Performing Cyberspace: Dance, Technology and Virtual Architecture. Maria E. Tosello Universidad Nacional del Litoral Santa Fe, Argentina
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Abstract This project investigates the design, construction and experimentation of digital environments. The work intends to contribute to the evolution of the virtual universe by studying what can be particular architectural expressions of cyberspace. Specifically the project explores the potential architectural manifestations of existential situations in cyberspace. The design goal is to artistically express, through virtual environments, the invisible part of ourselves, our thoughts and emotions. This work critically engages the cyberPRINT, an ongoing creative-research project of Prof. Bermudez and the C.R.O.M.D.I team at the University of Utah in the U.S.A. 1 This project uses the cyberPRINT concept and technology of obtaining physiological data and translating them into digital spaces. However, it proposes a new “world” for the cyberPRINT. The final product consists in a performance where a dancer sends his biological signals to the computer to generate and transform digital environments, and also represents through his movements, the desired existential situation.
1. INTRODUCTION It is usual for us to develop some kind of activity in cyberspace, so we can say that we inhabit digital environments in certain way, since the verb to inhabit refers to the relationship and interaction we establish with our “world”. To inhabit is related with our customs, our habits... The words inhabit and habit are intertwined. Since inhabiting cyberspace has became part of our habits, of our way to inhabit, the digital environment has been incorporated into our human environment. Considering architecture as the field of knowledge that designes and organizes the space we inhabit, and that cyberspace has become part of this environment, we can speak about cyberspace as a new architectural space. But cyberspace, as virtual space, opens a new observation and experimentation of space, therefore it needs a different conceptualization and a new design strategy. I agree with Bermudez when he says that ...“the
major creative sin would be to make the virtual a mirror of the real. ..., it would be an unforgiving lack of imagination.” 2 Digital spaces are built on data. These spaces can be moving and transforming if the data change. In such cases, cyberspace is not only moving but changing itself, because the data giving it birth are varying constantly. Space is here like a living thing that grows, moves, and creates an everchanging landscape. This fact is only possible in cyberspace, and the result is a nomadic and methamorphic architecture. In digital space we can think about a new kind of architecture, a fluid and movable construction, a dancing architecture. “Because the design, institution, and management of cyberspace will be a task of immense scale and complexity, it can simply be argued that it is never too soon to begin.” 3 This work is about the design, construction and experimentation of cyberspace, considering its specific qualities and properties. The project intends to contribute to the evolution of digital environment by investigating what can be particular architectural expressions of the virtual universe. The particular goal of this project is to express, through a digital architecture, our existential world, the invisible part of ourselves. The focus is the architectural design of digital objects and spaces with a high expressive content. The resulting virtual environments poetically represent different existential or psychological situations of human life, such as anguish, happiness or hope.
2. CYBERSPACE IS A REAL SPACE “... we not only act in space, perceive space, exist in space and think about space, but we also create space for expressing the structure of our world... We can call this creation as „expressive or artistic space‟ ...” 4 The computer has opened a new space for us: cyberspace. Digital environments have been incorporated into human environment in multiple aspects of our life. We use computers daily, to comunicate, meet, and learn.
“Ultimately, cyberspace is social space. Whether the communication is direct or mediated through text or graphics, it links people. It may become a place for collective memory analogous to libraries and museums or provide a basis for distributed cognition.” 5 We are accustomed to associate space with matter. Just as in Newton‟s insight, we think about space as a neutral and endless mathematical void, just a backdrop for matter. But space is a more complex concept, it is a cultural construction. Initially space is the container of all our experiences in a determined environment. As human beings we are involved in space, our existence is spatial. Our way of being, is being in the world. Here space is like a framework for our existence, but not just a physical one. There are other planes of reality, other “spaces” of being... “The concept of physical space satisfies only a small part of the human‟s orientation original needs... We have to complete the concept of space including the „affective‟ aspects of our reaction to the environment.” 4 The very concept of space is more related to the idea of “place”, and it is full of existential connotations. “Dreaming space”, “poetic space”, “mind space”,... these spaces are part of our existential space. In this context, we can speak about cyberspace as a new kind of virtual space. “Cyberspace is a „place‟ outside physical space. With cyberspace, we have manifested a kind of inmaterial space of mind. When I „go‟ into cyberspace..., I am transported to another „realm‟. Despite its immaterial nature, this realm is real.” 6 Cyberspace and the objects inside it are not made of matter, but not because of that they are less real. Paradoxically, they were the atomists the first to say that a thing might be real without being a body 7. Cyberspace is a real space which we have access to through digital media. Twelve years ago, Michael Benedikt defined cyberspace as “a new universe, a parallel universe created and sustained by the world’s computers and communication lines.” 8 Our experience of cyberspace is like our experience of outer space, both are mediated spaces that we see through technological filters.
