Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment

Motion capture and technical assistance for an intermedia dance installation, University of Ljubljana, 2015.

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment is an intermedia performance installation built around two dancers whose movements drive a responsive system of sound, projection, and spatial audio. The title borrows an idea from games design, that a system should continuously adapt its challenge to the performer. Here the dancers respond to sound and visuals generated from their own earlier movement, a feedback loop between performer and machine in which the boundary between creator and created is deliberately blurred.

I joined the project during a full academic year on exchange at the University of Ljubljana, handling motion capture and technical assistance: operating the Kinect-based tracking and the lab tooling that turned the dancers’ movement into data for the sound and visuals.

The work was created by an international team:

  • Colin Black (Australia): original concept, sound art and design, musical composition
  • Dayana Hristova (Bulgaria): dance, motion capture
  • Črt Trček / Gregor Kamnikar and Radharani Pernarčič (Slovenia): dance
  • Bartłomiej Mróz (Poland): motion capture and technical assistance

Produced by Hanna Preuss (Atelier for Sonorous Arts), with Marko Ipavec as executive producer, and supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and the Robolab, the Metrology and Quality lab, and the Artificial Intelligence lab at the University of Ljubljana.

Project site: dynamicdifficultyadjustment.weebly.com (archived copy).

Venue page: Center sonoričnih umetnosti Vodnikova domačija, the Ljubljana venue’s writeup on the performance (original site offline, archived copy).

Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment, video by Colin Black (Vimeo).
Signal-flow diagram routing Kinect motion tracking and a Wii Remote through NI mate, OSCulator, and Ableton Live to a quadraphonic loudspeaker layout.
Audio and motion-capture signal flow for the 28 March 2015 presentation: Kinect tracking via NI mate and OSCulator into Ableton Live, diffused over a quadraphonic rig. Image courtesy of the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment project.
The installation space with ceiling video projection, quadraphonic loudspeakers, and a performer holding a controller.
The installation at CSU Vodnikova domačija, Ljubljana. Image courtesy of the Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment project.