manipulating multiple events. However what the system does is not merely translate. And by translate we mean in this instance, change a movement into sound. Although perhaps it was our desire when we first set out to use new technology. But the notion of one-to-one translation is perhaps a symptom of our isolationist single art-form stance – translation means the transformation of one language into another – it does not suggest a combination of languages, or the development of a hybrid language, or even the development of a separate language entirely. Translation actually implies separation. Although we might have hoped for translation, what we discovered the system actually does is ‘en-code’. In other words, it does not so much translate as add to and codify with widening significances, both movement, visual and audio gestures. The most sophisticated gestural systems – those of Asian dance, for example – bring into play all segments of the limbs, even the fingertips, and vest them with symbolic even cosmic significance. In the same way the Bodycoder system encodes some of the limbs and fingers of the body with audio and visual significance and vice versa.

Gestures and movement have an immediate gravitas which registers on acoustic and visual levels. Even at moments when the dancer moves freely without affecting sound or visuals there is a gravity and a close attention to detail because of the atmosphere of significance – in this way the dancer remains in touch with the significance and gravity of the interactive state. This sensation can be likened to an intense conversation between a group of friends, when the room goes quiet, all who are present are still thinking about, and are still in connection with the conversation. It can be likened to the silence between notes, the silences being an equal part of the musical composition. Such moments are allowed to punctuate pieces that we make for the Bodycoder System, not as a strong rhythmic impulse, but they naturally occur more organically, like a simple exhalation after a period of complexity. There are no separations, as before, but a development which progresses in terms of depth as much as it is in terms of a linearity. The use of 3D graphics in our current works for the Bodycoder, emphasise this aesthetic drive toward the opening of depth, as do the type of audio palettes used and the kind of interior sound manipulation directed by the dancer.

Instead of creating distance both physical and aesthetic – the system creates the possibility of depth in which the creation of a variety of aesthetic spaces, in which any number of performance events can occur, are being formed organically and enclosed and supported within the kind of performance architecture which the system imposes. As a result, one is aware of seeing the performance perspectively. One may speak of ‘horizons’ both visual/acoustic/performative and atmospheric against which foreground elements are generated and manipulated in real-time. Being aware of the multi-dimensional quality of the work is now of major concern during the collaborative/compositional process as is the attention to allow room for ‘spaces’ to occur naturally within the work. This means not allowing ourselves to use the system like a sledge hammer, i.e. not using all of it’s potential either physically, acoustically or visually at once, but being aware of the manner in which gestures, sounds and visual images coalesce and develop into a strong multi-faceted language.

Realisation of the unique qualities of the system has led us to develop particular