Six universities and research laboratories present InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box at the Supercomputing Global 2005 Conference in Seattle Washington on November 17 at 11:15am PST. This InterPlay is a multi-faceted telematic event that consists of six simultaneous performances that occur in six states throughout North America. The sites include the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing in partnership with Another Language Performing Arts Company, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center, the University of Montana, Missoula, Envision Center for Data Perceptualization at Purdue University, the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois, Chicago and the University of Maryland, College Park. The distributed performances incorporate theater, text, music, performance art, virtual reality, and motion capture and are concurrently mixed, encoded and streamed onto Internet 2.

Loose Minds in a Box, first performed on April 15 - 17, 2005, is a collaborative work that explores the basic concept of the “box”. The box is a metaphor for the physical, social, political or psychological constraints that we and/or others place upon us. The box also represents a sense of place in the realm of the virtual as well as in our sub-conscience. With the aid of performance artists, electro-acoustic musicians / composers, virtual reality and motion capture artists / technologists and others; we look at many of the numerous representations the “box” encompasses.

In Seattle, Another Language’s Artistic Director, Beth Miklavcic, as display operator, will manipulate / maneuver the InterPlay experience with creative choreography of the video streams across thirty-six feet of projection screen surface while her recorded performance of her work, Dressers, investigates how the clothes we wear bind our personalities. Sculptor, Erik Brown, will construct an enclosure around himself depicting how we encase ourselves in a social fortress. It either protects us from unwanted human contact or keeps us from interacting with the outside world.

In Maryland, Nadja Masura, Moira Jackson and Peter Rogers perform within the constraining characteristics of the video box as well as augmenting Beth Miklavcic’s “clothes encounter” by changing their personalities with new fashions.

A team of artists in Indiana include Dioselin Gonzalez (VR designer), T. J. Rogers (motion performance), Carol Cunningham (choreographer), David Sigman (graphic designer) and Joe Hayes (dancer). They will delve into the virtual box where a performer transmits him self through a bazaar world of unique characters and environments, created by Miho Aoki in Alaska and David Sigman. At times, Joe Hayes will remotely control, through movement, electro-acoustic music in Montana.

Artists Tina Shah and Helen-Nicole Kostis in Chicago, Illinois will explore the concept of isolated confinement, while at the same time exposing the metamorphosis of the performer’s psyche in a VR world.

Charles Nichols, composer and violinist in Missoula Montana, will probe the musical possibilities of the “black box”. Scott Deal, composer and percussionist in Fairbanks Alaska will toy with numerous box icons such as Pandora’s Box. The music is transmitted to all sites in real time, encompassing the entire work with piercing percussion and wild melodies.

In the Washington State Conference Center, director Jimmy Miklavcic, will wrangle more than twenty video streams from all six sites, mix and process them for the local Seattle audience and then stream the processed videos back onto Internet2 for audiences at the five participating sites and other Access Grid sites.

Technical support is provided by David Krnavek, Donavan Keinenberger and Eric Peterson (Alaska), Nancy Cope (Purdue), Sam Liston (Utah), Chris Rosenthal, Jonathan Rosenthal and Gideon Goldman (Illinois), Robert Wachtel (Montana) and Paul Jackson (Maryland), Cindy Seivers, Jeff Schwab and Jim Miller (Seattle).

Another Language, in collaboration with all the participating artists and technologists, is forging a new performance form. InterPlay: Loose Minds in a Box is the most innovative merging of Internet technology with the performing arts to date. The form brings together artists from unique backgrounds and geographical locations that would normally never occur under traditional collaborative processes. The power of the Internet and videoconference technology enables and empowers this consortium of artists to expand their ideas of artistic creativity. The performance can be viewed through either QuickTime or Windows Media at www.anotherlanguage.org/interplay or artgrid.chpc.utah.edu.

Loose Minds in a Box is supported in part by the University of Utah Center for High Performance Computing, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Artic Region Supercomputing Center, University of Montana, the Electronic Visualization Laboratory at University of Illinois, Chicago, the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization at Purdue University, the University of Maryland, the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts and Parks Program, the Utah Arts Council and the Salt Lake City Arts Council and contributing members of Another Language.

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