Conference
‘Sensual Technologies: Collaborative Practices of Interdisciplinarity’
Panel Session 4: Digital resources in collaborative creative work, teaching

Tuesday, September 7, 2-3.30 pm (GMT)
Brunel University, Lecture Theatre 262,
Kingston Ln, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, United Kingdom

And
Second Life SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Koru/219/226/4027

also webcast at: http://www.livestream.com/toddleslightworker
and http://www.livestream.com/beverde
and

A performative paper about our remote collaboration, happening mainly through Second Life®, we would use this platform in its multiple potentialities, respectively, the live movement of the avatar, chat and voice, the virtual environment, and video broadcast to discuss about our remote work process. We want to reflect upon how this collaboration came to be and how it still progresses, continuing a mutually enriching challenge. Puzzled by the fact that we really can work, despite never meeting in person, we reflect through the experience of relating in these combined ways. Although working remotely for over 2 years, our work goal emphasizes the physical engagement, intertwining our visions and actualizations, so that the virtual is harmoniously integrated within and truly expands our posthuman subjective dimensions.
Starting within the context of Real Virtual Games, a trans-disciplinary performance and environment, our collaboration evolved into Weathering In/Com Tempo, a physical-virtual embodied environment for people-avatar-environment interaction. We focus on the most relevant aspects of our collaboration in the context of these two projects.
How do we cope and work within two completely different time zones and geographical places in the globe? We believe that is the way we envision the experience of and through the medium what brings us close. Coming from different domains of knowledge and experience, Valverde from critical theory – dance and performance studies, and Cochrane from informatics, engineering, software and interface development, we learn to understand and encompass each other’s approach. We are flattered by the mutual challenge and enlightenment generated out of the common desire to develop critical and innovative art work that constitutes an aesthetic discourse and a demand regarding the established human-computer interfaces (HCI). We believe this collaboration is constructing clear statements, pushing and being pushed by theory and our vision for more inclusive and playful hybrid embodied modes of interaction.