"InterPlay: AnARTomy" features two dancers, poetry, a host of sketch artists, and digital animators, and requires nearly a dozen computer systems to compile live video feeds from four other universities. The video feed of the sketchers and performers in other locations --Indianapolis, Indiana; Fairbanks, Alaska; Long Island, New York; and Cardiff, Wales -- are projected and "mixed" on a large screen behind the dancers. InterPlay is the work of Jimmy and Beth Miklavcic.




During the year-long development process, the Miklavcics meet with participants via open-source video conferencing software. Then, the "telematic" performance is woven into a multi-leveled, live performance and cinematic work that incorporates feeds from artists, musicians and technicians at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianpolis (IUPUI),University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Long Island University in New York, and Cardiff University in Wales (full bios of the cast and crew can be found here). The performance is designed specifically for viewing at the University of Utah Intermountain Network and Scientific Computation Center (INSCC), giving Utah audiences the best seats in the country.


An operator during the performance arranges the screens dependent on what the dancers, animators and artists are doing. Digital MC Jimmy Miklavcic manipulates the relationships between the various performances by combining the video streams into the center digital mix of the display -- all to create a dynamic, collaborative performance. "This thing is so intertwined that calling it art and technology isn't correct because they're so symbiotic in a way," Beth and Jimmy Miklavcic tell us.




Beth and Jimmy will be giving a presentation about their previous InterPlay project -- Nel Tempo Di Sogno (2007) -- Thursday, April 16, at 1 p.m. at the University of Utah's Center for High Performance Computing. They'll talk about the scene-by-scene tech requirements to pull off an InterPlay performance.