disDance 11054.80 Liminalities [video and text]

A special issue based on a selection of papers and performances at 'Remote Encounters: Connecting bodies, collapsing spaces and temporal ubiquity in networked performance, a two-day international conference' (11th - 12th of April 2013) exploring the use of networks as a means to enhance or create a wide variety of performance artsThe disDance project was the beginning of an enquiry-process in which some of the possibilities of working on networked, physically separated, interdisciplinary performance, incorporating interactive media, architecture and dance/performance/audio were investigated. disDance 11054.80 was prepared for the Remote Encounters International Conference and acts as the template for future collaborations using similar methodologies. The piece was sited in two geographically separated locations; Cardiff, UK and Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore. At each site, dancers/performers were interacting with their colleagues at the other site through a novel networked messaging system designed specifically for live performance. Heidi Saarinen, who was the overall creative director, was based in Cardiff (where she was the performer) while Ian Willcock (the developer of the LIMPT system) coordinated from Singapore. The title disDance 11054.80 relates to the collaborative aspect between disparate disciplines and refers to the multi-location aspect as well as holding a factual reference to the distance in kilometers between the two locations involved in the project; Cardiff and Singapore (11054.80 km).Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Multimedia and Live Performance

The use of interactive multimedia within live performance is now well established and a significant body of exciting and sophisticated work has been produced. However, almost all work in the field seems to start by creating at least some of the software and hardware systems that will provide the infrastructure for the project, an approach which might involve significant duplication of effort. The research described in this thesis sets out to discover if there are common features in the practice of artists from a range of performance backgrounds and, if so, whether the features of a system which might support these common aspects could be established. Based on evidence from a set of interviews, it is shown that there are indeed common factors in work in this field, especially the intensive linking of elements in performances and the use of triggering or cuing. A statement of requirements for a generic system to support work in digital performance is then established based on interview analysis and personal creative work. A general model of live performance, based on set theory, is described which provides a rationale for the integration of digital technology within live performance. A computational model outlining the formal requirements of a general system for use in live performance is then presented. The thesis then describes the creation of a domain specific language specifically for controlling live performance and the development of a prototype reference implementation of a generic system, the Live Interactive Multimedia Performance Toolkit (LIMPT). The system is then evaluated from a number of standpoints including a set of criteria established earlier in the study. It is concluded that, while there are many resources currently used by artists working in digital performance (a comprehensive survey of current resources is presented), none offer the combination of functionality, usability and scalability offered by the prototype LIMPT system. The thesis concludes with a discussion of possible future work and the potential for increased creative activity in multimedia and live performance

One-pot synthesis of responsive sulfobetaine nanoparticles by RAFT polymerisation: the effect of branching on the UCST cloud point

We describe the one-pot synthesis of temperature-responsive branched polymer nanoparticles. Reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerisation has been utilised to synthesise ultra-high molecular weight sulfobetaine polymers (up to ca. 500 kDa) with good control over molecular weight (Mn) and dispersity (Mw/Mn). The UCST cloud points of these linear polymers were found to increase with both Mn and concentration, and represent one of the few recent descriptions of polymers exhibiting UCST behaviour in aqueous solution. The incorporation of difunctional monomers results in branched polymers which display vastly reduced transition temperatures compared to their linear counterparts. Furthermore, the incorporation of a permanently hydrophilic monomer results in the formation of stable core–shell particles which no longer exhibit a cloud point in water, even at very high concentrations (ca. 50 mg mL−1). The branched polymers are shown to form discrete well-defined nanoparticles in aqueous solution, and these have been characterised by DLS, SLS, TEM and DOSY. Their reversible swelling behaviour in response to temperature is also demonstrated

C9orf72 expansion within astrocytes reduces metabolic flexibility in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

It is important to understand how the disease process affects the metabolic pathways in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and whether these pathways can be manipulated to ameliorate disease progression. To analyse the basis of the metabolic defect in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis we used a phenotypic metabolic profiling approach. Using fibroblasts and reprogrammed induced astrocytes from C9orf72 and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis cases we measured the production rate of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotides (NADH) from 91 potential energy substrates simultaneously. Our screening approach identified that C9orf72 and sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis induced astrocytes have distinct metabolic profiles compared to controls and displayed a loss of metabolic flexibility that was not observed in fibroblast models. This loss of metabolic flexibility, involving defects in adenosine, fructose and glycogen metabolism, as well as disruptions in the membrane transport of mitochondrial specific energy substrates, contributed to increased starvation induced toxicity in C9orf72 induced astrocytes. A reduction in glycogen metabolism was attributed to loss of glycogen phosphorylase and phosphoglucomutase at the protein level in both C9orf72 induced astrocytes and induced neurons. In addition, we found alterations in the levels of fructose metabolism enzymes and a reduction in the methylglyoxal removal enzyme GLO1 in both C9orf72 and sporadic models of disease. Our data show that metabolic flexibility is important in the CNS in times of bioenergetic stress

Words of power : Emerge, a language for the dynamic control of live performance

The paper describes the key concepts and formal grammatical structures underpinning the design of a domain specific language (DSL) developed for dynamically specifying the logical choice-relationships between events and cues within live performance. A brief survey of existing approaches to describing and modelling live performance is given, both those based on generic terms together with approaches specific to particular genres and styles. The development of a generalised model of performer-activity in live performance is then introduced together with logical structures developed from the generic model which inform the language design and allow it to integrate with a wide range of performance traditions and genres. The implementation and application of these ideas in developing the Emerge language is explored through both a formal grammar and a discussion of the choices that had to be made between ease of use for the intended target users and grammatical simplicity. The features of the prototype software and language are briefly described showing how they might enable artists, both individually and collaboratively, to specify decision-making structures in advance of a performance and participate in shaping a performance as it proceeds.Peer reviewe

