Three Spaces by Desmond Clarke & Erica Mulkern for The Arc Project

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2021May 13

Three Spaces was developed and created during the lockdown period of 2020 for an online performance with The Arc Project. Further information about the technology behind the project from Desmond Clarke below: "This piece brings together two strands of work which we have both been developing for a long time. A piece I wrote for my PhD back in 2013 used a motion tracking system to trigger sounds based on the movements of a musician. I've also worked a lot across disciplines, including quite a few times making music for contemporary dance - I really love the medium, and I’m always keen to work more with dance artists. I've been thinking for a while about bringing these together, as they seem like a natural fit. The original idea for this piece was that the dancer would improvise on stage, and their movements would be used by a computer to construct the music or sounds which accompany them. The system I use to analyse the movement responds in various ways to the video input data - its output is based on the position of the dancer in the space, and the speed or intensity of their movement. This has the potential to open up some really interesting spaces, in terms of performance, and also reverses the traditional hierarchy of choreography being developed to music. Because of lockdown, the version Erica and I have produced here is slightly different to this original vision. Here the improvisation took place first, with the sounds being generated later, based on the video of the performance. This takes away the element of control from the dancer, and for various reasons makes fitting the music with the movement a little harder. Despite these hurdles, however, I really like the different ways these three short pieces create an intimate relationship between the movement and the sound. They definitely demonstrate that the concepts are workable, and I'm really looking forward to trying out the piece live, when that's possible, and developing the system further." https://www.desmondclarke.com/ https://www.arcprojectmusic.com/