T(w)o Nearly Touch: You by Bob Pritchard Ziyian Kwan & Emmalena Fredriksson, dancers
Touch is personal, whether on ourselves or on each other. In TNT:Y personalized exploration becomes expression through gesture and sound, allowing for emotion and engagement. Using touch the two characters come together to develop sonic and tactile relationships, and the growing exchange of touches and sonified gestures creates an active counterpoint of movement, timbre, emotion, and meaning, before dying away to quiet conversations in a whispered, imaginary language. Each Responsive User Body Suit (RUBS) consists of a dance leotard with e-textile surface sensors, wirelessly connected to Max/MSP patches. By completing the sensor circuits using touch, wearers generate data that is used to trigger samples or scrub through audio files. On the original suits media artist Kiran Bhumber chose the sensor locations, taking advantage of the desired lengths and accessibility of the materials, while Margaret Lancaster’s 2017 suit had asymmetric placements due to right hand only access. The sensor locations on the current twelve-sensor suits were chosen by designer Alaia Hamer in collaboration with dancers to emphasize the flow of muscle and bone.