3. CYBERSPACE IS AN ARCHITECTURAL SPACE “... invert[ing] the present relationship of human to information, placing the human within the information space, [cyberspace] is an architectural problem;... cyberspace is architecture; cyberspace has an architecture; and cyberspace contains architecture.” 9 Architecture deals with organizing the human environment through design, in order to offer a better quality of life. Since cyberspace has become part of our environment, it qualifies to enter the field of architectural practice. “The relevance of Architecture to address virtual environments and beings is also supported by the leading minds in the architectural field (Anders 1999, Benedikt 1991, Mitchell 1995, Negroponte 1995).” 10 If we consider the question from the insight of architectural theory, we will remember that Vitruvius defined that Architecture‟s components are: venustas (beauty and form), firmitas (technical aspects), and utilitas (purpose or function: practical and meaningful). More recently Pierce talked about almost the same categories: form: aesthetics; existent: spatial structuration and technology; and value: social needs and meaning. These categories are also applicable to cyberspace: we can define the aesthetics of objects and environments (form); the particular techniques used to design and build them (technology); and the usefulness and meaning of these spaces, the message (function). “Virtual places have many of the functional properties of bricks-and-mortar gathering spots and information repositories,... But form and function are not coupled in the same ways in virtual space as they are in physical space, so there is no compelling reason to make virtual places look like material, gravity-bound ones that stand out there in the weather. No doubt about it, we are opening up a new design frontier. We will have to invent whole new languages for design in cyberspace.” 11 Although virtual architecture may have the same theoretical components as architecture, cyberspace impplies a new vision of space. Therefore, it needs a different conceptualization, organization, and a new design strategy.
According to this, the main goal of this work is to propose some concepts to better understand cyberspace, by considering its specific qualities and properties, so that new and particular design strategies for cyberspace may be developed. “The object of design is now infinite reliefs that open up and expand into a topography of universal intertextuality. Cyber-communications open a new territory and narratives of successive layers. This new site must be explored and colonized.” 12 The design process in cyberspace has some traditional elements and principles and some new ones. Primary elements like points, lines, planes and volumes, are also the geometric elements used in digital design. But in cyberspace we can build any kind of complex mathematical surface or volume (non-euclidean geometries), and the process of constructing and modifying them is novel because they are made of data. These objects can share the same spacetime. Transformative operations include a large range of possibilities, from the easiest (i.e., delete, undo, cut, copy and paste), to the most complex (e.g., edition of objects). Any object can be transformed, and any kind of transformation is possible, even a complete morphing of the original object. We can also completely transform an object by linking it to “inner” or outer layers, that is, by linking it with other files. Transformation can be an endless process, we could always add a new transformation, so the design process could be infinite. Architecture in cyberspace is multiple and mutable. “...space has become a highly malleable substrate capable of forming complex structures... According to the latest theories, our universe is “surrounded” by a foam of baby universes constantly budding off, then joining back on. Each baby universe has its own unique microscopic spacetime. Our universe is but one of a potentially infinite array of universes. Each one of these universes is a vast spacetime bubble in its own. Physicists believe we may even be able to get to these other universes by tunneling through wormholes.” 6 An important consideration in cyberspace architectural design is the actual structure of space being used. In an earlier design investigation (the ´99 Acadia Design Competition), I considered a spatial structure of places and paths for cyberspace, visually and actually connected (Figure 1 Left). Here there are centers of
development and perfomance and lines of actual channels of connection between them. In this structure a digital universe is a group of bubbles, where each bubble is a center of development where we can perform any kind of available activity, from reading a book or listening to some music, to buying a plane ticket. The same kind of structure was used by relativistic physicists to explain the structure of the universe.
