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September 24, 2005
Bill Irwin to open DUX 2005
As referenced on the conference website, Bill Irwin has achieved many external honors (Guggenheim, MacArthur, Pew Charitable Trusts grant, Clown Hall of Fame) that recognize his accomplishments and support his work in theater. We are thrilled that he has agreed to open our 2005 conference, because he will open or extend our conversations on several important themes:
* physical intelligence
As a clown, mime, and actor, Bill Irwin has demonstrated that he excels in physical intelligence. He is expressive through every gesture - the glance, the grimace, the angle of the body, a step - as well as rhythm and pacing. So much of human-human communication depends on these gestures, and yet in digital communication many of these aspects are ignored, disguised, or lost. We look to Bill Irwin to acknowledge the physical dimension. That same physical dimension of our devices should not now be thought of as separate from screen interaction design... or, ideally, from the unique workflow of a given user. Mutability of function, display, and device to best serve the user is now a rational though difficult goal. Mr. Irwin and performers of his caliber do such blending of channels as a matter of course. We believe there's much for designers of digital experience to learn from his multiple performance disciplines.
* the role of emotion in interaction - and human experience
What is expressed through gesture? Usually, a great amount with little effort. Often it's the emotional content of the message. The ability to reveal and disguise emotion consciously is a hallmark of great acting, and likewise an aspect of human expression which our digital tools have severely limited abilities to convey. We look to Bill Irwin to evoke the emotional dimension. In addition to the emotional channel, the powerfully compact messaging that gesture can deliver are eventually going to be tools for digital designers. Projects like "Put That There" at the Media Lab in 1982 are closer to reasonable implementation today, and Bill Irwin's insights can help as we move forward.
* improvisation
Many interaction designers have come to understand the importance of spontaneity and improvisation in their own abilities to collaborate on interdisciplinary teams. Further, predictive capabilities of digital tools enable them to appear more spontaneous and, in the fullness of time, grow to personalize themselves to the user in non-maddening ways. We look to Bill Irwin to gain insight into improv.
* interplay between audience and performer
Live performance - in contrast to film, video and other recorded formats - allows the player to read the audience and instantaneously adjust various dimensions of a show in order to bring the audience to the essential message of the work. As a master of timing and physicality, Bill Irwin understands how to move an audience. We look to him to reveal how to manage, extend, and assist the audience's experience, whether that audience is one or 1,000, whether they're interested in entertainment, work, or active exploration.
We look to Bill Irwin - mime, clown, actor, director, choreographer, playwright, dancer, comic (and live action model for the title character in Stuart Little) to help us reclaim the full spectrum of human behavior by recognizing the physical, emotional, spontaneous, and managed interaction in communicating with our colleagues and our tools. The fact that he's a self-described "computer illiterate" makes him even more appealing, since he stands on the shoulders of 10,000 years of experience in the skills of live performance, little tainted by all our assumptions about digital experiences and mediation through machinery.
Posted by richard.anderson at September 24, 2005 08:52 AM