Multimedia Event Research Articles

Sensing and mapping for interactive performance

This paper describes a trans-domain mapping (TDM) framework for translating meaningful activities from one creative domain onto another. The multi-disciplinary framework is designed to facilitate an intuitive and non-intrusive interactive multimedia performance interface that offers the users or performers real-time control of multimedia events using their physical movements. It is intended to be a highly dynamic real-time performance tool, sensing and tracking activities and changes, in order to provide interactive multimedia performances.From a straightforward definition of the TDM framework, this paper reports several implementations and multi-disciplinary collaborative projects using the proposed framework, including a motion and colour-sensitive system, a sensor-based system for triggering musical events, and a distributed multimedia server for audio mapping of a real-time face tracker, and discusses different aspects of mapping strategies in their context.Plausible future directions, developments and exploration with the proposed framework, including stage augmenta tion, virtual and augmented reality, which involve sensing and mapping of physical and non-physical changes onto multimedia control events, are discussed.

?It's a Great Song!?Hal�Performance as Literary Production

to the same goal. The definitions invariably retain and stress the essential qualities of halo: the spectacular, the unusual, the precarious, havoc, dan? ger, and challenge. These features and the rules or prescriptions governing the performance are shared and applied in a spontaneous fashion when factions engage in the war of insults and music. Halo can be summed up as a multimedia event, as well as a sociomusical drama that involves songs of insult, dance, drumming, mime, poetry, spoken forms, costume, and a variety of visual icons. Although the music is constructed mainly along Anlo-Ewe models, there are special observances, devices, and techniques that are unique to this genre. As will be elaborated later, these devices and related art forms are employed primarily to effect the purposes of aggres? sion and violence, and to establish musical superiority. A performance usually involves two villages or two wards from one vil? lage, and is characterized by direct or comic forms of provocation, aggravation, and sung and spoken insults, which are sometimes exaggerated through dramatic enactments. Each halo context is a highly emotional one, with the two factions and their supporters competing at physical, verbal, and musical levels. The numerous police arrests that result from the per? formance and its related events are further indications of the grave and wider social ramifications of halo. This search for superiority in both phys? ical and musical domains is also often accompanied by magical practices and related machinations against opponents. These practices also fre? quently involve the acquisition of singing gods (supernatural powers with whom the sources of musical creativity are identified). In addition, individuals or groups also take precautions by fortifying themselves spiritually against enemy attacks (i.e., physical and spiritual attacks). The sociodramatic aspect of halo is thus intensified through the physical confrontations, the musical and verbal exchanges, and the involvement with the supernatural realm. The performance can therefore be described as a unique context for reevaluating and qualifying social and interper? sonal relations. As with many oral genres there is no precise dating of the origins of halo, nor is there is a discernible pattern for tracing its diffusion among the Ewe over time. Statistics resulting from several years of fieldwork show that about 88% of Anlo-Ewe towns have a history of halo, and that about 40% of factions have engaged in the genre more than once. These figures, the official ban, and the lingering of veiled forms of insult in contemporary practices confirm the social significance of the art from in Anlo-Ewe society. The most common precipitates of halo are: (1) the taking of someone's wife from a

