The use of wearable computers/devices in my own research and performance practice allows me to generate manufactured cyber human/s counterpart/s in real time. During performance the computer generated counterpart is projected through a see-through scrim, allowing both of us to share and co-exist in a mutual performance space

Following many years of shared performance space, experience, and practice with several computerized cyber human characters, I have continually been experiencing/noticing the presence of a shared energy field in performance much similar to the energy shared between two physical human bodies as they interact in traditional dance partnering work, and as practiced in dance contact improvisation principles.

"Contact Improvisation (CI) is a means to explore the physical forces imposed on the body by gravity, and by the physics of momentum". Similarly to CI the partnering act between a physical human and a cyber-human is improvisational and sensational. "Through the point of contact there is a two way system of communication, listening and responding, commitment and question, leading and waiting" (Steve Paxton).

While in performance a reflection (projected on a see through scrim) of my own physical representation in the form of a cyber-human occurs. My physical actions, movements, and gestures are enacted; at this point the wireless electronic and physical contact (from afar) between my cyber partner and myself become more intensely intertwined and committed to the moment-by-moment unfolding of the "duet". Like in CI, the success of such physical, virtual and spiritual interaction "necessitates mutual support and trust" (Joe Edelman), which is to say that there are many levels by witch we are interacting over and beyond the range of our ability, experience, inhibition and electronic connection.



Author Bio
Yacov Sharir graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art, Rubin Academy of Music and Dance, and danced professionally for thirty years including thirteen with the Bat-Shave dance Company. Awarded a two-year fellowship from the Banff Centre for the Arts, where he collaborated with Diane Gromala, and Marcos Novak on a virtual reality project entitled, "Dancing with the Virtual Dervish-Virtual Bodies." Received numerous National Endowment for the Arts Choreographic Fellowships Awards. He teaches computer-aided choreography, virtual reality, and multi-disciplinary art and technology graduate courses. He is a frequent keynote speaker at arts and technology conferences and symposia in the USA sand around the world. Sharir explores the use of interactive technologies, wearable computing/devices, and the creation of manufactured cyber human characters for the purpose of augmenting all aspects of performance.