Sketching by Programming in the Choreographic Language Agent
Luke Church, Nick Rothwell, Marc Downie, Scott deLahunta, Alan F. Blackwell · 2012
Keywords: POP-I.C. artistic process, POP-III.C. visual languages We describe the Choreographic Language Agent, a programming environment designed for use by dancers and choreographers in the context of improvisatory composition methods. CLA provides a means for dancers to interact with a simple but powerful set of 3D geometric transforms, creating a wide variety of kinematic and dynamic configurations expressed in the form of phrases. These phrases can be composed in a dynamic visual arrangement, offering sophisticated facilities for provisionality and version control. Direct interaction with a live 3D rendering is a key feature of the system, although this rendering is only an intermediate product, designed to offer ample space for alternative interpretations when mapped onto dance movement. The result is a programming language that emphasises transience, ambiguity and creative flow rather than the conventional requirements of professional software engineering contexts. 1.