"It's a Great Song!" Halo Performance as Literary Production

"It's a Great Song!" Haló Performance as Literary Production Daniel K. Avorgbedor Haló is a sociomusical drama that was once popular among the Anlo-Ewe, from ca. 1912 till its official proscription in 1962.The etymology of the name haló (i.e., ha + lo, "song + proverb" or "Great Song") suggests three definitions, but these are just different routes leading to the same goal. The definitions invariably retain and stress the essential qualities of haló: the spectacular, the unusual, the precarious, havoc, danger, and challenge. These features and the rules or prescriptions governing the performance are shared and applied in a spontaneous fashion when factions engage in the war of insults and music. Haló can be summed up as a multimedia event, as well as a sociomusical drama that involves songs of insult, dance, drumming, mime, poetry, spoken forms, costume, and a variety of visual icons. Although the music is constructed mainly along Anlo-Ewe models, there are special observances, devices, and techniques that are unique to this genre. As will be elaborated later, these devices and related art forms are employed primarily to effect the purposes of aggression and violence, and to establish musical superiority. A performance usually involves two villages or two wards from one village, and is characterized by direct or comic forms of provocation, aggravation, and sung and spoken insults, which are sometimes exaggerated through dramatic enactments. Each haló context is a highly emotional one, with the two factions and their supporters competing at physical, verbal, and musical levels. The numerous police arrests that result from the performance and its related events are further indications of the grave and wider social ramifications of haló. This search for superiority in both physical and musical domains is also often accompanied by magical practices and related machinations against opponents. These practices also frequently involve the acquisition of "singing gods" (supernatural powers with whom the sources of musical creativity are identified). In addition, individuals or groups also take precautions by fortifying themselves spiritually against enemy attacks (i.e., physical and spiritual attacks). The socio-dramatic aspect of haló is thus intensified through the physical confrontations, the musical and verbal exchanges, and the involvement with the supernatural realm. The performance can therefore be described as a unique context for reevaluating and qualifying social and interpersonal relations. As with many oral genres there is no precise dating of the origins of haló, nor is there is a discernible pattern for tracing its diffusion among the Ewe over time. Statistics resulting from several years of fieldwork show that about 88% of Anlo-Ewe towns have a history of haló, and that about 40% of factions have engaged in the genre more than once. These figures, the official ban, and the lingering of veiled forms of insult in contemporary practices confirm the social significance of the art from in Anlo-Ewe society. The most common precipitates of haló are: (1) the taking of someone's wife from a [End Page 17] different ward, (2) derogatory remarks on the music of another ward, and (3) personal insults communicated directly or vaguely in song, and (4) interpersonal hostilities and aggressive stance due to the factor of social competition. Today, there are social and musical incidents that intimate haló, but these contemporary examples are quickly contained by the traditional rulers in order to avoid breaking the law. Since each performance has a cumulative effect and exacerbates a previous one and with consequences of forms of physical confrontation outside the performance context, one cannot simply describe haló as a tension-relieving ritual. The features outlined above would therefore suggest unique relationships between the genre and the social milieu, and suggest that violence is central to the definition of the genre. The semantic, dialogic, poetic, and general expressive features of the corpus of texts and music produced in haló performance can be summarized as phenomenal, as examples will demonstrate. The texts and their associated performative acts are an integral part of haló dramaturgy, as summarized earlier. In order to understand the place and work of literary production in this dramaturgy we must first outline the textual characteristics, temporarily disengaged from their related performative acts for this purpose. There...

Outside the Exhibit Case

Summary In planning for a major traveling exhibit in UCLA's undergraduate library outreach was a priority. Programming and publicity targeted segments of the campus and community both as participants and as attendees. This collaboration came to fruition in an exciting array of programs that brought many people into the library and demonstrated the strengths of collections, resources and services to new audiences. UCLA's College Library, the undergraduate library that recently returned to its historic and award-winning Powell Library Building, was a site for the ALA-Smithsonian traveling exhibition, “A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the United States Constitution.” The Programs and Exhibits Committee of the Library surrounded the display of this material with several months' worth of diverse community and campus programming. Events involved staff, faculty, students, local K-12 teachers, members of the Los Angeles Japanese American Community, writers, film makers, even a movie star (this IS Los Angeles)! In addition to highlighting the strengths of UCLA's Library collections through traditional means, a variety of media and multimedia programs and events supplemented the exhibit.

Arthouse: multimedia centre for the arts

Arthouse, the multimedia centre for the arts, is one of the most eye-catching buildings in Dublin’s Temple Bar area. A cultural centre using the latest in communications technology and software, it is the home of the Bureau of Arts Information which among other things has developed Artifact, a visual database of contemporary artists throughout Ireland. This will be available on-line this year. The centre also holds regular exhibitions and multimedia events, and is contributing to making the work of Irish artists better known at home and abroad.

BURYING THE DUKE: VICTORIAN MOURNING AND THE FUNERAL OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON

So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.I Cor. 15.54IN MID-CENTURY LONDON there occurred a spectacle of massive proportions, featuring always at its center a corpse. The funeral of the Duke of Wellington, an event that has occasioned surprisingly little critical attention, took place in 1852 and was recognized as one of the greatest public displays of the Victorian period.1 Indeed, many felt it to be one of the most significant public events in the history of Britain, and if Britain, then of course the globe: as the Illustrated London News put it, “[this event] may be said to have surpassed in significant grandeur any similar tribute to greatness ever offered in the world” (Nov. 20, 1852, 430).2 St. Paul’s Cathedral was specially illuminated with six thousand new gas lights in preparation for the ceremony of interment, while the funeral procession, comprised of more than ten thousand marchers, encompassed central London, enjoying an audience numbering more than one and a half million people. Queen Victoria and virtually every major and minor national figure in politics or the arts viewed either the procession or the ceremony at St. Paul’s. The interment was quite literally a multi-media event: the spectacle drew for its effects on numerous disciplines, from literature, music, and journalism to painting, drawing, and architectural design, and spawned in turn editorials, songs, poems, paintings, prints, and engravings.

