Software for Live Motion Capture Dance Performance

[Angela Barnett]

Hello,
I am a new member to Dance-Tech Net. I am a media artist from Australia. In August I will be presenting a paper at ISEA2009 (International Symposium of Electronic Art) about projections on the moving body in live dance performance. In my paper I have included works by Klaus Obermaier, Lucy Guerin Inc, Megan Beckwith and Chunky Move in collaboration with Frieder Weiss.

I would like to include other works that have been produced recently, especially using motion capture technology. I will need video references and/or still to discuss the works and also detailed description of the technology and concept behind the work. If anybody has a reference or has produced some work of this description recently I would be very interested in talking with them.

I would like to know about available software for Motion Capture to be used in live performance. Currently the works that I have discussed have been developed in conjunction with a computer programmer. Are there any softwares available to produce this type of work without the need of a programmer?

THanks for your time and hope to hear form you soon.

Angela

[Vangelis Lympouridis]

Hello Angela,

MaxMsp, PD, Isadora and many others are tools provided to Media artists in order to realize their ideas without really programming, meaning writing code. As the community grows on, more and more external modules are made, so that complex algorithms can be "encapsulated" in boxes with input/output and parametric adjustments.
I am sure you are aware of these, but that is pretty much it (as far as I am aware) to assist artists that dont really know programming. You can see some videos from my work with motion capture for real-time performances but no projections on the body are included... so far at least.
Interactive visuals is something I am currently investigating and "Processing" is a really powerful tool.
Contact me if you need some more info.
Welcome to dance-tech.net.
Best
v.

[Angela Barnett]

Hi V,

THanks for your reply. I was aware that Isadora could do some stuff, but unaware if the other programs. I am still very interested to see your work as it may be helpful in my discussion on Motion Tracking. Do you have a website I can look at?

Kind regards
angela

[Vangelis Lympouridis]

Hello Angela,

There is a big discussion and exciting research and practice on all these. You can check my videos at my page in Dancetech.net...
http://dancetech.ning.com/video/video/listForContributor?screenName...
I would be happy to explain more.
Best
V~

[Angela Barnett]

THanks V,

your work looks amazing. I would really like to find out more about current motion tracking technology. Do you know of any links I can follow?

Take care
angela

[Jessica Rajko]

Hi,

Just out of curiosity, are you looking for a mocap system, or just software? If you are looking for a mocap system, I would suggest looking into Optitrack. It's a newer cheap system (around $5,000-$7,000 depending on the extras you buy). I have been using it at Arizona State University with a group of researchers and depending on your needs, it can be quite robust and movable (cameras are really small and only $200 a pop, so if you break one, it's more affordable to replace).

If you are just looking for software, you will probably need someone to program a plugin for you depending on what software you are looking at. (Do you want to play with audio, visuals, or both?) If you know what software you want (anything that can take in some sort of data), and you can find someone to write a plugin, then you should be good. Like V/L said, I would suggest looking into something like MAXmsp/Jitter. It's a visual programming language in which you can manipulate audio and visuals based on any data (including mocap) If you have the time to play around with it, I think it could be worth your time. Dance-tech.net has a discount deal for dance-tech.net members with Cycling 74.

[Kim Vincs]

HI Angela,

We have a large motion capture studio - Deakin Motion.Lab, which I direct, at Deakin University in Melbourne. We've been working streaming straight to Motion Builder, and also to Isadora and Max/MSP/Jitter using OSC with a plug in written for us.

We did a live motion capture dance performance at the studio in December 2007 - The Silk Road Project. You can see some images at http://www.deakin.edu.au/motionlab/gallery.php?p=89, and the video will go up on the Deakin research site shortly.

We're working on a live motion capture / stereo projection project for October.

Let me know if you'd like more info, or, if you're in Melbourne, you'd like to talk and/or and see the studio.

Kim

[Angela Barnett]

Hi Kim,
Thanks for getting back to me. Your work looks really amazing and interesting. Unfortunately I will still be in Europe by the time your project begins in October, but I am very interested in your work and would really like to keep in contact with you.

I am currently refining my paper on Body As Screen; Synchronising Projections on the Body in Contemporary Dance Performance for the ISEA 2009 conference in Belfast, www.isea2009.org
The paper is principally about using human performer as a screen for digital motion graphics and the discourse created by fusing the two together. The research about the technology involved focussing on motion capture is a part of the paper but not the entire essence. I mainly want to investigate technology used in contemporary performances to update the paper for presentation at the ISEA09 conference.

I'll investigate the software you've told me about, but if you know of any other work that focuses projections onto the body in recent dance performances please let me know.

Great to meet you and lets keep in touch.
Kind Regards
Angela
www.angelabarnett.com