Welcome…
…to Ploc’… embodied media for performers… I am Stefano D’Alessio and…
…this will be a series of tutorials / web lectures / video workshop for performers… dancers… movers… musicians… time-based artists… who wants to explore embodied interactivity to be implemented in their projects…
digression on writing style
as i guess you already noticed… punctuation is far from correct… it mostly uses suspension dots… line breaks… and blank spaces…
suspension dots… give short pause…
a line break gives a longer pause…and a line break plus blank space gives an even longer pause and probably an
argument change… a shift… progression… or something similar…its a writing style that’s based on rhythm… it helps me jot down thoughts fast and keep a colloquial tone… i hope it doesn’t bother too much…
embodied what?
embodied interactivity is a particular way for humans to interact with technology…
in our particular contexts “humans” will mostly mean performers or audience members… and “technology” will mostly mean real-time visuals… sounds… lights… or any media you want to use in your projects…
embodied interactivity focuses on physical movements and gestures… meaning we will steer away from the usual boring interfaces… like keyboards… mouses… midi controllers with knobs and tiny buttons… and rather use our bodies in space…
how?
we’ll be able to use physical gestures to control media by using cameras… microphones… and sensors… we’ll focus on hardware technology that you might already own… or its easily available and cheap…
we’ll use technology that leaves the body “free”… meaning no wearables… no suits… no annoying cables hanging from your limbs…
we’ll focus on intelligibility… exploring clear and straightforward ways of building interactivity so that the mechanics of the interactions stay recognizable and understandable for the audience…
we’ll keep it simple… effective… and easy to set up…
additionally… the methods we’ll explore will be adaptable… so you’ll be able to “tune” them to accommodate different spaces… bodies… performances and dramaturgies…
media form
this series is composed of texts articles… they are aided by images… video tutorials describing technical implementations… and also video examples of creative implementation…
you’ll find all articles on this platform… numbered in a consecutive fashion… but also occasionally enriched by “annexes”… additional articles or videos that dig deep into a topic…
disclaimer & supporters
this website is hosted on github… it does not steal your data… it does not ask you to register… nor asks you to pay to see content… the project is currently supported by MA7 (Cultural Department of the City of Vienna) and the Angewandte Performance Laboratory