APPARITION is a compelling dance and media performance that successfully uses innovative technology to give dancers the possibility to interact with image and music. Click here to watch a short video.
Klaus Obermaier’s dance/media performances D.A.V.E. and VIVISECTOR have become a world famous thanks to a unique combination of dance and video, but APPARITION goes one step further: sophisticated interactive technology releases the performer from the determination of set choreography and generate the visual content in real-time. The goal was to create an interactive system that is much more than simply an extension of the performer, but a potential performing partner. Computational processes that model and simulate real-world physics create a kinetic space where the beauty and dynamics of the human body and its movement quality are extended and transferred into the virtual world. These two main areas of research, the interactive digital system as performance partner and the creation of an immersive kinetic space, form the artistic framework for APPARITION. (edit from Klaus Obermaier’s website)
Idea, concept, direction, visuals, music: Klaus Obermaier
Concept, interactive design, technical development: Peter Brandl, Christopher Lindinger, Jing He (Ars Electronica Futurelab, A), Hirokazu Kato (Osaka University, J)
Choreographer and performer: Desirée Kongerod, Robert Tannion
Dramaturgy: Scott deLahunta
Realised in the framework of DAMPF_lab, a joint project of Tanz Performance Köln, Animax Multimedia Theater Bonn, V2_Lab Rotterdam, Ars Electronica Futurelab Linz.
The Ars Electronica Center, Linz (Austria)
Klaus Obermaier website
“In the center of my work stands the interaction between humans and new technologies/virtual environments. As this is a question of our times and the future, I feel very natural in using and fusing these technologies with performance and hence research the consequences and possibilities that come out of that question. The dance should work on its own, but also seamlessly fuse and interact with the digital environment that inspires dancers for improvisation.” Klaus Obermaier
it is what it is 