Figure 1: Left: Labyrinth, A Library for Virtuallity.12 Right: Universe‟s Structure from The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. 6
But we don‟t necessarily have to circumscribe ourselves to one digital universe. In cyberspace the system of paths can be cronological, with logic in time, but not contiguous, without logic in space. Objects within one world might be connected with another digital world through virtual connections: hyperlinks. “Distance in space time is collapsing, and everything and everyone can enjoy an unparalleled, if disincarnate, proximity. This collapse of distance is not limited to what we inmediately experience as ordinary space and time, but includes complex arrangements of knowledge, behavior, values and social structures.” 13 We could “shift” from one digital space to another which is not “near” in actual space (e.g., it is in another file), inaugurating a new spatial relation. In the Internet we can also navigate through sites that are not contiguous in space, and make connections to any other place inside or outside the site. Hyperlinks are like a wormholes. “Through a wormhole, one could in theory tunnel through space.”6 Hyperlinks allow us to travel through digital space without moving ourselves.
“It is possible to envision architecture nested within architecture... Everything that was once closed now unfolds into a place, and everything invites one to enter the worlds within worlds it contains.”9 We are witness of a new proliferating architecture where time is open: an object of one digital “world” unfolds itself by its hyperlinks into other worlds, or into its inner worlds. Here, space has the potentiality of reproduction. Like a rhizome each object can multiply into several others.
4. DANCING ARCHITECTURE IN CYBERSPACE “If cyberspace is pure updating, how do we design the pure experience? How can it be represented? How can we represent the chaotic or the existential? What type of sign could represent the existential?”12 Digital objects can be designed as static objects, or one can go further. Virtual architecture can also be mobile. As we said, cyberspace allows the designer to create changing architecture. Change implies movement and movement implies time. “... for the first time in history the architect is called upon to design... the principles by which the space is generated and varied in time.” 9 Now, added to the traditional architectural design problem of space, as defined by modernity, we find ourselves involved in designing time, that is, sequences of different possibilities of events and actions in cyberspace. We are not just talking about the observer‟s movements, but also of architecture moving, changing its position in the space and why not, changing itself. Let us analize how movement can take place in cyberspace. Movement can be predefined, where subject and objects are moving along paths and behaviors already established, like in digital videos. These operations generate a dynamic world. Movement can also be performed in real time. We can travel through the space in real time like in a virtual reality file by means of using the arrow keys or the mouse. Objects can be moving or not, but the user can freely define its own movements during the journey.
Movement in cyberspace, predefined or free in real time, is performed by the user or by the objects. The fact that the subject moves is not new. What is new, is that objects and spaces can be moving and transforming themselves, something only possible in cyberspace. The result is a nomadic and metamorphic architecture. The object of design is now a digital and movable container for human activities. Although digital space doesn´t need to be contiguous, continuity in time is demanded given our nature of being. In cyberspace we can conceive architecture as an event, a temporal narrative in three dimensions which allows the experience of the space and of its mutation. Cyberspace allows us to design a storyboard of space in time. Instead of using only a language of place, now we also have a language of time. Objects and spaces can also be moving and transforming in real time, if they are generated by data taken in real time from any source. In data-generated cyberspaces, space is not only moving, but changing itself in a metamorphosis process, because the data giving it birth is varying constantly. Architecture is here as a living thing that grows, moves, and creates an everchanging landscape. “Cyberspace is an invented world; as a world it requires „physics‟, „subjects‟ and „objects‟, „processes‟, a full ecology. But since it is an invented world, ..., it permits us to redirect data streams into different representations.” 9 Arguably, the most powerful feature of cyberspace is that the space can be self-generated, by feeding it with data in real time. Forms and environments can be constructed in real time, through data taken from any source. As the data changes, the environment also changes. According to Einstein‟s theory of relativity, our universe could unfold out of nothing. This is not unlike a cyberspace unfolding out of data, something external to it and therefore appearing as coming out of nothing. In cyberspace, space is being generated, again very much like in the theory of relativity, where “...the galaxies are not hurtling away from one another into an already existing space; rather as the space itself expands, it takes the galaxies with it.” 6 Data in numerical format, which is available through diverse technologies, can be used as the building material for cyberspace. The data can be transformed into 3D objects and environments. A stream of data, initially formless, is given form by a representation and transformation scheme. For example, in the process
