BOTHER [/ˈbɒðə/] (verb) - Take the trouble to do something / Feel concern about or interest in / Cause trouble or annoyance by interrupting or otherwise inconveniencing someone.

BOTHER is an interactive and performative installation inviting the audience to influence, positively or negatively, the fate of the dancer in front of them.

It explores the notions of control, care and digital harassment, questioning how we behave differently when interacting with each other through the proxy of technology. It also intends the portray the impact of that alien agency, inducing pleasure, joy, violence or pain.

BOTHER is set up as a social experiment, exploring how the audience will react when given the power to control the dancer. Will they behave in an empathetic way, allowing the dancer to be free and happy? Or will they act in a more sadistic way, generating violent reactions? Will they care more about the person in front of them or the entertainment they get from the performance?

Technical details

The dancer is tracked from the ceiling by a Kinect. Using the tracking data, graphics are projected onto the dancer's body from a projector also placed on the ceiling. 2 sets of buttons are placed in front of the audience, a blue and a red.

Depending on the emotional state selected by the audience member, the graphics projected will change and the dancer will adopt a certain movement texture while improvising, giving an embodied and visual representation of that impact of the audience's choice.

The full interactive system is handled by a custom programme made in openFrameworks (C++) with a connection to Arduino for the buttons.

Credits

Original concept, Direction, Choreography, Creative Coding: Clémence Debaig

Performers: Clémence Debaig, Marialivia Bernardi, Ashley Kim Wakefield, Kristia Morabito, Oliver Charles, Marcello Licitra, Tracy Garcia, Konstantina Katsikari, Ana Vallejo Buitrago, Chloe Bellou, Pedro De Marchi