[AG-TECH] InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box Performance.

Fri Apr 8 11:16:18 CDT 2005

An Another Language Production
InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box
April 15 - 16, 21:00 EDT and April 17, 18:00 EDT
ArtGrid Virtual Venue Theater
https://bazaar01.chpc.utah.edu/Venues/default and
http://www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay

University of Utah
INSCC Auditorium
155 South 1452 East
Salt Lake City, UT

Contact: Jimmy Miklavcic, 801-585-9335, jhm at chpc.utah.edu

For Immediate Release:

It was like a page from history. One could imagine seeing Alexander 
Graham Bell speaking, for the first time, through a strange black device 
to his assistant Watson, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you." In 
a recent and similar experiment, Charles Nichols, Professor of Music at 
the University of Montana, Missoula, sits in front of his desktop 
computer and tells Many Ayromlou, Research Engineer at Ryerson 
University, Toronto, Ontario, CA, who is sitting at the MIDI control 
keyboard, to play high C. He presses the key in Toronto and the sound 
jumps out in Missoula.

This is just a small example of some of the exciting preparations in 
process for Another Language's latest excursion into the fascinating 
merger of art and technology. Another Language celebrates its 20^th 
Anniversary with its newest production of /InterPlay: Loose Minds in a 
Box/. This InterPlay is a multi-faceted telematic event that consists of 
six simultaneous performances that occur in six states throughout North 
America. The performances incorporate theater, text, music, performance 
art, virtual reality, and motion capture and are concurrently captured, 
mixed, digitized, encoded and streamed onto the network.

Loose Minds in a Box is a collaborative work that explores the basic 
concept of the "box". The box is a metaphor for the physical, social, 
political or psychological constraints that we and/or others place upon 
us. The box also represents a sense of place in the realm of the virtual 
as well as in our sub-conscience. With the aid of performance artists, 
electro-acoustic musicians/composers, virtual reality and motion capture 
artists/technologists and others, we look at many of the numerous 
representations the "box" encompasses. In Utah, Another Language's 
Artistic Director, Beth Miklavcic, will perform in a closet, 
investigating how our personalities are bounded by the clothes we wear. 
Sculptor, Eric Brown, will slowly construct an enclosure around himself 
depicting how we encase ourselves in a social fortress. It either 
protects us from unwanted human contact or keeps us from interacting 
with the outside world.

In Maryland, Nadja Masura plays with the box that we live in. Using 
video processing techniques, Nadja will place remote performers into 
different rooms of her favorite doll house. Nicholas Bartoli and Brian 
Buck will dance within the constraining characteristics of the video box 
as well as augmenting Beth Miklavcic's "clothes encounter" by changing 
their personalities with new fashions.

A team of artists in Indiana include Dioselin Gonzalez (VR designer), T. 
J. Rogers (motion performance), Carol Cunningham (choreographer), David 
Sigman (graphic designer) and Joe Hayes (dancer). They will delve into 
the virtual box where a performer transmits him self through a bazaar 
world of unique characters and environments, created by Miho Aoki in 
Alaska and David Sigman. At times, Joe Hayes will remotely control, 
through movement, electro-acoustic music in Montana.

The concept of confinement will be explored by artists Tina Shah and 
Helen-Nicole Kostis in Chicago, Illinois.  The audience will participate 
by imprisoning the performer and witnessing the physical effects of 
isolation while at the same time viewing the metamorphosis of the 
performer's psyche in a VR world.

Charles Nichols, composer and violinist in Missoula Montana, will probe 
the musical possibilities of the "black box". Scott Deal, composer and 
percussionist in Fairbanks Alaska will toy with numerous box icons such 
as a music box and Pandora's box. The music is transmitted to all sites 
in real time, providing the entire work with piercing percussion and 
wild melodies.

Back in Utah, Director Jimmy Miklavcic, will wrangle more than twenty 
video streams from all six sites, mix and process them for the local 
Utah audience and then stream the processed videos back onto the 
Internet for audiences at the other five sites. Local audiences at all 
sites will experience the local performance with the infusion of live 
multimedia and video events.

Additional technical support is provide by Paul Mercer and Bill Brody 
(Alaska), Dwight McKay and Mike Bass (Purdue), Sam Liston (Utah), Chris 
Rosenthal and Gideon Goldman (Illinois), Robert Wachtel (Montana) and 
David McNabb (Maryland).

Another Language, in collaboration with all the participating artists 
and technologists, is forging a new performance form not yet experienced 
here in Utah. /InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box/ is the most innovative 
merging of Internet technology with the performing arts to date. The 
form brings together artists from unique backgrounds and geographical 
locations that would normally never occur under traditional 
collaborative processes. The power of the Internet and video conference 
technology enables and empowers this consortium of artists to expand 
their ideas of artistic creativity. The performance can be viewed on the 
Access Grid at the new ArtGrid virtual venue in the Theater 
(https://bazaar01.chpc.utah.edu/Venues/default) and through QuickTime at 
http://www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay.

/Loose Minds in a Box/ is supported in part by the University of Utah 
Center for High Performance Computing, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 
Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Montana, the 
University of Illinois, Chicago, Purdue University, the University of 
Maryland, the Zoo, Arts and Parks Program, the Utah Arts Council and the 
Salt Lake City Arts Council and contributing members of Another Language.

-- 
Jimmy Miklavcic
Multimedia Specialist
jhm at chpc.utah.edu

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
CTR FOR HIGH PERFORM COMPUTING
155 SOUTH 1452 EAST RM 405
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84112-0190

Office: 801.585.9335
Fax: 801.585.5366

http://www.chpc.utah.edu/~jhm
http://www.anotherlanguage.org
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