Expressivity and the Physical and Virtual Object in Games, Digital Art and
Performance
Ian Grant May 2008
The seminar aims to discuss and give examples across the related contexts of digital
puppetry, real-time animation, mimetic and non-mimetic kinetic objects, automata,
‘cybernetic sculpture’, performance systems and the technological interfaces to such
phenomena.
We will seek systematic observations of the interplay between performer and object,
audience and object, player/user and virtual object where dynamics surrounding the
projection of human qualities (anthropomorphism), emoting and expressive relationships
are formed. ‘Object’ is used to avoid the figurative and historical overtones of the ‘puppet’.
I wish to theorise and form a taxonomy of ‘pre-expressivity’ and ‘performance expressivity’
in relationship to digital domains: ideas familiar in contexts that relate to physical
performance and, particularly musical performance. By ʻperformance expressivityʼ, I refer
to different domains of ‘expressivity’ including:
Somatic / whole body
Face / Mouth / Eyes
Breath / Voice – prosody, language and semantics
Gestural
Kinetics – qualities and direction of movement
Sonic / Musical – timbre, timing, rhythm and dynamics
Simplified / Complex Expressive Systems
Compound Expressive Behaviour
To date, my personal focus has been on voice and speaking objects. The present seminar outlines the aims and focus of a broader study.
Examples will be drawn from:
Cybernetic Sculpture
Edward Ihnatowicz, SAM and the Senster;
The Work of Ken Feingold;
The Smile Project: Neil and Iona by Jason Van Anden;
Ars Electronica;
Art and Performance Practice
ʻBlendieʼ and the ‘Machine Therapy’ of Kelly Dobson, MIT;
http://web.media.mit.edu/~monster/
Billie Whitelaw as “Mouth” in Samuel Becketts ‘Not I’;
Robot Art / Object / Puppet Theatre
Robot Performance and ‘robots in art’ -
Louis-Philippe Demers http://www.hfg-karlsruhe.de/~ldemers/ ;
Valère Novarina’s “Theatre of the Ears”;
Embodiment – the physical and virtual relationship between performer and performing
object;
SmartLab’s VIP project;

Biography

Ian Grant is an interactive media artist and performer working with Digital Puppetry, a hybrid art form that includes a broad range of creative practices. His work explores real-time video montages and avatar control using wireless game controllers while exploring what is meant by the term digital puppet and raises issues surrounding the virtual and tangible body in performance. Real-time media objects are viewed as extensions to the human performer { sympathetic with the traditions and conventional definitions of puppetry. He is currently developing a prototype performance system made using Apple’s innovative and free development tool Quartz Composer. It en-compasses screen-based digital puppetry and scenography, mixed-reality video composites and custom software programming and the gesturalcontrol of an on-screen avatar using the popular game controller, the Nintendo Wii-remote.