June 5, 2007

MOVEMENT PATTERN PROFILE
IN PRACTICAL & CREATIVE DECISION MAKING

KEY:  (STAGE OF DECISION IN SMALL CAPS) listed when the stage changes.

CREATIVE DECISION MAKING: How I created my Choreobot.

I began in the INTENDING stage.  I wanted to expand upon the patch I had programmed the previous quarter.  (TIMING) Over Spring Break, I worked with Marlon Barrios Solano on my Union Arts concert, Flux Capacitor.  In conversation about Choreobot, he mentioned a max object called Speak that would allow me to program the movement commands by text instead of sound files.  After he left I had difficulty finding the object online.  Suguru Goto, an expert in max/MSP, came to OU.  (TIMING/DETERMINING) I spoke to him about my project, and he offered assistance with the programming.  I had a list of goals and a short timeline (ANTICIPATING), so I set to work on the main priority first: adding the Speak object, and creating command banks.  I began to implement actions (TIMING).  Suguru helped me retrieve and use the Speak object.  The next step was creating command banks.  This was fairly easy technically.  I began by free-associating to generate commands with no organization, and asking others to think of commands as well (EXPLORING).  I then practiced executing the commands, attempting to find their organization in my body (INVESTIGATING).  I spent a great deal of time EVALUATING the organizational options, spontaneously experimenting until something worked.  I found myself reacting to the commands differently every time, so I asked two dancers to try the commands out, looking for predominate ways of interpreting the commands (INVESTIGATING).  Observing them and asking for their responses (EXPLORING) helped me decide how to organize the commands.  Hearing the same command performed differently was interesting, but became sonically repetitive (EVALUATING), so I organized them into up to two possible interpretations.  Pairing the two interpretations into one category was most efficient (EVALUATING).  For example, putting the command “diagonal” under the category “pathway and shape” allowed me to decide which it would be during the performance.  This set-up favored artistic liability and some flexibility in the phrasing and order of commands, despite how uninteresting or repetitive the randomizer could occasionally be.  It insured a discrete level of artistic control of the overall arc of each show.  There was only one problem.  The new set-up caused the program to crash.  I had to INVESTIGATE ways of solving the problem.  I eventually discovered that the Speak object did not like having the delay object attached to text.  The first solution I tried worked: putting these delayed messages into sub patchers.  I happily moved forward.
I began to EXPLORE other ways of organizing the entire patch, such as random bank selection, or simultaneous operation of multiple banks.  I discovered that the effect of random bank selection wasn’t worth the work (EVALUATING).  Two banks operating at once, however, created a very climactic effect.  I recognized this and implemented it immediately (TIMING), calling it, “multiple mode.”  This was the last step in organizing the commands in section one.
I began working on randomized meters, random sound background, and different voices. Much work remained, but time was running out (ANTICIPATING).  I set to work (TIMING) programming the desired effects, EVALUATING on an as-needed basis.  This required EXPLORING possibilities, EVALUATING their effectiveness, and periodically reevaluating and reworking the entire program as a whole.  Randomized meters did not take very long, but I lost time trying to create them by myself.  I asked Suguru for help (TIMING).  He also happened to have a patch of random sound that adequately suited the environment I wanted to create.  I encountered many problems trying to link his patch to my patch.  I decided to EXPLORE other options by looking in my iTunes library for non-random sound that could work in substitute.  Some BBC sound effects really worked well.  This was not true to my concept, however, since the program was supposed to generate everything at random (EVALUATING).  Suguru helped me again, showing me how to link his patch to my patch (TIMING).  Section one was finished, but the program needed more.
With no intention of what to do, I began EXPLORING.  Two weeks remained until the show (ANTICIPATING).  I did not waste time.  I pondered exercises from comp class, and remembered building phrases out of gestures and shapes, and using time limits.  I briefly EVALUATED these ideas, and realized combining them was a logical progression from section one - in which the program told the dancer what to do, and the dancer decided how to perform it.  In this section, the dancer decided what to do, and the program decided how it developed.  I set to work on programming, skipping the valuable step of DETERMINING the best course of action.  I functioned highly in TIMING, taking action quickly and EVALUATING minimally.  The initial draft of section two randomly selected the number of gestures and shapes, their variations, and how to connect them within a constrained period of time.  This patch was inefficient.  My adherence to pure randomness and objectivity had to change (EVALUATING).  Before making changes, I asked Marina, Ruben, Mickie, and Suguru for feedback (EXPLORING).  Their feedback helped me isolate problems more quickly.  I restructured this section to make it easier to follow.  I EVALUATED the importance of the tempo, and decided to speed up the development of phrases by changing the singular, simple variations to multiple, complex variations (DETERMINING).  This allowed me to cover multiple developments in a smaller period of time without compromising the pace.  To account for the problems I had remembering the phrases, I replaced the time constraint with a button that I could click to start the following commands.  I reprogrammed the commands to focus on one concept at a time.  For example, instead of creating gestures and then shapes, I created gestures, developed the gestures, then created shapes and developed them.  This drastically improved the flow and coherence.  I limited the number of gestures and shapes to one manageable amount – three.  From there, I used the BBC sound effects as background sound, not stopping to EXPLORE other options.  Suguru helped me set up the patch that would play the files through my program.  Section two was complete.  I pushed on to section three, functioning entirely in TIMING.
I decided to fuse Suguru’s idea of comedic repetition with my idea of performing the phrases from section two in random order (TIMING).  We programmed it overnight.  The day before tech, I still couldn’t perform the third section well.  Emily Climer stopped by, and I expressed that I was reconsidering the random phrase selection.  She offered to use analog chance by plucking her flower in the “he loves me, he loves me not” fashion to help me decide.  (TIMING) I took her up on it, and decided to keep the random phrases, as the rose suggested, but reduce the number of phrases to three instead of four.  Finally, I had no time to explore other ways of programming the patch, so I reprogrammed myself by devising a method of gesture and shape selection - for example, getting dressed.  This helped me remember my phrases, and I suddenly could perform section three.  The day before tech, miraculously, Choreobot was complete, and I was ready to perform.  I plan to look at section three again to do the EXPLORING I wished I’d had time to do.