Undertaking
Patent
1988-08-29
1990-04-17
Chilcot, Jr., Richard E.
Undertaking
272 1R, A63G 500
Patent
active
049173731
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a system for self-accompaniment by mobile performers in the presentation of dance, gymnastic or other expressive movements. In this specification, the term "performer" denotes any movable body--animate or inanimate--which executes movements, whether impromptu, rehearsed or externally controlled, within a designated space or performance zone and, in so doing, interacts with sensors or transducers responsive to excitation whether directly through physical contact with the performer or indirectly through modification by the performer of an electromagnetic field established in the performance zone. Artistic skill or intuitive interpretation are not prerequisites of a performer seeking self-accompaniment although it will be understood that the appeal of the invention is primarily to the human capacity for aesthetic appreciation of conscious individual or group activity. Thus, although dance or gymnastic performances are envisaged as being the principal occasions for self-accompaniment, the movements of puppets or automata are equally valid occasions so far as concerns a system according to the present invention.
The system involves interaction between a performer and an externally generated electromagnetic radiation projected across the zone in which the performance is to be executed, and a plurality of different radiations may be simultaneously so projected, each associated with a different characteristic of the overall accompaniment, whether audible or visual. The radiations may themselves be of different natures such as pulsed or continuous wave; ultrasonic, infrared, ultraviolet etc., to each of which a respective sensor or sensors is tuned so as to respond in a specific mode to the interactions between a performer and the relevant radiation.
Whilst for most purposes the movements of a performer (as defined above) within the performance zone are detected or measured, or both, by sensors responsive to interactions between the performer and electromagnetic radiation, it may sometimes be convenient to detect or measure, or both, lateral displacements of a performer on a stage or equivalent surface by means of strain gauges or other forms of localised proximity sensors which the performer touches or closely approaches, although the relative immobility of such an arrangement restricts it, for most practical purposes, to fixed performance zones.
Whatever the nature of individual sensors in a system of the kind to which the present invention relates, the output of each sensor is fed, either directly or through a control of regulating device, to an audio or visual (or both) output channel which is thus triggered by the movements of each performer.
Interactive performance systems based on the concept of remote control of the net output by the performers themselves in response to their movements in a performance zone have been developed with the object of varying the colour, tone, volume or other characteristic of a prerecorded audio or visual passage. In one such case, visible light beams were used which were interrupted by the movements of a live performer and the interruptions activated sensors controlling sound outputs. Others have attempted to involve live musicians to follow a score which is under continual development in response to movements of live performers, while yet others have fed the outputs of various sensors to computer synthesisers.
Sometimes sensors have been physically attached to the performers' bodies to respond to limb movements or muscular tensions, and in one case these sensors were scanned by infrared beams which then activated spotlight controls so that the performer's movements were followed by the spotlight.
Another system using body sensors to monitor limb and muscle flexure ahd the disadvantage that each performer had to carry a wire or cable connecting the sensors to respective terminals, and these seriously inhibited freedom of movement of individual performers.
One drawback which has been common to the systems hitherto used or proposed has been an inability
REFERENCES:
patent: 3749810 (1973-07-01), Dow
Bourne Nicholas H.
Smith Alan J.
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