Ceremony + Ceremonial Rite of Passage in SMALLab

From MultimodalEnvironments

Problem Statement

Can we effectively create a multi-modal scenario with the capacity to elicit transformations in participants from the time they enter SMALLab, to the time that they leave? Can media viably heighten a ceremonial experience for participants?

Target Group

Performing arts students and practitioners.

Ceremonial Rite of Passage

A ceremonial rite of passage defined by Arnold Van Gennep, defines our design scope.

A rite of passage occurs with these elements in the following order:

1. separation
2. liminality
3. incorporation.

Our scenario design will require us to make a place that will enable participants to undergo a rite of passage according to Van Gennep’s definition.

Guiding Principle

Kurt Vonnegut – Abolition of linearity in story telling in his novel titled Breakfast of Champions (1973).

“Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people that had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done. If all writers would do that, then perhaps citizens not in the literary trades would understand that there is no order around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done.”

Ceremony Concept

The Rite of Passage ceremony for SMALLab is designed with an overarching protocol that all participants are expected to follow from start to finish. This states that all the members of the ceremonial gathering must cooperatively work together to build a structure regardless of how the ceremony changes throughout the course of time.

One metaphor for such an idea is: We all must try to continue forward despite the losses that we suffer.

Before a group of participants enter the space, they will go through a scripted process designed to help prepare them for the ceremony. During this time they will be told what type of ceremony they will participate in. They will also be given the option not to partake. Should they chose to enter our place for ceremony, they will be taught the protocols required of them to participate. These protocols are like game mechanics or like rules of play. They govern the behaviors and actions the participants are required to follow. They can also be thought of as an algorithm for humans meant to couple with cognitive processes within a mixed reality environment for generative media creation.

All protocol exists to maintain a social order through which members will have opportunities to make choices as individuals. These individual choices are expected to serve the ceremonial community as it strives to create a structure. The structure they will create and maintain is a gestalt composed of music, dance, storytelling, and collage. This gestalt is an analogue to the social structure embodied by the collective that the participants comprise.

The ceremony will require a certain number of participants that will perform together to create. They will initially do this using a simple movement vocabulary that is primarily locomotive. This movement vocabulary is defined by the protocol that they will be given prior to entering the space. This choreography ensures that all of the participants are involved. It is designed to support decision points that will allow participants opportunities to make creative decisions and free form expressions or improvisation. The choreography will be set to rhythms provided during ceremony, and will help to reinforce the social construct determined by protocol.

Creative decisions will center around the selection and placement of images that are projected on the floor. The improvisation will be the opportunity to narrate upon a given image that is selected and placed into collage. There will also be an instrument score that is comprised of different sonic artifacts that are associated to each of the projected images. Running the ball over an image will trigger a sample. This will also be as aspect of the structure’s expression. In essence, the group will be constructing a sound and image collage as a function of the protocol expressed through the simple dance choreography. Ceremonial groups will have plenty of time to perform this task.

Up until this point, the ceremony functions to provide its members with time to adapt and embody the social structure imposed on them and their function. This is to condition the members to function and depend on each other as members of a group. It also gives the group an opportunity to create an expression resulting from work and creative vision. Once this has been established over time, the ceremony will begin to impose conditions for a rite of passage. The following paragraphs will explain this process.

At some point in time during the ceremony, the aspects of the system that are designed to support protocol will slowly begin to fail. These aspects include the rhythmic structure used to support the choreography, the responsiveness and functionality of the tangible interfaces, the integrity of the images, and the nature of the sound associated to the images. As a result, the choreography will slowly begin to fail, and then will fail altogether. The participants will also be left with the order of their image collage in ruin. This is when the first stage of Von Gennep’s definition for a rite of passage begins. These are the moments where separation and liminality inversely occur.

The only piece of protocol that remains intact is the overarching protocol initially stating that all the members of the ceremonial gathering must cooperatively work together to build a structure regardless of how the ceremony changes throughout the course of time. This protocol is expected to provide the group with the requirement that enables them to adapt to the new conditions of the system to once again reform and move forward as a group in an effort to recover order from chaos. This act would fulfill the rite of passage through incorporation.

Metaphor

A community that experiences a devastating hurricane.

1. Suffers losses (Separation)
2. Experiences liminality (Chaos, Limbo)
3. Reunites to rebuild and move forward (incorporation)

Elements of our ceremony for SMALLab include.

• Dance
• Storytelling
• Collage
• Music

Media Development

• Music
  • Compose rhythm loops
  • Compose instrument score
    • Samples for each floor image

• Images
  • Design images
  • Photograph images
  • Select images

Classical Arts

Contemporary dance (Refer to the following)

• Judson Church group, also known as Judson Dance Theater

A movement diagram showing an example of a simple choreography for three people with one ball.

A movement diagram showing an example of a simple choreography for six people divided into two groups while using two balls.

• Music
  • Collage

• Storytelling
  • Improvisation

• Visual Art
  • Collage

Required Expertise to construct a place for this ceremony.

