4 Analyses of relational interactions

Analyses of the relational interactions, in parallel and jointly, is a question of observing, of clarifying, of controlling the transfer of the processes of relational organisations based on the traditional functional distribution of the roles, to those based on the new interpolations during creation of a factual type (news distributions of roles of scenes, systems, actors and public, in continuous interaction). One models the processes which govern the passages from one model to another:

of a traditional system to a designed and dynamic multimedia system or if all the actors are present simultaneously and credits;
passage of a provision of scene (public, scene, decoration, machinery) to a provision of shared and evolutionary common space.

The scene setting of an interactive event connecting a dancer/actor and the system emerge from semantic and software search. There are today artistic searches in the world of arts which go in the same direction as there ours.

4.1 State of the art

We are located in a whole of range creations which use sensors as means of information on the environment. We are useful ourselves in the information processing system as partners of creation. Within this framework, there are several approaches which go from the scripted approach to the behavioural approach. The scripted approach consists of starting a precise script which will always produce the same effect in the same circumstances. This type of system, whose typical example is CD-Rom, still constitutes the basis of the majority of interactions in technological artistic creations.

This principle of interaction is rigid, its effect often foreseeable and consequently prejudicial to the play of the actor and the quality of the spectacle. It leads the actor to adopt a behaviour of an explorer seeking all the possible solutions in the system to the detriment of the expression of emotion.

We use a multi-agent system based on artificial intelligence and endowed with behaviour. I.e. a whole group of real or virtual entities interacting in an environment, able to perceive it and communicate. The agents have autonomous behaviour, knowledge, and can make decisions according to a goal. In Mises en Sc nes the agents constitute a cluster spectacle made up of agent musicians , agent dancers, agent plastics technicians, actors, multimedia, etc. They operate jointly but each one directed to the achievement of the wishes of the director or the actor.

With the performance of the learning cycles, the system acquires a personality, i.e. a way of being in the scene, comparable with its human partner. The interaction between the system and the actor never arises twice exactly in the same manner since the goal of the repetitions is to define a coherent space of improvisation for the actor, the director and the system. The system can be partly or completely intended to be transformed, if that is necessary, into the scripted system. The more the system scripted the more one approaches the traditional methods of scene setting. The more autonomous the system, the less it is repetitive. The work becomes a living organism, then implying risk taking and permanent vigilance .

4.2 Design of the interactive event

4.2.1 General objective

It is too early to describe setting a scene, which will start to emerge only after a period of thinking and creation, much on the scientific level rather than on the artistic level. The partnerships and the contents of the interactive event itself will result naturally from the meetings and the relationships which the search will make it possible to tie. It is about a process of creation and, as such, it is necessary that it remains open as long as possible.

We can however underline the constraints of the experimental device Mises en Sc nes.

4.2.2 Director, actors and dancers augmented

The purpose of the project Mises en Sc nes is to propose an interactive platform based on behaviour, and usable tools for creation by the other artists . The tool should make it possible for the actor to increase his traditional means of expression by amplifying them, by translating them into multimedia sequences.

The communicating platform transforms at the same time the design and execution of the “uvre. In the design phase, the answers which the system gives to the proposals of the actor or the director can exceed his imagination and surprise him all while, being appropriate to him in scene setting. In the production run, the public, whose activity can be perceived by the system, can interact with the system and the dancer, with an aim of scene setting.

4.2.3 Arts of time

Various media have jointly to be all arts of time. Choreography, music, sound environments, theatre, visual arts, it video, puppets “ often separated from/to each other for technical and cultural reasons - become for the system the particular ways to treat sound (the voice, music, sound environments, song), light (light, colours, forms), movement (displacements, dance , acrobatics, gestures). See Figure 23.5.

Figure 23.5: Reasons for a connection in settings in scenes

4.3 Ergonomy

4.3.1 The metaphor of the scene

The Mises en Sc nes project is a metaphor for the multimodal relationship that the human being has or will have with the machine in the immediate future. We are already surrounded, in public places, work or dwellings, by artifacts and communicating devices. They are surrounded by an average of 40 microprocessors, including 5 able to communicate via networks (cabled, electric, without wire, telephone, etc). It is generally estimated that, within ten years , we will be, in everyday life, in permanent contact with several hundreds of microprocessors, the majority of which will be connected to these same networks (Internet or others). Mises en Sc nes is a platform thanks to which this new world of intelligent man “machine interfaces, which allows semantic intuitive relations, body gesture, sound or visual, can be tested .

4.3.2 Semiologies

Figure 23.6: Relations beteween the functions of experimental device: classical system (left); intentional multimedia system (right)

In the research field as in the field of creation, we would have interest, there too, to exchange knowledge of the technicians and the artists and the ergonomics. The metaphorical relations which exist between the scene of the experimental device and everyday life, as between the actor and the user of NTIC, should be explored using the ergonomics of France T l com. We will base ourselves not only on the semiology of the fields of multimedia expression but also on modelling of the functions and the space of the interactive device. Analysis of the specificity of the system passes by the analysis of the relation of the elements which make it up.

It is necessary for the design of the man “machine interface to locate and model the various functions which come into play in a traditional spectacle “ author, actor, dancer, decorator, musician, manager, etc “ and to observe the transfers of these functions during a creation of Mises en Sc nes. We will also obtain invaluable information by modelling the scenic space traditionally composed of technical spaces, of the elements of decoration, scene, space reserved for the public and theatrical place.

The semiology of the various media of the scene is not very different from the semiology of the media used in everyday life. The multisensorial interface of "scene setting" will initially make it possible for a group of actors to create their own image. This will be able in the second time of being used by the system to propose a response to a situation while behaving like a multimedia virtual partner. The "scene setting" project should make it possible to analyse the cognitive and physical characteristic behaviour of the users and, beyond the physical behaviour, mental aspects of the interaction (perception, memorising, reasoning). Ie the semiological study of the various fields of expression and the experimental use of scene setting