INTRODUCTION

The human nervous system handles immense quantities of information from our six senses. The impulses are processed, integrated and interpreted – and a small amount are turned into conscious impressions of the world around us.

What senses do we use for communication? The answer is simply – ALL!  But …

Sight and hearing are dominating sensory modalities used in conscious communication and interactive processes. The fast development in electronic communications in the last decades – TV and video, computers and internet have probably reinforced this dominance.

Sight and hearing have been clearly associated with intellectual qualities, especially in the field of Arts. In most human relationships (on the other hand) the tactile modalities play an important  role, they express feelings and functions as necessary social codes in everyday life.  Many social taboos are related to touch and in a cultural context  touch, smell and taste have often been regarded as ”inferior” – more directly connected to emotions, sexuality and basic instincts.

This hierarchy of the senses became very obviuos when we turned into the field of Art and Technology. And of course as dancers we were very provoked: ALL senses related to the dancing body were regarded as ”lower senses”!!!

For you interested in dance you probably know that the term `Tactile´ is derived from Latin `tango´ e g  ”to touch”  – moving by touching, moving and touching. And of course the term `Contact improvisation´ also describes this very clearly.

But of course there is more in this than a linguistic relationship between Dance and Tactility. 

From experience we can say that this knowledge reflects a much more profound interaction:

The foot on the floor, the arm moving with precision, dividing the space in halves – all this would be impossible without a close relationship between the tactile sense, the proprioceptive and kinesthetic systems.

The proprioceptive system gives us information about the body´s orientation in space, but it´s not only balancing the body. Receptors gives signals about tension in muscles, tendons and  joints – that is force, direction and position.

WHY THEN ARE CERTAIN SENSES REGARDED AS HIGHER AND LOWER?

OF COURSE IN A BROAD SENSE IT´S CULTURAL BASED, Marshall Mc Luhan  has in a series of works analysed the informational importance and dominance of the visual and auditory senses in a cultural context. In his works on media he discusses the specific characters and differences between visual and oral (or auditive) cultures – visually structured cultures, based on the written word and auditive cultures based on oral tradition.

On the opposite Emanuel Swedenborg declared that touch was the most important sense of them all.

Today it´s obvious that in technological development the focus is on the amount of INFORMATIONAL CONTENT in the different senses.

The human skin contains about 700 000 pressure or touch receptors, most of them concentrated to the fingertips, lips and the tip of the tongue. This could be compared with the 120 million rods and 6 million cones in the retina of the eye or the 50 million olfactory sensors. But the tactile system still outnumbers the 20 000 cells of the auditory system or the 12 000 taste buds.

( Some sources estimate the informational output from a series of tactile receptors to 1-10 bits/sec, (the serial transfer rate of each of the outmessaging channels to the concious human mind) , compared with the possible output of 10 -100 bits/sec in the olfactory system (if it were not for the limited chemical diffusion time), 2000 bits/ sec in the auditory system and 10 million bits in the visual system. Others estimate the bandwidth of the haptic senses to 20 – 30 Hz. ( Brooks 1990 , Steven Wills) Experimental data are uncertain since direct measurements in humans are difficult.)

To this end also comes that the visual and auditory senses obviuosly are remote senses, while the tactile system isn´t – the tactile sense very clearly defines the outer border of the body.

Anyhow the informational content calculated is just part of the truth – there are far more complex spatial and temporal patterns involved. The interaction and integration on different levels of awareness  – from simple reflexes e.g. nociceptive stimuli (pain receptors) and withdrawal  to nuanced conscious experiences and actions based on sensual information – involves physiological and evolutionary processes as well as cultural, historical and social considerations.

THE CUTANEOUS SENSES – SEVERAL TACTILE QUALITIES

There are several receptors involved in the tactile system, They all have different qualities – the area of reception, if they are deep or superficial, different sensitivity to vibrational frequencies … Tactile sensations are usually a mixture of signals from several receptors as stimuli tends to activate more than one type of receptors. This allows us to feel not only  We can detect a smoth or a coarse surface, feel the stretching of the skin, the fluttering as well as prolonged pressure, we can detect direction

And it´s quite interesting that the speed of these nerves are twice or for times the speed of the pain receptors!

As we said before the tactile system is also closely related to the proprioceptive and kinaestethic system –  informing the central nervous system of the bodyposition and movements. The areas are closely linked in the brain, and also situated closely to the motor-areas …

And this is really important – skin is an ”organ of balance” – something that has been shown recently by researchers.

Of course there’s a challenge to study and develop a theoretical base around a sense that doesn’t get major attention in modern Technology or Art .  Still  there is today a growing interest for tactile communication –  the need for a tactile feedback is deeply felt  in the development of techniques for teleoperated surgery, training and simulation in the medical field, and  in entertainment …

So how about turning the tactile senses into a remote sense, or an extension outside your body!

