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Hummingbird: Multi-Reality Art
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Artist Statement: “Hummingbird” is the live, on-stage dance performance, in Los
Angeles, of two people 2000 miles apart. This film is the
documentary record of the performance and of the technology
behind it.
Chih-Chun Huang dances live, on-stage in Los Angeles,
dressed as a wood nymph or a Shakespearian Puck.
Cho-Ying Tsai is “dressed” only in computer animation; her
physical body is 2000 miles away in a motion capture studio in
Urbana. Cho-Ying's movements are recreated in real time on
stage in Los Angeles by a fully articulated animated avatar; an
avatar capable of morphing from baby to robot to fairy as the
performance progresses. The avatar is projected on a
custom silver sharktooth scrim, in what Ella Thompson
(co-artistic director of the Internet2 performance event)
described as “stellar use of layers of light, revealing a subtle
local dancer in stage light under the luminescent projected
avatar.” Dancing to the piece “All my hummingbirds have
alibis” by Morton Subotnick, the performers dance over, under,
and through one another. The live performer alternately
jumps over the virtual performer, or, at will, passes through
her, as if passing through a ghost on stage.
Our goal for these performances is to combine all of the
advantages of film (unlimited locations, unlimited view angles,
freedom from restrictions of space and time) with all of the
advantages of live performance (audience interaction,
audience response, the awe that the audience feels when a
performer can accomplish something really special in person
on the stage in front of them, and also, the nail-biting possibility
of unexpected real-time failure). We achieve our goal through
a unique combination of motion capture, real-time internet-enabled
computer animation software, internet2 data
transmission, and custom display on stage together with live
performance: we refer to this unique ensemble as
“Hummingbird technology.”
Virtual reality is the ultimate expression of multimedia
technology. Hummingbird is more than multimedia: it is
multi-reality, a new model for the delivery of art.
Physical-world performers dance in the virtual world;
virtual-world performers dance in the physical world; the two
perform together without respect for limitations of space and
time, fusing physical reality and virtual reality into a watershed
audience experience.
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