Beginnings of Telematic Dance Experiences for Us

Today I post a first report of how our telematic collaborations are going. Our class is trying to collaborate on networked performance with musicians from SARC in Belfast and RPI in Troy, NY. The technologies we have decided to use for now are, with SARC, SKYPE for video with JackTrip for audio, and Max/MSP for sending data to affect the sound. So far we've been taking small steps each week, one week getting JackTrip to work, the next week getting it to work better, and finally this week achieving a short improv between us. Next week we will hopefully get the four-channel audio from SARC properly spatialized in the room so we can respond to that in our movement choices, and to get video of the musicians from SARC on the screen in addition to our video. It is a bit frustrating to have the setup take so much time, but I hope and believe that we will get faster and more fluent with it so that we can make art rather then deal with the technology for so much of the class period. It is GREAT to have partners willing to work with us on a weekly basis to get this going...and by the end of the semester I know we'll have something wonderful to show for it. We need next also to develop scores for dances over the Internet that will make some artistic sense.


John Toenjes, instructor of 362 Networking & Performance