Dance Performance and Virtual Reality - an investigation of current practice and a suggested tool for analysis.

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The relationship between performance and VR technologies has been ongoing since the initial development of VR in the 1980s. Much has been written about the flurry of experimentation in VR and performance during the 1990s, but not much has been written about more recent work. This article is a contextualisation of recent dance practice made for/in Virtual Reality (VR) and a discussion of any characteristics of that work. For the purpose of this article, my definition of VR includes both 360 film experienced through a VR headset, as well as computer generated virtual environments, also experienced through a VR headset. This article will forefront practice, and drawing on relevant theories and frameworks, discusses the relationship between performance and virtual reality, followed by a discussion of each of the six key works, all of which premiered in 2016-7. The article goes on to outline characteristics of this work including types of creative content and the role of the audience and will provide a tool for analysing and understanding VR dance performance work as well as reflecting on the importance of interdisciplinary creative teams and collaborative partnerships

The creative use of online social media to increase public engagement and participation in the professional arts through collaborative involvement in creative practice.

The success of online social media has been unprecedented, allowing millions of members to upload photos, share links and videos as well as personal information about themselves and their lifestyle preferences. Since the beginning of the 21st century, online social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr have become integral to our daily lives. These new technologies have resulted in new social behaviours, which are being reflected in artistic practice. The important question is no longer whether the use of these tools will spread and reshape arts practice, but how they will do so. To date, the creative uses of online social media have been split mostly down amateur/professional lines. Whilst informal amateur groups form online groups to share and develop work or to meet other collaborators, professional artists and organisations use online social media in a more formal manner, to share information about their work online. However, online social tools offer more than merely providing alternative ways for artists and arts organisations to promote their work with a larger audience. The collaborative tools provided by online social networking sites offer new ways for artists to build creative relationships with their audience, by enabling the public to access, engage with and participate in professional arts practice, by becoming actively involved in the creative process. Online social technologies enable artists to make work differently, and in doing so offer exciting possibilities around the development of artistic practice. This paper aims to explore questions about how the use of social online tools may impact on artistic practice both in terms of the artist, and their audience, focusing on the following questions; • How can online social media be used to create and develop collaborative artistic content? • How can online social media be used to increase public engagement and participation in professional arts projects and events through a collaborative involvement in creative practice? The paper will be of interest to anyone interested in collaborative creation and also in new means of public access to professional arts practice through participation as consumers and producers

Supervised Control of a Flying Performing Robot using its Intrinsic Sound

We present the current results of our ongoing research in achieving efficient control of a flying robot for a wide variety of possible applications. A lightweight small indoor helicopter has been equipped with an embedded system and relatively simple sensors to achieve autonomous stable flight. The controllers have been tuned using genetic algorithms to further enhance flight stability. A number of additional sensors would need to be attached to the helicopter to enable it to sense more of its environment such as its current location or the location of obstacles like the walls of the room it is flying in. The lightweight nature of the helicopter very much restricts the amount of sensors that can be attached to it. We propose utilising the intrinsic sound signatures of the helicopter to locate it and to extract features about its current state, using another supervising robot. The analysis of this information is then sent back to the helicopter using an uplink to enable the helicopter to further stabilise its flight and correct its position and flight path without the need for additional sensors

Managing uncertainty in sound based control for an autonomous helicopter

In this paper we present our ongoing research using a multi-purpose, small and low cost autonomous helicopter platform (Flyper ). We are building on previously achieved stable control using evolutionary tuning. We propose a sound based supervised method to localise the indoor helicopter and extract meaningful information to enable the helicopter to further stabilise its flight and correct its flightpath. Due to the high amount of uncertainty in the data, we propose the use of fuzzy logic in the signal processing of the sound signature. We discuss the benefits and difficulties using type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic in this real-time systems and give an overview of our proposed system

Pervasive Theatre: Post Screen Audiences and Professional Performance Practice

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.This paper examines how the habits and expectations of post-screen audiences are driving changes in professional performance, and asks how the ubiquity of the screen can help find new ways to engage audiences with professional performance practice. The paper centres on a practice-based research project Pervasive Theatre (funded by FutureDream through Arts Council England and Kent County Council) carried out by the author with the performance company Assault Events. The 7 month project explored the potential of online social tools to create a multi media cross-platform environment for performance, and sought to advance the field of performance practice by developing new frameworks to create professional performance practice that reflects new screen modalities. Through the creation of the piece Hopscotch Highway, the project explored what new screen modalities could offer professional performance practice, particularly relating to different ways that audiences could engage with performance through mobile platforms. Through a multi-platform, transmedia approach the company developed a piece of work that explored different ways to make and share performance work, creating a framework for practice that reflects media audiences new ways of accessing, experiencing and engaging with creative content. Keywords: Post Scree

The creative uses of Facebook as a tool for artistic collaboration

Facebook has established itself as one of the major players in social networking, claiming that it helps members connect and share with the people in their lives. But what if the people you want to connect and share with are your artistic collaborators? Can Facebook be used creatively, as a collaborative artistic environment? This paper explores the creative use of Facebook as a tool for creative collaboration and establishes a number of possible models of artistic collaboration using Facebook

Evaluation in public art: the Light Logic exhibition.

This paper discusses evaluation in the context of public art and specifically of interactive digital art. The study reported is of 'Light Logic', an exhibition of retrospective and current drawings, paintings and interactive digital works by the second author. The study was conducted by Site Gallery Sheffield in association with UK and Australian researchers. A survey of evaluation practice amongst artists and groups working in digital art is described briefly

Ancient chicken remains reveal the origins of virulence in Marek’s disease virus

The pronounced growth in livestock populations since the 1950s has altered the epidemiological and evolutionary trajectory of their associated pathogens. For example, Marek’s disease virus (MDV), which causes lymphoid tumors in chickens, has experienced a marked increase in virulence over the past century. Today, MDV infections kill >90% of unvaccinated birds, and controlling it costs more than US$1 billion annually. By sequencing MDV genomes derived from archeological chickens, we demonstrate that it has been circulating for at least 1000 years. We functionally tested the Meq oncogene, one of 49 viral genes positively selected in modern strains, demonstrating that ancient MDV was likely incapable of driving tumor formation. Our results demonstrate the power of ancient DNA approaches to trace the molecular basis of virulence in economically relevant pathogens