of designing real time cyberspace, Marcos Novak uses music as data, to create fluctuating spaces and relations between them. “In order for the data pattern to qualify as music or architecture it is passed through compositional „filters‟... This „adaptive filtering‟, provides the beginning of the intelligence that constitutes a cyberspace. This, of course, means that any information, any data, can become architectonic and habitable, and that cyberspace and cyberspace architecture are one and the same.” 9 We can also use organic life for creating cyberspaces in real time, as in Julio Bermudez‟s cyberPRINT project, that translates a human body‟s physiologic data into digital spaces and forms 1. Physiological data produced by the body –such as cardiac, muscular and respiratory activities- are used to design, build and transform virtual spaces. The data representing the user may be transformed into the data representing the objects. This environment is totally interactive because it is the user who generates the objects. In this context cyberspace is being generated and transformed in real time. In digital space we can think about architecture as a fluid and movable construction, a dancing architecture. Architecture is no longer “frozen music”. We can now make architecture dance with music in cyberspace. “[A liquid architecture] is a symphony in space, but a symphony that never repeats and continues to develop. ... A liquid architecture in cyberspace is clearly a dematerialized architecture... It is an architecture of fluctuating relations between abstract elements. It is an architecture that tends to music.” 9
5. ARCHITECTURE, ART AND TECHNOLOGY “Of all the art forms dance is perhaps the most immediate and obvious example that engages space through time. But, likewise, so does architecture. ... [the experience] allows the ability to abstract design issues through observing the basic parallels of the fundamental ordering principles between dance and architecture.” 14
This interdisciplinary project demonstrates how interrelated architecture and dance are, by creating digital architecture starting from a dancer body‟s physiologic data and his movements while performing. The ritual of dance is considered the first architecture by Alberto Perez-Gomez. “In archaic times the dance was the architecture. The space of architecture was the space of ritual and not an objective, geometrical entity... In traditional architecture choros, or space,... was in fact, primarily topos, a qualitative „place‟ that was oriented, finite and endowed with meaning.” 15 From this perspective architecture like ritual, is the expression of a transcendental emotion rather than a material object. The connection between this primordial idea of architecture and that of ritual or meaningful situation, particularly through dance, is ancestral. Revitalizing this concept in cyberspace means to conceive architecture as an event, a three dimensional narrative that uses the language of place and also the language of the ritual. Here, the architect‟s role is to design “the event”, the space for the ritual to take place and the ritual´s events, a performance where dance, music, technology and virtual architecture unfold together. “A new type of artist appears, one who no longer relates the course of historical events. This new artist is an architect of the space of events, an engineer of worlds for billions of future histories, a sculptor of the virtual.” 16 We´ve already established the connection between architecture and dance, but as Egon Friedell points out, architecture is also “a unity between art and technology”. “...„the architect‟s profession expresses a unity between art and technology‟... For me the [design] path is one in which architecture exists neither without reason nor emotion.” 17 All arts are intrinsically related to a proper technique. “Techne”, the greek word for technology, is derived from art and it means: the art of how to do things. Each art implies a technology, and each technology implies the use of particular tools. Therefore, each technology in association with its tools, corresponds to a type of artistic expression. We are used to associate the computer with cold numerical processes. But far from being a “hard” tool, the computer is an amazing instrument for creative work. In this project we consider the computer as a tool for
a new kind of art expression. Here, the computer is used in the design of poetic spaces and environments, generated through dance and organized through music. Technology also allows the possibility of projecting cyberspace on concrete space, to create a third “hybrid” environment where they can be brought together.