• Scripting
• Movement Choreography
• Music Composition
• Graphic Design
• Computer Programming
• Project Assessment
• Collaboration
• Situated Learning: Members of the team wear multiple hats!
• Management: Team members manage different aspects of the project.

Evaluation of Architectural Placemaking (Place for rite of passage ceremony)

• Play-test with the following students and practitioners:
  • AME
  • Art
  • Dance
  • Theater

• Observational evaluation

• User Survey (Need to develop)

• User Group Critique

Advanced ideas to consider.

• The current concept is a ceremony that is altered by an outside narrative.
  • As a narrative it may be more interesting if the ceremony is altered as a result of internal forces caused by a ceremonial group's behavior. Examples include:
    • Communication Breakdown
    • Extremely efficient communication

• Real-time systems evaluation and adaptation.
  • The idea is that if ceremonial participants are the cause of the breakdown of their social structure. They stand a greater chance of learning something about themselves when they work together to recover.

Idea is based upon the schema for dramatic comedy, which echoes our concept for ceremony.

Group Member Roles

Christopher

• Disciplinary:
  • Programming JAVA and Developing for SCREM
  • Media development
    • Instrument score and audio sample production
    • Graphic design
• Trans-disciplinary:
  • Team management roles
  • Conceptual design for ceremony and place for ceremony
  • System adaptation
  • Movement Choreography
  • Evaluation / Assessment
    • Design a case study.
    • Play-test
      • Critique
  • Media Development
    • Graphics / Dash plugin development (OpenGL)

Dan

• Disciplinary:
  • Media creation
    • Create and collect imagery
    • Create and collect sonic/instrument
  • Assist in scripting and choreography

• Transdisicplinary:
  • Media database management
  • High-level programming- integrating media

Jisoo

• Disciplinary:
  • Visual media creation
    • Create and collect imagery

• Transdisicplinary:
  • Exploring the relationship visual materials and user's response (selection, composition, storytelling)
  • User Evaluation

Levy

• Disciplinary:
  • Scripting
  • Media development
    • Image Collection
    • Sound Collection
  • Movement Choreography
  • Team Management
  • Assessment Development and Measurement
    • Methodology
    • Parameters
    • Critique
• Trans-disciplinary:
  • Programming
    • High Level Interactivity
  • Sound Development/Design
  • Graphic Design

Lisa

• Disciplinary:
  • Programming and Developing for SCREM framework
  • Media Development
    • Music Composition
• Trans-disciplinary:
  • Team management roles
  • Evaluation / Assessment
    • Developing rubric for testing design hypotheses
    • Tracking, archiving and analyzing user data about their actions during the ceremony
  • Media Development
    • Graphics / Dash plugin development (OpenGL)

PowerPoint of Our Concept

Image:CeremonyPowerPoint.pdf

Image:CeremonyPowerPoint V2.pdf

Ceremony Script

• Pre-scripting

• • 1) One word each storytelling game
  • 2) One word each
  • 3) Movement

• Three iterations:

• • 1) Free flow wordplay “Abstract”
    • a) Pick images and express a free associated expression
      • -Random objects
    • b) The next person can choose how and what they associate or don’t
  • 2) Word Association with Pictures: “Make a Statement”
    • a) Each image associates with the last
    • b) Each verbalization is associated with the image(s) and visa-versa
  • 3) Group storytelling “Once upon a time…”
    • a) Each image advances the story
    • b) System changes based on measured participation

Image Catagories

We are thinking of going through two options in terms of who prepares images.

• controlled version - an image set is given to participants, which consists of
  • 10 Nature
  • 10 Loaded
  • 10 Object
  • 10 Color/Pattern

• In a participant version, each person is supposed to bring their images.

The Two Rites of Passage

• 1) Iteration creates rite of passage, experiential
• 2) The system changes the function of the system, protocol

Earlier Postings

Earlier postings as we were trying to gain our bearings

Assessment

• Observational Evaluation
• Protocol Definition
• Control Parameters
• Participant Preparation
  • Protocol Assimilation (who and how many)
    • understand the protocol
    • need re-direction
    • instructor need to re-state/clarify protocol
  • Protocol Execution (who and how many)
    • follow protocol
    • improvise on protocol
    • stall or were unable to participate according to protocol
  • Protocol Effectiveness (who and how many of participants)
    • engage with environment
    • increase environment interactivity
    • develop new activity
    • challenge protocol
    • refuse to follow protocol

• Participant Affinity
  • Signal Affinity
  • Visual Affinity
    • able to use visual cues
    • freed or hindered by visual clues
    • measure against anticipated response
    • measure against new interpretation (how many of the user segment)
    • effectiveness in creating new visual story
      • high
      • medium
      • low
    • reasons for levels of interactivity
      • engagement comfort
      • personality of user
      • protocol assimilation
• Sound Affinity
• Kinetic Affinity
• Signal Effectiveness (quantity and quality)
  • Visual /Sound/Kinetic Stimulus
    • enhanced activity/interactivity
    • diminished activity/interactivity
      • follow cues
      • ignore cues
• Measure Liminality
  • Time