RITA COLWELL TAKES NSF HELM

In about a year and half, in 2000, the National Science Foundation will be half a century old. Lectures, laser shows, and multimedia events are in the works for that time, when NSF will display bef...

Keeping a Perspective On Computer Technology

Thomas Alva Edison was so dazzled by the high technology of his day that he predicted schools would soon replace their textbooks and libraries with moving pictures. Today, one hundred years after the age of Edison, schools still have libraries, students still carry textbooks, and high technology still dazzles Americans and inspires extravagant claims about its uses in educa tion. Computers and the Internet have become to many people today what the moving picture was to Edison: a seductive new invention that is mistakenly believed to have the power to transform education, solve myriad problems of schools, and even replace libraries and textbooks. Movies and videos have indeed become important teaching tools, and in that respect Edison was right, but only incompetent and uncaring teachers use them to replace books. In my experience as a high school history teacher, I have found that, like videos, computers and the Internet are best used in limited ways. Unfortunately, their frequent overuse and misuse create significant problems for teachers and students. These problems can be overcome, but only if we understand the limits as well as the promise of this new technology. Those who expect computers and the Internet to spur radical changes in teaching and learning don't seem to understand that the essential natures of the academic disciplines remain unchanged by them. The task of the historian, and of the student of history, is the same as it was before the computer and before the typewriter and before electricity: to use appropriate evidence to support a valid understanding of the past. If they are used well, computers and the Internet can make elements of that task dramatically more efficient. But when they are used poorly, as they are much of the time, the new technological tools distract students (and teachers) from the real job at hand, making it more difficult for them to muster and maintain the intellectual discipline, focus, and thought that real learning and understanding requires. Computers often present students and teachers with benefits and pitfalls simultaneously. Word processors make it easier for students to learn that effective writing is the result of a process of constant revision and that most papers need to go through several drafts before they are good enough to hand in. Presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Persuasion, can enable exciting teaching and can transform the traditional oral report from an excruciating affair read from scribbled index cards into a dramatic multi-media event. Yet students who use these tools are too often seduced into an inappro priate emphasis on style over substance. Those who write with word processors, and especially those who have access to scanners and color printers, often take significant amounts of time to make their work look good. Their essays are adorned with fancy fonts, scanned photographs, and multi-colored headers, footers, and tide pages. Students probably add these extras because computers make it possible and because it is fun. Often the results are impressive: the papers look professional. But the hard work of creating a valid thesis, supporting it with appropriate evidence, and communicating clearly in English is often not especially fun, and is unaffected by color

Museums, Chemical Industry Team Up

A consortium of European chemical producers, science centers, and museums plans to spend just more than $5 million between now and the turn of the century on a newly launched program called Chemistry for The program is designed to enhance the work of museums and science centers by designing more than 50 prototype state-of-the-art exhibits that can be shared by museums and schools. The aim is to give the general public, and especially young people, a better understanding and appreciation of the importance of chemistry in everyday life. That means development of a variety of different innovative museum displays, including hands-on interactive exhibits, spectacular shows, multimedia events, and laboratory workshops. The consortium is composed of the European Collaborative for Science, the Industry & Technology Exhibitions (ECSITE) and the Chemical Industry Association for Scientific Understanding (CISU), with some funding support from the European Union. ECSITE is a network of 16 leading museums an...

African Borderland Sculpture

African Borderland Sculpture

Yvonne Rainer's Journeys from Berlin/1971

Before 1970 Yvonne Rainer's career conformed to the general outlines of the other dancers of the Judson Church group (T30). The dance sections of her multimedia events combined formal dance steps with everyday movements in a nonhierarchical order. In 1970 she traveled to India with the Grand Union. There she became fascinated with the classical theatre of India and for a time followed the touring Kathakali, whose performances lasted all night (T50). This experience with the impact of a storytelling form caused her to focus on narrative and on film. Both had previously been in her work, but they were now given greater prominence. By the mid-1970s she had stopped performing entirely and devoted herself exclusively to film. In a 1971 essay she wrote,I'm no longer Interested in mixed media. You can either make a movie or you don't make a movie. I didn't make movies. I made choreographic exercises that were meant to be viewed with one's peripheral vision.(Yvonne Rainer Work 1961-73)