GLOBAL CHOREOGRAPHY | October 7th 2012 A distributed flashmob - “Dance alone, together”
--------------------- Whether you are in Australia, Asia, Europe or the Americas, anyone in the (connected) world is invited to join a globally performed synchronous dance on October 7th. A new genre of collective experience, now possible thanks to mobile technology and augmented realty: a distributed flashmob, "dancing alone together”. Standing where you are and pointing your phone around you following a virtual cube floating around your head, someone some where else in the world will do the exact same thing, at the exact same time. With the rapid growth of the use of mobile pocketsize digital technology, our environment of today consists of more than just physical tangible material. There’s a data-reality invisibly surrounding us with virtual games to be played, stories to be experienced, treasures to be searched for. Using augmented reality viewers people are uncovering virtual manifestations around them, appearing on the live camera view of their mobile phone. While doing so, they make quirky movements, waving their smartphones in the air in search of virtual content. These moves resemble an improvisational choreography. It triggered Dutch new media artist Sander Veenhof to turn the phenomenon into a a choreography in cooperation with choreographer Marjolein Vogels. A global choreographer, an appropriate format for the "AR" domain in which it is taking place. The virtual 'guidance cube' can be viewed using the app Layar. While keeping ones’ feet at the indicated position, the cube instructs a person to hold the phone with specific hands while following the moves of the cube. The moves are initiated in a synchronised way across the globe because the system is controlled from one central source. The current choreography consists of 34 moves, designed specifically for persons holding up a smartphone in either one or both hands. The series of movements of the cube, moving back and forth, from left to right, up and down, from closeby to far away, are chosen in such a way that the movements of the hand(s) and thereby the body becomes a structured dance. The launch of the Global Choreography will be presented at the Tempo Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, but can be joined from anywhere in the world using the right app. More details here: http://globalchoreography.info ARTISTS Sander Veenhof studied “unstable media” at the DOGtime department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Being an adept of digital and virtual realities and fascinated by the intrinsic lack of impossibilities of these domains, Veenhof now pursues his fascination throughout the physical realm thanks to Augmented Reality which has turned the world into a programmable environment. With his creations for our geographically-connected data-reality, he explores the practical and conceptual opportunities for artistic expression within the new hybrid semi-digital space. He is joined in these efforts by the Augmented Reality artist collective Manifest.AR, which he co- founded after the full-scale uninvited AR exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York he organized with fellow members of the group. Marjolein Vogels works as a performer with NB projects, Jack Gallagher en Jennifer Tee. Besides this, she creates her own choreographies which are presented at various theatre festivals, performed by the collective The Magic Life Club. She is the organiser and curater of the yearly WhyNot festival. JOIN Charge your batteries, download the app and join on Sunday 7th of October! 14H PDT, 17 EDT, 18H BRT, 21 GMT, 23H CEST http://globalchoreography.info _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour