UW News

September 28, 2011

Viewers control dancer electronically in ‘Mannequin

The exhibit is called Mannequin, but at least one of the things on display will be alive and moving. David Wolbrecht, a graphic designer for UW Creative, will be performing what he calls a dance installation as part of the opening reception for the exhibit, which is put on by the UW Photographers Group.

The exhibit will run Oct. 2 through Nov. 5 at the Wikstrom Brothers Gallery in Wallingford. The opening reception is from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2.

“The concept [for the dance piece] is that Im a marionette whos being controlled by an individual audience member,” Wolbrecht said.

David Wolbrecht demonstrates the dance he'll be doing for the opening of the UW Photographers Group show. Electroluminescent wire in his clothing will light up in response to an onlooker with a touchscreen.

Mary Levin

To accomplish that, Wolbrecht will have electroluminescent wire, commonly known as EL wire, affixed to his clothing. The wire glows like neon, but its cold and can be bent, he explained. Each wire will be connected to one of two packs that hell be wearing, each pack containing an EL sequencer with eight connections. A radio communicates with his laptop, which is in turn hooked up to a touchscreen monitor that has a human form on it.

“So people press on the touchscreen monitor, which is running a program that I will write on my computer,” Wolbrecht said. “It communicates to the radio, which then  transfers the data to the EL sequencer. Depending on which part of the human form is touched, it fires one of these eight connections and that part of my body lights up.”

Wolbrecht will move the part that lights up, and the dance proceeds from there. Hes also wired in small motors to signal body parts with their vibrations, since he wont be able to see all the lights. To create the effect of a marionette, hell be hooked up to a mobile-like apparatus above him that will have EL wire as the “puppet strings.”

Wolbrecht got involved in the exhibit through a co-worker, Kari Berger, who is one of nine photographers exhibiting work. Shes also one of the organizers, with founder Deborah Hughes, of the UW Photographers Group, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

“Kari approached me after theyd decided the theme would be Mannequin,” Wolbrecht said. “She knows I dance, and thought a dance piece would be appropriate for the opening.”

Wolbrecht has been dancing for only a couple of years. A graduate of Pacific Lutheran University, he studied digital media, an individualized major that he created by combining art, communication and music classes and wrapping digital technology into all his assignments. Hes worked at the UW for four and a half years, designing posters, brochures and also creating websites and web applications.

He got into dancing seriously, he said, after asking himself what he really loved to do and realizing that dancing was the answer. “So I wondered how I could pursue it in a way that was more than just going out and having fun. I showed up at my first ballet class a few weeks later. It was really uncomfortable at first, but I kept going. Now I go to ballet and modern dance classes every week.”

For his performance at the reception, Wolbrecht will be wearing a white shirt and pants that allow the glowing EL wire to show up. Other lights in the room will be dimmed and hell have music or sound effects of some kind to accompany him.

Despite the digital technology in his undergraduate program, Wolbrecht said hes an amateur when it comes to electronics. “I figure out what I want to do and then I figure out how to do it.” To help him with this project, he took a couple of workshops at Metrix Create Space — “an electronics hangout for tinkerers” on Capitol Hill. For the rest, he found help online and used an open source programming language called Processing and an open source electronics prototyping platform called Arduino to build the components he needed.

Its the first time Wolbrecht has done anything like this, and he said he enjoyed the work. “Its been a lot of fun problem solving,” he said. “Id come up against a wall — I cant do it this way. So Id ask myself, ‘All right, how can I make this happen? I like the fusion of the art and the technology.”

Wolbrecht is one of two guest artists included in this years UW Photographers Group show. The other is Mel Bingaman, who will exhibit some clay sculptures. The other nine participants are all photographers and members of the group, although one — Debra Stevens — is showing sculptural mixed media pieces rather than photography.
The show will include about 50 photographs from the eight other participants: Sanford C. Barnes, Anita Bingaman, Kari Berger, Tom Cogbill, Robert Fukura, Deborah Conger Hughes, Stephen Edwin Lundgren and Frances Tromp van Holst.

“This is the most diverse show weve ever done in terms of media, including so much more than wall art,” Berger said. “Youd think Mannequin would be static; far from it!”

The UW Photographers Group is open to any UW student, faculty or staff member — active or retired. For more information, email uwpgroup@uw.edu.