BACK TO DANCE

Touch is an important part of the system that gives our body an orientation in space. The pressure on the sole of a foot,  the weight or tension of a movement …  feed-backs involving senses and muscular activity are modalities the dancer consciously train and slowly integrates into her/his body. In this process the tactile system very clearly defines the outer border of our bodies. Dance is not only a visual-spatial it is a Tactile Art.

Tactile communication would therefore be a very attractive channel of interaction in dance, given the specific characteristics of dance as a proprioceptive, kinaesthetic and tactile expression. So one of the questions in this project is; is it possible to achieve the necessary precision, nuances, the necessary informational content with a tactile communication?

COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION

-A MODEL BASED ON EQUALITY AND DIALOGUE

This project also poses important questions about control and mutuality in the interactive process.

Is it possible to use a tactile system for an interactive approach. And how do you avoid the domination so often involved in these experiments. We have seen the performance artist Stelarc twist under the forces of an exoskeleton. These type of experiments have often through histotry resulted in testing – how many wists or jumps can I make the performer do?  And the first question often raised when we present this project is: -Does it hurt. Is the impulse painful. And I think there is a profound experience expressed in those questions since pain always has been a mean of dominance.

The audience should be able to initiate sequences of movement, and also decide their force, intensity, size of the deflection or duration. But we wanted to give the performer some independance making her or him to a real partner.

From the beginning we worked with the idea to have a refractory period – just like the nerve – you shouldn´t be able to send a new impulse until the first movement had finished. But this gave a mechanical, very structured way of reaction – just like puppets. Instead we included the possibility for the dancer to react to the new impulses when possible. Also the lenght of the impulses given by the audience opens for a more dynamic interaction.

THE VISION

A stage, some dancers, a small audience. Each dancer is wireless connected to a spectator. From the start you don´t know who you are connected to. The dancer has got tactile stimulators, vibrators attached to different joints – an elbow a wrist, an ankle, the cervical spine etc The signal is graded into three clearly different levels – low, medium and high intensity.

This gives a system where you as a spectator can initate a movement – a choice between 3 different joints or starting-points … to this there is also 3 possible levels of intensity, speed, force … and a temporal aspect as well – a short puls or an extended signal. Several vibrators kcan be activated at the same time.

Is it then possible to develop a sensible interaction between the audience and the performer? And what is the relationsship in this system between man and machine?  Is it a system that is merely a means of communication, expressing a non-hierarchic relationship?   Can the dancer begin to understand the intentions of the viewer and develop a more profound interaction?Is it possible to develop the sensibilty by training? What is an active and a passive spectator?

A SYSTEM FOR WIRELESS COMMUNICATION AND INTERACTION.

The system consists of a transmitter adapted for the purpose – one separate channel for each dancer, a subchannel for each vibrator –  3 buttons initiating different intensity levels. And on the other side a reciever with a proportional detector and finally a system of vibrators giving three different intensity levels of vibrations according to the input signal. These levels are sett to give a clear differentiation between the impulses possible. The vibrators are attached near joints, not only because the movement starts there, but the bony prominences gives good contact for vibrations.

The instruction given to the dancer has been to discover the world around you with an ”eye” placed on the specified joint.

AUDIENCE INVOLVEMENT

(At this point the audience, after a short demonstration of the system, are invited to direct the dancers with the wireless system. First as a solo, then with two dancers involved (Luisa Denward and Olof Persson).

SOME CONCLUSIONS ON THE ADVANTAGES OF TACTILE COMMUNICATION

We have developed a working system for further research in this field. And we have shown that this specific method of communication has obvious advantages in an Artistic concept :

– It doesn´t divert the performers focus from the movements in the same way as  if you use visual or sound systems for communication.

– The impulse is invisible / non-audible to the acting spectator

– The impulse has a direct connection to the bodypart or joint that will initiate the movement  sequence.

– Dance is, as seen from the creative side, a ”tactile” artistic expression.

– There is an interesting conceptual dimension – the knowledge that you as a spectator ”touches” the performer.

– We are ”upgrading” a socially, a cultural and social ”downgraded” sense which could have interesting implications.

The development and studies in the future includes working with different groups of audiences – dancers/choreographers, musicians (with a tactile skill), youngsters skilled in computer games, etc.

Then a few crucial questions remains to be answered as in all artistic research. Will it create interesting pieces of Art? Will the audience be more satisfied with ther result? Who is in that case the choreographer of this piece of art?

Gun Lund & Lars Persson January 2006