6. CYBERSPACE IS AN EXPRESSIVE SPACE “...cyberspace as such exists at a higher level evolutionarily and phenomenologically, that is, at the level of human perception and experience, thought and art.” 3 All human objects as cultural creations, tell us something about the culture that gave them birth. As they manifest our thoughts and values, they are expressions of ourselves. This is particularly true for Architecture, one of the most relevant expressions of a culture. Architecture is like a text, a language that narrates and expresses meanings. Scanning architecture across time and space, cultures reveal a wide range of built metaphors for expressing identity and life. Cyberspace, like architecture, also possesses the power of communication, the potential for expressing any message, particularly poetic messages, that are especially important to this project. Many stories can be told through cyberspace because of its power for communication. Cybespace is virtual, not in the sense that it is intangible, but in the conviction of its potentiality. Virtual is derived from Latin “virtualis”, itself derived from virtus, meaning strengh or power. Cyberspace is virtual because of its power of generating, its potential to create and lodge events. “A magical world, one that appears in fairy tales and myth, is an useful model for cyberspace because of its universal, metaphorical nature.” 5 Cyberspace is a cultural and social environment of communication and interaction. Beyond the practical activities we can develop in it, cyberspace is a representational space. “In cyberspace all artifacts are symbolic” 5, therefore cyberspace is a new and malleable space for art expression, and therefore, for expressing ourselves. Through our history, we used different forms of art to express our existential world, our dreams and fears. This part of us has been represented in the fine arts through paintings and music, but not yet in three
dimensional digital environments. Cyberspace could be a place to represent and express emotions and thoughts, the invisible part of us. This could be the territory of cyberspace. “In this way the architecture of cyberspace is more like the space of our dreams –one where our environment is complicit with us-...” 5 In this project, cyberspace is understood as a new expressive space, that allows us to address existential meanings through a virtual architecture. The exploration of the potential architectural expressions of existential situations in cyberspace, is the topic of my project.
7. PROJECT DESCRIPTION This experimental study of cyberspace uses the human body‟s data as material to generate and transform digital objects and spaces in real time. This means that the project is developed in cyberspace but is highly related and in constant interaction with concrete space. The space is bio-rhythmic. The physiological data produced by the body –such as cardiac, muscular and respiratory activities- are taken in real-time using a non-invasive dispositive and are sent, in numerical format, to a computer program that translates them into different transformative operations on digital objects and spaces previously designed. This project implied interdisciplinary collaboration among Architecture, Modern Dance, Music and Computer Science, as creative and technical context. The team was led by an architect (myself), and also comprised of a dancer and a programmer. All of us were students at the University of Utah, USA, at the time. This work is founded and departs from the “cyberPRINT”, an ongoing research project developed by Prof. Bermudez, Jim Agutter and the C.R.O.M.D.I. team at the University of Utah 1. We used the same cyberPRINT technology to draw and collect the body‟s data: the BioRadio 110. The BioRadio is a lightweight programmable wireless physiological monitor for viewing and recording the activity of three physiological functions in real time: respiratory and muscle activity; cardiac activity, the heart and its functions; and nervous activity, the brain and its workings. The BioRadio allows the individual being monitored the freedom to move about in a natural setting. The BioRadio 110 sends the measured data via
radio signals directly to a first PC. There, the BioRadio 110 Communications Program receives and filters the data, and send them to a second computer, where they can then be processed as necessary.
Figure 2: Performance Organizational Diagram.
In this project like in the original cyberPRINT, the data are applied to the definition of three-dimensional digital objects. However, unlike the original cyberPRINT, we do not utilize predefined mathematical formulas to design the objetcs. Instead, we use the data to transform ready-made digital objects and environments previously designed using the software 3DStudio Max. The original ideas for the objects´ design arised from the existential concepts we wanted to express, and from music. The objects were designed applying different modifiers and textures that the program 3DStudio Max supplies, and in relation to the existential meanings the objects would have. The resulting design has an enviromental approach, another difference from the cyberPRINT, which is more object oriented. A computer program, specifically designed and written for this project, receives the body data from the first computer in numerical format, and utilizes these numbers to define the magnitude of the transformations that are applied on the digital objects. The utilization of the data is also different from the original cyberPRINT, where all the data are simultaneously used to define only one object. Here, each object is transformed using only one type or channel of data, for example, the cardiac rhythm, which facilitates the audience´s interpretation of the work.
