eDance Network is a public art project consisting of a series of live video “photo booth” exhibits where visitors dance with professionals to create dance videos that become a permanent part of the exhibit.

Currently in the early development stages, the eDance Network is envisioned to become a networked participatory media environment, a collection of dance/media kiosks installed in different community locations and connected by computer networks to a central server. Participants entering the kiosks can view and interact with a series of pre-recorded “demo dance” sequences, then record themselves dancing along. The newly recorded clips are stored by the system, and subsequently played back in a “dance montage” which automatically selects from all the clips recorded by the eDance Network over time, resulting in a continually growing and ever-changing visual representation of the movement contributions of eDance participants from different locations.

The motivation for the eDance Network is to create a welcoming environment for diverse participants to engage in a physical dialogue linking people between different places and across different times through embodied interaction, enabled by information technology. Participants will have the opportunity to influence and respond to the behaviors of pre-recorded digital media content through their actions. Their movement choices will become a permanent part of the exhibition, contributing to an evolving online presence.

The eDance Network is intended to provide a platform for research and creative activity to explore how a shared space based on digital media art practice can become a site for entering into "temporary physical interaction" across a distance, considering how performative acts become transformed by such interaction. Through artistic inquiry and technology innovation, the project will investigate how real-world environments augmented by computer and communications technology can support embodied interaction and the performative act.

The eDance Network aspires to reach a trans-national community as it engages new audiences, both for dance and for digital media art. All too often, people feel that media technology is something that is "happening to them," out of their control. The intention of this project is to create an approachable and enjoyable setting that allows participants to influence and interact with technical elements in a physically direct, immediate way.

Participation and User Experience

The eDance Network in its final form is envisioned to consist of:

• Several dance/media kiosks installed in various museum and gallery settings;
• A high-speed data network connecting the kiosks to a computer server hosting a continually expanding mediabase (a media database) of dance clips captured from the kiosks; and
• A web site where the mediabase is presented as an evolving nonlinear narrative of movement clips, framed as fragments of embodied experience linking eDance participants across different places and different times.

Participants in the eDance network will include "physical" participants that interact directly with the system and "virtual" participants that interact with the online presence.

"Physical" participants will encounter a walk-in kiosk structure nominally 16’ in length, 12’ wide and 8’ high (these are minimum dimensions: the kiosk may be larger depending on available space in the venue). Inside the kiosk, the participant faces a video monitor. The backdrop and the kiosk floor are a green screen surface. The participant can preview a series of video and audio clips presenting demo dances, which are professional dance performances from a variety of dance traditions. Using a touch screen display located below the monitor, the participant will choose a style of dance that they would like to view and interact with.

After showing the video clip of the selected dance style, the system records the participant for approximately 30 seconds, responding to the dancer on the screen, using the same music. The participant sees her/himself on the monitor while the system is recording. The camera is located immediately below the monitor.

Exiting the kiosk, the participant sees their movement sequence presented on a screen outside the kiosk, looped and composited into a montage containing other pre-recorded dance footage. The montage incorporates visual materials that contextualize and interpret the dance performance. The captured movement sequences of the participants can be altered using digital effects such as fast motion, slow motion, replication, colorizing and echo trails.

The resulting video footage accumulates into a permanent record of the exhibition featuring the movement sequences created by the participants. Previously captured sequences will play back in a continuous loop. Multiple kiosks are installed in different locations, and all kiosks are networked to a central media server. Participants at one kiosk can view dance sequences generated at other kiosks.

"Virtual" participants will connect through the internet to a web site where they can view the contributions of diverse participants. People from all over the world will be able to respond to and engage with the sequences on the web site. Through an interactive remix capability, web visitors will be able to comment on and remix the dance sequences originally created by kiosk visitors and post them back to the site. The eDance web site also is envisioned as a portal aggregating links to additional cultural knowledge related to each dance sequence.

Implementing the eDance Network

The complete eDance Network project is conceived as a partnership conducted in collaboration with a number of presenter sites. The objective is to find presenters with locations that can facilitate logistics, technical and operational requirements, and that have the ability to develop an appropriate base of participants to fully utilize the eDance Network.

eDance kiosks will be installed in various sites selected in cooperation with presentation partners. All kiosks will be networked to a central media/web server (located at UC Irvine). Communications between kiosks and server will utilize custom software developed for the eDance project. Together, the kiosks and the central server will comprise the eDance Network and will provide a delivery mechanism for an innovative dance/media experience incorporating contemporary digital media art practices and utilizing advanced interactive technologies.

Once the kiosks are installed in partner sites, complementary supporting materials developed in cooperation with the presentation partners and delivered via the eDance Network will provide participants with context and insight about both dance and technology. This is expected to include the development of study guides, materials on aesthetics, history and cultural context, plus other extension activities to enhance the learning experience and channel application of new ideas.

An assessment phase will utilize the eDance Network to provide important feedback on the project’s effectiveness by monitoring constituent usability, evaluating participant feedback, and assessing key statistics and analytics. The results of this analysis will be used to guide ongoing program development for the eDance Network.