Memex in the Mirror : Using Social Media to Visualize Collective Thought in Real-time

The paper discusses the ‘What We Think About When We Think About…” project which uses real-time searches of large data sets produced by social media systems to permit the visualization of collective thought in real-time. It begins by briefly exploring the relationship between technology and those who make and use it and suggests that digital technology affects the ways modern humans think, thought-patterns which the examination of social media data can reveal. The operation of the project software is examined in some detail and two areas of application in augmented and virtual realities are discussed

Composing without Composers? : Creation, control and individuality in computer-based algorithmic composition

The combination of a longstanding fascination with artificial life and developments in digital technology provide opportunities for constructing computer-based intelligences that exhibit some of the characteristics of individual personalities with significant musical competencies. Digital technologies, in many different areas of musical application, are participating in this development and the relationships between humans and computers are changing as a consequence. Composers, who have often sought to remove themselves from the act of creation, are becoming able to approach composition in new ways. However, the novel potential for creating algorithmic composing agents and the development of a networked society, will also force composers to confront and accommodate anxieties about the loss of individual creative identity in a digital age

Now and Then : The possibilities for contextual content in digital art

Paper presented at the INTER-FACE International Conference on Live Interfaces, 19-23 November 2014, Lisbon.The paper begins by considering the relative lack of emphasis on con- text (other than that of the technical means of production) in much con- temporary Digital Art. For many works, there is no context other than that provided by the computational infrastructure required for to be experienced. Other than this, the work remains identical regardless of physical location, the time elapsed since its creation or who is using it. As an artist interested in social process, this placing of artefacts and experiences outside of some of the usual means for developing cultural meaning and reference is troubling and unsatisfactory (although the point is made that successful works do not necessarily require contex- tual content to produce a satisfying user experience). The author then explores what ‘context’ might constitute for digi- tal art works and how context might be generated and validated in a post-physical age (referencing Walter Benjamin’s ideas about repro- duction and authenticity and also considering Philip Auslander’s tax- onomy of live performance). After this theoretical discussion, the paper then uses the provision- al conclusions about the possible nature(s) of digital context to exam- ine ways that increasing access to semantically tagged networked data might allow artists to produce works which embody social (and other contexts) in ways that other, physically based, genres take for granted. Semantic tagging as a context-producing mechanism is examined and ideas about future web and knowledge developments by Tim Bern- ers-Lee and Pierre Levy are explored as potential avenues for generat- ing resources for digital artists

Tools for Designing Experience : Repurposing Design Resources for the Emerging Experience Economy

© Publ. by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, https://doi.org/10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-COMPSCI.CLKLU0H.v1The creative industries are following the trend exhibited in other fields of economic activity by increasingly focussing on selling ‘experiences’ rather than ‘objects’. Typically, this shift results in immersive products which include elements such as narrative, space, media and/or performance within an overall presentation characterised by audience agency and an aim of sense-making. Experience Design, the planning and production of these experience-centred, immersive productions, is a new and essentially interdisciplinary academic field meaning that almost all current practitioners originally trained in a different (albeit related) single area (e.g. architecture, theatre, UI design etc.) and have developed their interdisciplinary expertise through a process of individual research, experience and reflection. This necessarily limits the availability of suitably skilled practitioners and there is a growing sense that appropriate training needs to be developed to support the continued expansion of the sector. This paper aims to support this pedagogical development process by examining a range of planning processes and tools used the disciplines which contribute to experience design together with recently developed tools from the experience economy. Suggestions of ways existing tools might be extended to accommodate the wider range of media and contexts typically encountered in an experience production are presented. An ‘experience model’ is proposed to support the analysis and identification of key elements of immersive experiences and the paper concludes with a provisional identification of a core set of key design tools and techniques which experience designers might employ across the range of current immersive practice

Modelling Performance : Generic formal processes in live digital performance

Paper presented at the 2016 IEEE Symposium on Service-Oriented System Engineering, 29 March - 2 April 2016, Oxford, UK.Most existing accounts of live performance concentrate on the specific features of individual works or on linking works according to commonly observed traits which allow their plausible inclusion in groups identified by authorship, style or genre. Similarly, most integration of digital technology with live performance is bespoke; an adaption of practice and enabling technology that solves only a single creative problem – that of the specific work being created. This paper takes a different approach, which through considering practice across the range of live performance traditions contributing to contemporary digital performance activity, is able to propose a generic model of live performance which is able to account for the processes and moment to moment connections within live performance across a wide range of styles and genres. The approach is non-taxonomic, but is based on set theory and Boolean logic, the formal unfolding of a live performance is considered as the sum of individual performances generated by semi-autonomous performers. Each performer enacting a series of decisions based on their perceptions of the overall state of the performance (and each others’ activity) and a rule-set – which may be explicit or implicit. Taking a view similar to that of Susan Broadhurst and others in seeing digital performance as an extension of existing performance traditions rather than as a completely, or mainly, new performative genre, the generic model of live performance is then extended to provide a rationale for the integration of digital technology with live performance which does not depend on specific activities or alterations of existing practice by artists or on features belonging to specific performance traditions. The application of the model in a prototype system is briefly described and some further potential implications of the model to provide a framework for analysis of existing digital performance and a template for future creative exploration are identified