This written software specifically allows changes of scale, twisting or applying “noise” to the objects, based on design specification. We chose these transformations because they make the objects behave in ways very related to the type of data we are using (i.e., scale changes, reduction – enlargement, are associated with respiratory movements, inhalation - exhalation), and also because they create beautiful metamorphic results. Objects, data channels and transformations can be chosen from within the program. This software has a Windows interface and it is written in C++ computer language. From this general base, the program utilizes OpenGL libraries for images‟ management. It is a MFC-based Win32 application that uses OpenGL for graphics rendering. Its geometry data format, the .FX file, is produced with 3DStudio MAX, and then exported using a custom plug-in. OpenGL handles all graphics rendering. The program is interactive, any person can navigate through the environment using the arrow keys to change the position of the observer, or the mouse to change the target.
8. FINAL PERFORMANCE The final presentation of this project was a multimedia performance, where different virtual environments were built and transformed in real time from a dancer body‟s data, in this case a graduate student from the Modern Dance Department at the University of Utah and collaborator in this project. After several study and rehersal sessions, we arrived to three pieces: “Anguish”, “Cityscape” and “Immersive Transformations”, where we combined dance, cyberspace, music and technology. The performance used three kinds of physiological data, coming from cardiac, muscular and respiratory activities respectivelly, to transform three different virtual environments. During the performance the dancer was connected to the BioRadio and his data were sent to the computer while he was performing. His vital signals and movements generated and transformed the digital environments that were projected on a three dimensional scenografic device used as a screen. This device, hanging from the ceiling of the performance stage, consisted in pieces of fabric arranged linearly like an inverted “V”, creating a tunnel with which the dancer interacted. The openings between the pieces of fabric allowed projecting the changing virtual environments at the back of this three-dimensional screen, creating an immersive effect, especially in the final piece (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Scenographic Device.
Music was impulsing the dancer‟s movements, and some operations from the keyboard. When the music changed, the observer‟s position in cyberspace or the transformation applied to it, was changed. Through the rhythm, the music generated the “phrases” of each piece, and therefore, it organized the narrative of the performance. Music also contributed to express different meanings and to communicate the desired messages to the audience. The soft lighting of the room helped to create a special atmosphere, where concrete space and cyberspace seemed to be melted.
9. DESIGN PROCESS The design process of this project had different phases. At the beginning, we focused on the program and on the objects‟ design. This period consisted in a thorough analysis of the physiologic data and how they affected the digital objects. As the data are received at a high speed (200 - 100 samples per second), and the numbers in some data channels had a big difference between each other, we originally had problems with the objects changing too fast and abrupt. In most of the channels, the intervals‟ range goes up to 3500. For example in Figure 4, which represents the muscle data, we can see the differences between numbers in only one second. This made it difficult to design a storyboard. We had to study different ways of averaging the data so that we‟d get smoother movements.
Intervals (data: muscle) 2500 2000 1500 1000 500
Serie1
0 -500 1
9
17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73 81 89 97
-1000 -1500 -2000
Figure 4: Data Intervals‟ Diagram.
After several trials and errors, we arrived to a system for averaging the data, which consists in using the average of sixteen or twelve numbers, instead of the raw data received. With this average system we obtain smoother changes because the intervals between numbers are smaller. Regarding the design of the transformations, we began with only one: scale change. The received data are between 0 and +4500, and the normal objects‟ scale is 1. Again, after several iterations we concluded on dividing the received data by a fixed number: 1500, and applying that result to define the scale of the object, so the objects‟ scale goes from 0 to 3. With this transformation we began testing the program and the objects‟ behavior, while developing the average system.
Heart Data 4500 4000 3500 3000 Serie1
2500 2000
Serie2
1500 1000 500 0 1
483 965 1447 1929 2411 2893 3375 3857 4339 4821
Figure 5: Data Diagram.
