Mix[ing]redients is an interactive dance-music performance. The initial idea was developed during a residency together with media artist Maria Karagianni at nadine in Brussels. Since then various versions have been performed at festivals in Zagreb, Carlstad, Prague and Rotterdam.

The audience can influence the performance with their laptops and smartphones. A web application enables them to control the light that is coming from dia projectors and the sound that is generated by a solar sound module which is attached to the body of the dancer.

mix[ing[redients is a project by the open mode collective.

30th and 31st of July
Both at 20:00 at Plateau/nadine

On the 30th and 31st of July we presented the current state of our project to a small audience. We consider these two presentations as experiments which give an insight in the kind of interaction and control which our project could accomplish.

On the 30th of July we placed the buttons at the side of the audience: the “sound button” on the left side, the “light button” on the right side. The light button was a button on a connector box, which would switch the light on or off. The sound button consisted of a mouse with which you had to click on a box on a computer screen. What the sound button actually did, was switching between the two different modes of the piece: the “rigid time” and the “free time”. The rigid time contained a sound composition which lasted exactly 6 minutes, which had been built up out of 30 sequences all lasting exactly 12 seconds. These sequences could, again, be divided into 6 little blocks, which literally have been labeled in the sound from A ranging to F. So we hear a voice say “A”, when block A starts. A,B,D and E would all last one second, C and F lasted two seconds, altogether forming the twelve seconds of one full sequence. 4 smaller radiospeakers and one portable radio were used to broadcast the composition. Only shortly near the end of the composition the larger speakers in back of the theatre were used.

The piece began when the sound button was pressed and rigid time began. The dancer had “fixed” rigid movements made to “fit” on the composition. When the sound button was pressed the piece would jump to the free mode, in which the solar sound modules attached to the shoulder and leg of the dancer influence the sounds now reacting to the light which is switched on/off by the audience members.

We told the audience they were free to control the buttons, that any member of the audience was free to press one of the two buttons. In practice two persons gathered near the sound button and two with the light button. The other members of the audience remained passive and observed the resulting performance.

After the performance we had a discussion with the audience. It was mentioned that it could be helpful to make some kind of visual or sonic representation of the progression of time, because of the fact that that the “free time” actually functions as an interruption of the fixed “rigid time” piece. If someone would start the piece and would not do anything anymore, the piece would just last exactly 6 minutes. With every x seconds of “free time” that was added to the piece, the whole piece was extended with exactly those x seconds. So the “free time” functions both as a pause for the “rigid time”, and as an extension for the whole piece. It could be helpful to make this more transparant to the audience, so they are more aware of the performance’s conditions. This could raise more responsibility and consciousness on the side of the (controlling) audience.

It was also suggested that the audience could use flashlights to aim at the solar sound modules on the body of the dancer instead of controlling the spotlight above the dancer.  Then they would have more control over the behaviour of the light in relationship to the body of the dancer(moving it also around instead of only switching it on/off). Another suggestion was that the audience could also tune the radios to different frequencies in order to look for different sounds, which may be broadcasted by the authors or some external broadcaster.

After this first try-out we both felt confused. We had a thorough talk about the project. We were reminded of the remark of the night before of friends of Eleni who said that the piece seemed pre-composed. The idea came up to hide the buttons and the people controlling them. This gave us new inspiration.

On the 31st of July we made quite a radical change in our concept by placing the two buttons behind the stage. Two members of the audience were invited before the performance to position themselves behind the curtain, behind the stage not visible for the other members of the audience. We did not mention what they were going to do down there. A camera was placed on stage so these two could watch the performance on the computer’s screen, from where they would also click the button for jumping from one mode to another.  The rest of the audience had to try to figure out what was going on.

It lasted relatively long before the performance started. Interesting was to notice that we, as makers, could notice that in the course of the performance they started to understand what their control actually entailed. So the first half of the performance was a very unpredictably performance of novice users, while halfway the performance they became intermediate users.

Some thought that the whole piece was fixed. Peter mentioned that he was very actively watching to understand what was happening and who was in control of what. Also, two persons were stuck in traffic and came in halfway during the performance. They were already present during some rehearsals, so they knew more or less what the whole thing was about. But, because before it was visible who was controlling the buttons, they were now completely confused about who was in control and what was actually happening here. Peter also asked about the relationship between the movements and the letters.
Femke spoke about discovering the tools with which they have to play and reverse engineering. Paul mentioned the control room-cabine where they could manipulate things. Femke also spoke about interruption more than interaction and that while one button – the light switch is very binary and physical the other one could be more subtle and difficult to explore in terms of the interface design. Also it could be helpful to have some feedback from the video indicating in which state/mode we are at any time.

Because of all these different points of views and control Femke mentioned the “diversity of roles” during this performance. Spectators controlling light, spectators controlling sound, spectators just passively watching from the beginning, spectators coming in later. It seemed like a starting point for distinguishing different audience roles and places of interaction, i.e site specific interaction and even remotely online.