Mapping Motion II: Motion Capture and the Visualisation of Dance

There is a long and rich tradition of visualising human movement in the history of dance. When considering traditional dance notation in Envisioning Information , Edward Tufte pointed to the dilemmas involved in reducing “the magnificent reality of time and three-space into little marks in flatland,” another instance of the difficulty of “escaping flatland” (Tufte 1990, 119). In “Mapping Motion: The Principles of Motion Capture and the Law of Projection,” presented at EVA London 2013, I examined performance capture in 3D animation, as used in films such as Avatar and The Lord of the Rings , to understand how Wittgenstein’s law of projection could illuminate the broader principles involved in this powerful and rapidly developing art form. In this talk, I will present a parallel case study of projective visualisation in dance, another art form significantly affected by, and in the minds of some of its most significant and creative practitioners extended by, motion capture. LifeForms, a computer choreographic software tool developed at Simon Fraser University, was used by legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham to create revolutionary dances. In “Wittgenstein and Tufte on Thinking in 3D,” presented at EVA London 2012, I argued that the mapping relation captured by the law of projection in the Tractatus contributed to our understanding of Tufte’s theories of envisioning information. There, the projective relation mapping information to visual data displays is central to escaping flatland. In this talk, I will explore whether such a mapping relation, and the law of projection informing it, can also ground the principles of representation involved in motion capture as it functions creatively in computer visualisations of dance. While the argument is grounded in concrete practices of electronic visualisation, my concern will be to argue that Wittgenstein’s logic of depiction, informed by his law of projection, illuminates the theoretical underpinnings of these important case studies.

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Kelly Hamilton

Conference

Publication date: July 2015

Publication date (Print): July 2015

Pages: 46-55

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[0001]Saint Mary’s College

Notre Dame, Indiana, USA

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/eva2015.5

SO-VID: 3245e8db-0301-4e70-b85f-3d3e9446866b

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2015)

Conference acronym: EVA

Conference number:

Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 7 & 9 July 2015

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/eva2015.5

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

S AlaouiK CarlsonT Schiphorst 2014 Choreography as Mediated through Compositional Tools for Movement MOCO’14 Paris, France 16–17 06 2014 p1 6
C BrownC CunninghamL KuhnJ MelilloT SchiphorstD Vaughan 2004 Four Key Discoveries Theater 34 2 104 111
T CalvertC WelmanS GaudetT SchiphorstC Lee 1991 Composition of Multiple Figure Sequences for Dance and Animation The Visual Computer 7p114 121
E Ferguson 1992 Engineering and the Mind’s Eye MIT Press Cambridge, Mass
M GoffJ Thorp 1991 Dance Notations Published in England c. 1700–1740 Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 9 2 32 50
K Hamilton 2013 Mapping Motion: The Principles of Motion Capture and the Law of Projection Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2013) London, UK 29–31 07 2013 p239 245 British Computer Society London
K Hamilton 2001 Wittgenstein and the Mind’s Eye J Klagge Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy Cambridge University Press Cambridge
K Hamilton 2012 Wittgenstein and Tufte on Thinking in 3D: ‘Escaping Flatland.’ Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2012) London, UK 10–12 07 2012 p107 118 British Computer Society London
D Herbison-Evans 1988 Dance, Video, Notation and Computers Leonardo 21 45 50
A JonesJ Oliff 2007 Thinking Animation: Bridging the Gap between 2D and CG Cengage
Language of Dance Center http://www.lodc.org 25 03 2015
M Cunningham 2000 A Lifetime of Dance American Masters. Thirteen/WNET New York
K Pierce 1998 Dance Notations in late 17-Century France Early Music 26 2 286 299
T Schiphorst 1993 A Case Study of Merce Cunningham’s Use of the LifeForms Computer Choreographic System in the Making of Trackers Masters Thesis Simon Fraser University Canada
T Schiphorst 2009 The Varieties of User Experience: Bridging Embodied Methodologies from Somatics and Performance to Human Computer Interaction PhD Thesis, University of Plymouth UK
K Sparhawk 1998 Archives of the Dance: The Library of the Language of Dance Center Dance Research 16 2 67 76
D Stern 1995 Wittgenstein on Mind and Language Oxford University Press Oxford
E Tufte 1990 Envisioning Information The Graphics Press Cheshire, Connecticut
L Wittgenstein 1961 Notebooks 1914–1916 Edited by G. E. M Anscombe and G. H von Wright Basil Blackwell Oxford
L Wittgenstein 1922 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Routledge London and Gutenberg Project online

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] S AlaouiK CarlsonT Schiphorst 2014 Choreography as Mediated through Compositional Tools for Movement MOCO’14 Paris, France 16–17 06 2014 p1 6

[2] C BrownC CunninghamL KuhnJ MelilloT SchiphorstD Vaughan 2004 Four Key Discoveries Theater 34 2 104 111

[3] T CalvertC WelmanS GaudetT SchiphorstC Lee 1991 Composition of Multiple Figure Sequences for Dance and Animation The Visual Computer 7p114 121

[4] E Ferguson 1992 Engineering and the Mind’s Eye MIT Press Cambridge, Mass

[5] M GoffJ Thorp 1991 Dance Notations Published in England c. 1700–1740 Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research 9 2 32 50

[6] K Hamilton 2013 Mapping Motion: The Principles of Motion Capture and the Law of Projection Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2013) London, UK 29–31 07 2013 p239 245 British Computer Society London

[7] K Hamilton 2001 Wittgenstein and the Mind’s Eye J Klagge Wittgenstein: Biography and Philosophy Cambridge University Press Cambridge

[8] K Hamilton 2012 Wittgenstein and Tufte on Thinking in 3D: ‘Escaping Flatland.’ Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2012) London, UK 10–12 07 2012 p107 118 British Computer Society London

[9] D Herbison-Evans 1988 Dance, Video, Notation and Computers Leonardo 21 45 50

[10] A JonesJ Oliff 2007 Thinking Animation: Bridging the Gap between 2D and CG Cengage

[11] Language of Dance Center http://www.lodc.org 25 03 2015

[12] M Cunningham 2000 A Lifetime of Dance American Masters. Thirteen/WNET New York

[13] K Pierce 1998 Dance Notations in late 17-Century France Early Music 26 2 286 299

[14] T Schiphorst 1993 A Case Study of Merce Cunningham’s Use of the LifeForms Computer Choreographic System in the Making of Trackers Masters Thesis Simon Fraser University Canada

[15] T Schiphorst 2009 The Varieties of User Experience: Bridging Embodied Methodologies from Somatics and Performance to Human Computer Interaction PhD Thesis, University of Plymouth UK

[16] K Sparhawk 1998 Archives of the Dance: The Library of the Language of Dance Center Dance Research 16 2 67 76

[17] D Stern 1995 Wittgenstein on Mind and Language Oxford University Press Oxford

[18] E Tufte 1990 Envisioning Information The Graphics Press Cheshire, Connecticut

[19] L Wittgenstein 1961 Notebooks 1914–1916 Edited by G. E. M Anscombe and G. H von Wright Basil Blackwell Oxford

[20] L Wittgenstein 1922 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Routledge London and Gutenberg Project online

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