After we developed the average system, we went on to design the other two selected transformations: “twist” and “noise”. We chose these transformations because we can define them using numbers, (and, as said, because of the beautiful effects they produce on the objects). In the first one, the data are used to define the angle of twist applied to the object. In the second, each group of three consecutive numbers is applied to define the strength of a distortion in x, y, and z. The effect on the object is like a vibration. At the same time with the last programming phases, we had some brain stormings where we began thinking about which existential situations we would represent. We decided to look inside, to our own life experiencies, and we found some common and inspiring emotions coming from that particular moment. At the beginning, anguish, because of the uncertainty of the first stages of the project. Next, and becoming enthusiastic for the project discoveries (music and new transformations), we decided to create a dynamic piece. Finally, after checking the possibilities of behavior of the different data channels (basically three), and the project schedule, we decided to add a third deep and peaceful piece, representing happiness and satisfaction, to finish the performance and the project. After the programming process, we only focused on the choreographic strategies, the design of the stage set and the definition of how cyberspace and actual space were going to interact. The working process consisted of trying to relate the dancer‟s movements and data to the events they generated on the virtual environments. In other words, we studied how cyberspace and the dancer were going to dance together. At the same time there was an intense study of different choreographic strategies of the pieces. We defined the music to use in each piece related to the meanings we wanted to communicate to the audience, and to the effects the different kinds of data produced on the virtual environments. As we said in the previous section, the final presentation was a multimedia performance with three pieces: “Anguish”, “Cityscape” and “Immersive Transformations”. The performance used the three kinds of physiological data which have the most evident reactions in cyberspace (coming from respiratory, muscular and cardiac activities), and more related to the emotions we wanted to represent, to transform three different virtual environments. The respiration channel combined with the scaling transformation, makes the objects get bigger and smaller, just as our chest movements. It creates back and forward movements. We use this combination in
the first piece to express anguish. The digital object is like a blue open flower, as we can see in Figure 6. Its opening represents the void we feel when we are anguished.
Figure 6: Anguish, First Piece.
Regarding the accompanying sound to the anguish piece, we selected “Lacrymosa” by Yanov Yanovsky. This music is dramatic and deeply expresses anguish. It begins with an opera woman‟s voice with a low rhythm and becomes louder and faster after a few minutes. During the performance the dancer uses a microphone for the audience to hear his breathing. When the music gets faster, his movements and breathing become accelerated and therefore the generated cyberspace. In the second piece we use the muscle activity as data, combined with an energetic and urban music, “Funeral” by Philip Glass. The digital environment is composed by several objects. Each object has a lot of apexes and a brightful orange texture. These “towers” represent a cityscape. The music, movements and color create a dynamic environment which expresses enthusiasm. Figure 7 shows one of the “cities” of the second piece.
Figure 7: Cityscape, Second Piece.
The last part combines heart data, scale, twist and noise. The music is a minimalist piece “Eight Lines” by Steve Reich, and is chosen based on the movements that the data generate on the digital object (Figure 8). These movements are similar to the heart beat, and in combination with the transformations (i.e., twist), define the dancer‟s choreography. The shifts between transformations are based on the musical changes. The dancer performs with cyberspace while interacting with the three dimensional screen. As a result, the real performing stage fades away and a new hybrid space, that allows a credible sense of immersive experience, is created to express satisfaction. The audience, strategically placed very close and surrounding the dancer and the stage set, visually takes part in the performance.
Figure 8: Immersive Transformations, Third Piece.
“We navigate through a space of meaning. Cyberspace is poetry inhabited. Poetry is liquid language. I use the term liquid to mean animistic, animated, metamorphic, applying the cognitively operations of poetic thinking. Cyberspace is liquid. Liquid cyberspace, liquid architecture.” 9 Two videos are shown between the three described pieces. These interludes are “Tango” with music by Astor Piazolla (“Verano Porteño”) and “Surfaces” with music by Philip Glass (“Facades”).
10. CONCLUSION In this project, architecture moves and transforms itself in real time creating an everchanging landscape that tells us a story. This narrative architecture implies the presence of a receiver: the audience. After the performance we opened a Q&A session with the audience. Most of the questions were related to technical aspects regarding how the virtual environments were generated. Part of the audience was more thinking about technical aspects during the show than feeling the experience. Most of the people seemed to have understood the meanings of the performance.
