Mashup Realities: Exploring Experience in Networked Interactive Environments for Dance

Mashup Realities: Exploring Experience in Networked Interactive Environments for Dance

(Long paper)

Keywords: User Experience, User Experience Design, Networked Interactive Environments, Dance and Technology, Non-verbal Communication.

This paper explores user experience specifically in the context of telematic dance and networked spaces. New electronic sensor technologies that capture the movement of bodies provide opportunities to redesign the body in space. While much research in this area is informed by technology directly, in this research a ‘user-centered’ point of view is used to explore new design criteria for movement-based interaction. I discuss a series of performance-based projects titled Mashup Realities, an online platform for interaction, collaboration and creativity. The starting point for these projects is the exploration of people’s performance experiences of communication and interaction through bodily movement, to make this experience a source of inspiration for the resulting designs. In this paper I will describe the process and technology behind Mashup Realities. By working with a range of dancers, choreographers, musicians, designers and programmers through adopting a participatory approach, this paper will outline how performers can be supported in developing a more meaningful and richer interactive experience to extend non-verbal communication and collaboration through the internet.