“Touching Gravity 2/Tilt” is a 2008 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc., (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional support was provided by Frank and Barbara Peters through the Medici Circle award at the University of California at Irvine.
“Touching Gravity 2/Tilt” is an interactive, aerial videodance superimposed on a composited image of two rivers in the towns of North Adams and Adams, Massachusetts. Part of the “Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses” project, the two New England towns are (re)connected through a colorful, fluid, multilayered dance that incorporates the movement of the natural landscape from each town, seen through the “difference” blend mode of the Flash interface.
Users can create and save their own versions of the dance by determining the order and timing of five different clips. Periodically, additional clips will be added so that both the dance and the user experience may evolve.
Composer and instrumentalist Nana Simopoulos has contributed five tracks to accompany the five dance clips; each piece is played on a single instrument representing a different continent. Together, they form a single composition that is layered over the sounds of the two rivers, providing the listener with the ability to remix the musical textures.
“Touching Gravity 2/Tilt” is part of the larger project “Networked Realities: (Re)Connecting the Adamses” — a collaboration between Greylock Arts and Turbulence.org — that includes four commissioned networked art works that will all eventually be housed on the commissioned website www.newadams.es. “Touching Gravity 2/Tilt” will also be part of an interactive, site-specific series at Topia Arts Center (Adams) that looks at the idea of tilting angles of perception to reveal new possibilities.