One remarkable feature of this project was its interdisciplinary framework. The design process included architectural design, programming, dance and choreography. We had to look for a common language to communicate between each other, and a way to trust and respect each other‟s work. The result was a very close and rich understanding which enhanced the process as well as the final product. The general decisions about the organization of the project, were taken by myself. Having in mind the overall picture, my task consisted in organizing, directing and implementing it in partial stages to achieve the objectives. The technical aspects were decided by each member of the team in relation to their expertise. The design process was open and had the contribution of the three of us. The overall process was not linear. It had ups and downs. Each of the team‟s members had different processes to comprehend and visualize the project. During its development we had to overcome technical problems (e.g., objects‟ abrupt behaving in combination with the raw received data), but we also had some unexpected and beautiful discoveries (e.g., the light effects on the stage creating an immersive atmosphere). The original goal which was to poetically express, through a cyber-architecture, different existential or psychological aspects of human life, was achieved, and we learned a lot during this project, not only about disciplinary subjects, but about ourselves.
We found an original way of “performing” cyberspace, through spaces and events that profit by its particular qualities.
By means of this new design process, we had contributed to the development and evolution of digital environments.
We artistically expressed meanings related to the invisible part of ourselves, our existential world.
We think the audience got the messages we wanted to communicate.
The designed spaces were totally interactive and experimental.
Challenges that the present work faced were: budget to support the adquisition of different materials for the project (scenery, cables for incorporating a second projector, etc); people to help specially during the preparation of the stage; time to develop more transformations in the program (color, position, etc). This project opens new possibilities in the definition of cyberspace and in how to learn architectural design. Future developments of this work may include:
Adding new transformations for the digital objects.
Using music or another source for generating the objects.
Designing even more immersive scenographic devices.
Developing more complex projecting strategies.
Making the audience share the stage with the dancer to be actively engaged in the event.
Registering the audience‟s responses to different proposals during the design process, to incorporate them as feedback into the project.
References 1.
www.arch.utah.edu/cyberprint
2.
Bermudez, J., Balancing Virtuality with Reality: Designing the Touch of Tech, in: Proceedings of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA), 1997.
3.
Benedikt, M., Cyberspace: Some Proposals, in: Benedikt, M., ed., Cyberspace: First Steps, 2nd edn., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992, 119-224.
4.
Norberg Schulz, C., Existencia, Espacio y Arquitectura, Blume, Barcelona, 1975, (my translation).
5.
Anders, P., Envisioning Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999.
6.
Wertheim, M., The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet, W.W. Norton & Company, New York , 1999.
7.
Jammer, M., Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics, Dover, New York, 1993, 13.
8.
Benedikt, M., ed., Cyberspace: First Steps, 2nd edn., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992, 1.
9.
Novak, M., Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace, in: Benedikt, M., ed., Cyberspace: First Steps, 2nd edn., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1992, 225-254.
10. Gondeck-Becker D., and Bermudez, J., Cyberprint, Toward an Architecture of Being, in: The 8th. International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), 1997.
11. Mitchell, W., Who Put the Space in Cyberspace?, in: Anders, P., ed., Envisioning Cyberspace: Designing 3D Electronic Spaces, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999.
12. Giordano, R. and Tosello, M., Labyrinth, A Library for Virtuallity, in: Bermudez, J., Cardozo, J., Montagu, A., Payssé, M., Sayagués, J. and Stipech, A., eds., Proceedings of the Third Conference of SiGraDi, Montevideo, 1999, 83-86.
13. Novak, M., TransTerraFirme, Sites, 1995, 26, 34-53.
14. Schank Smith, K. and Smith, A., Quickness as a Concept in Learning Design, in: Unpublished Proceedings of the 17th. National Conference on the Beginning Design Student, Puerto Rico, 2001.
15. Perez-Gomez, A., The Myth of Daedalus, AA Files, 10:51.
16. Levy, P., Becoming Virtual, Reality in the Digital Age, Plenum Trade, New York, 1998.
17. Friedell, E., quoted by Peichl, G., The Architect Between Reason and Emotion, in: Architecture and Technology Summarios Nº 85, (my translation).
ILUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Left: Labyrinth, A Library for Virtuallity. Right: Universe‟s Structure from The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. Figure 2: Performance Organizational Diagram. Figure 3: Scenographic Device. Figure 4: Data Intervals‟ Diagram. Figure 5: Data Diagram. Figure 6: Anguish, First Piece. Figure 7: Cityscape, Second Piece. Figure 8: Immersive Transformations, Third Piece.
