Dancer in the Loop
Dancer in the Loop was an interactive installation by myself (Ben Dexter Cooley) and Silence_Castor (Nate Hicks) launched for Burlington's NYE Highlight festival. It debuted at the Burlington City Arts gallery from 5-7pm.
The piece was part audiovisual installation, part performance. And it all depended on audience interaction.
Dancer in the Loop was a multi-sensory show that combined dance, visual projection, and generative electronic music. Each of these 3 elements were connected through technology, feeding off of one another and changing the parameters.
Audience participants moved, swayed, and danced in front of a camera; this camera was connected to a laptop running Touchdesigner, which morphed and changed the visual projection behind the dancers. This data also changed the music in real time, at times playing new melodies, or opening up hidden filters. The instant change in sound and light created a sort of feedback loop of call and response between human and machine.
To keep things evolving, Nate and myself transitioned between 5 different "scenes" throughout the show, each with a different interaction pattern, projection style, and soundscape. To complement the interactive elements, we improvised manual effects, transitions, and textures as well.
You can see an example of the interaction pattern in one scene below. Here, the hands of the person on the right plays notes on a hardware synthesizer off screen. The filter of this synth is controlled by how open or closed a person's hand is at any given time:
This was my first time doing an installation on this large of a scale. I didn't know exactly what to expect, and there were a few surprises. But perhaps the biggest surprise was watching the joy and awe appear on people's faces when they interacted with the camera. When you move, the visuals move, and the music responds. It brought out the innerchild in older folks, and ignited the imagination of children who jumped around with glee.
I wanted to take more photos and videos, but was so locked in the moment it was hard to pull away. Below is some of the documentation I was able to gather during the performance.
