Vital LMTD at the Street Theatre

I've finished a season of Vital LMTD at the Street Theatre in Canberra with Last Man to Die. We performed five shows from 24th - 30th of October and had a great time! Review here.

In this show, Hanna Cormick, Benjamin Forster and myself take the roles of aristocratic scientists (from the future?). As we argue over the definition, meaning and creation of life, we explain our ideas through pieces that combine all of our artforms, creating unexpected interactions and fun experiments into acting, visual art and percussion.

The show featured beautiful projected visualisations by Benjamin, as well as live drawing (mark making?) on an overheard projector; innovative mask theatre and live mask creation by Hanna; and electronic percussion and soundtracks by myself on MalletKat, electronic drumset, Ableton Live, Apple Mainstage, Pure Data and SuperCollider.

For myself and Benjamin, this show was a huge experiment in synchronising gestures and events between the computer based parts of our artforms, our computers were constantly in contact via OSC messages so that we could react to events in the other's artwork. Many of the props in the show also became controllers through the use of our computer vision surface (running ReacTIVision), a Wiimote and the Arduino Heartbeat Sensor. I'm still slightly amazed that we got through the season without any serious train-wreck errors or other serious mistakes on stage. A lot of credit for this should go to our helpful directors/friends Michael Bailey and David Shaw as well as our friends at Belconnen Arts Centre who provided an excellent deal on a studio for two weeks of intensive development!

+ Special thankyou our audience and many new friends who engaged us with great questions!

Computer Vision Instrument for Vital LMTD

**updates!**

We used the computer vision table in a performance at the Street Theatre and at This is Not Art in Newcastle. The final version had an aluminium frame which can be pulled apart (thx for the idea Lisa). and two small downward firing lights.

In the performance we made an iceberg of paper over the  bottom of the frame so that the light would reflect more easily. The camera sits on a neat plastic box that also helps to diffuse the light. We didn't put any sides on the table so that the audience see what was going on.

With this setup and the PS3 camera and ReacTIVision running on Ubuntu 9.04 we had a very clear image of the surface and it was possible to see fiducials right up the edge of the table.

In the show, the teacups were lighted with superbright LEDs courtesy of Muttley, so cool.

I've been working on a computer vision instrument for Vital LMTD, a cross artform performance with my group Last Man to Die.

Much of our performance is based around interactions with a computer vision surface, a semi-clear table with a PlayStation Eye camera underneath it. Our props have special symbols on the bottom that the computer can see.

My desktop computer running Ubuntu will be running the reacTIVision software to detect the special symbols and SuperCollider to organise everything and trigger some audio cues throughout the performance. SuperCollider forwards TUIO data to my laptop for other musical systems and to Ben Forster's laptop which is running the live visuals.