SENSES PLACES × Digital Hollywood
Cross-cultural Embodiments through Hybrid Participatory Performance Environment

Contact address for participant: yukihiko@s6.dion.ne.jp

Also at Senses Places' virtual environment at Second Life SLURL:http://slurl.com/secondlife/Koru/233/233/3005 　

Workshop Description
The absurd state of substitution and instrumentalization of our human bodies by avatars in social networks such as Second Life@, confronts us with the limitation of punching keys to control their moves and communication, as well as with their gender and dance behavior stereotypification.

This workshop fosters new modes of hybrid interaction with virtual bodies (avatars and video mediation) based on somatic practices, such as, Body-Mind Centering, Tai Chi and Contact Improvisation, which open out kinesthetic sensing and thinking through witnessing within oneself and with others, gravity, space and time. Creative experimentation of movement interaction is based on the critical analysis of different types of game interfaces, including the Second Life, the Wiimote and the Webcam. We will critically analyze these interfaces through the aesthetic-artistic experimentation with a view for alternative possibilities.

Project blog: http://sensesplaces.wordpress.com/

Senses Places is a dance-technology collaborative project initiated by Todd Cochrane and Isabel Valverde, creating a playful mixed reality performance environment for audience participation. Generating whole body multimodal interfacings keen to a somatic cross-cultural approach, the project stresses an integration of simultaneous local and remote connections, where participants and environments meet towards a kinesthetic/synesthetic engagement.

With the Support of:

Digital Hollywood, JP

Wellington Institute of Technology, NZ

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, PT