SENSITIV : Designing for Interactive Dance and the Experience of Control

Sammanfattning: In the last decade, many studies and performances within the field of interactive dance have been made. Interactive dance means involving technology into the dance, which opens opportunities to execute a dance in another way than used to. The studies in the past have often involved manipulation of music, but not many studies seem to involve manipulating real-time music produced by a live musician. Hence, this study consisted of a musician and a dancer investigating in the co-play between the two artists through sensory technology in a project called SENSITIV. More specifically, the investigation focused on the input design, i.e. the placement and processing of the motion sensors, for an interactive system, and how the involvement of the sensory technology affects the dance. Inertia-based motion sensors were worn by the dancer, by which the real-time sound produced by the musician was manipulated through the movements of the dancer. This created in turn an interaction within the intermediate connection, where the dancer came to act as a co-musician. Two studies were conducted, where in the first study a prototype was developed and designed in a first-person perspective, and the second study tested the developed prototype on a larger group of dancers. The results showed that placement on the outer parts, such as wrist and ankles, were the most suitable. It was further found that for reaching a positive experience, in terms of feeling in control with dancing with sensors involved, it requires some time as having an understanding and knowledge of the system is needed.