Re: observations 2.2

Richard Lord (richard@bigroom.co.uk)
Tue, 6 Apr 1999 19:53:23 +0100

>2)
>The dance cd-rom? -- it's been several years now that it has been quite
>possible for dancers to make multimedia and interactive cdroms for
>different purposes (artistic/ educational/ documentation). A handful of
>artists and technologists have pursued the possibilities to rather rich
>ends -- I mention two projects here: Forsythe's 'Improvisation
>Technologies' http://www.frankfurt-ballett.de/billycd.html is due to be
>released (I have it on advise from Nick Haffner with Frankfurt) this summer
>finally as a CD-ROM and Bruno Martelli/ Ruth Gibson should be prepared to
>deliver their whimsical dance-mestic "Windows 98" soon
>http://www.shoevegas.com/windows/.
>
>Yet there seems to be still relatively little activity. Do we persist in
>being unimpressed with Quicktime and finding it difficult to accept its low
>grade/ scale options when broadcast video and cinema quality dance images
>have prevailed upon us for decades? Are we as confused as everyone (I mean
>in the 'performing arts' -- the games and edu-tainment industry is very
>happy) else regarding the options for 'interactivity' of the point and
>click variety? Or is producing something of quality still just TOO much
>effort (time/ money) and work?

For me, definitely the latter. Trying to secure funds & distribution for
a CD-ROM is much harder than for a live production (and that's not easy,
as we all know). The people with the money either don't understand the
medium and what it really costs (e.g. many arts funding institutions) or
don't understand dance and that a dance cd-rom is possible/desirable
(e.g. many major cd-rom producers).

I know it can be done "on the cheap" if you really want to do it, but I
have lots of ideas for dance in various media and the CD-ROM ideas just
don't get made because it's too much hastle.

Richard