Multi-award winning project danceroom Spectroscopy (dS), exists at the frontier of Sci-Art collaborations.

exploring new languages and crossovers on the interface of physics research, interactive art, education, performance, and technology, dS interprets people as energy fields, allowing them to influence both graphics and sound using their movement.

Interactive, multi-award winning installation rooted at the interface of interactive chemical physics, real-time supercomputing, digital art, and education. danceroom Spectroscopy (dS) interprets visitors as energy fields, allowing you to influence both sound and image using your movement.

During a dS installation, you can literally step into, wander through, and play in the atomic nano-world. By fusing 3d imaging and rigorous molecular dynamics, dS transforms people into energy fields. As you move and interact with the molecular simulations, your energy fields trigger sounds and images. The net result is an ever-changing set of immersive real-time images and sounds: a unique, exciting experience, and a truly remarkable spectacle of art and science.

Learn more about the science and collaborators of dS here on a dedicated project website.

Led by Royal Society Research Fellow Dr. David Glowacki, dS began as a way of communicating research in chemical physics to non-specialist audiences. Consequently, dS is built using much of the same physics, theories and equations that research scientists use to study how atoms move. What is shows you is not so different to what’s happening around you all the time, but normally too small for our eyes to see.

Fusing 3d imaging and rigorous molecular physics, dS transforms people into energy fields and lets them wander through the nano-quantum world, where they trigger sounds and images. There’s no limit on the number of “players”, and the more they cooperate, the more engrossing it becomes.

dS launched in spring 2011 with a large scale public exhibition at the Arnolfini (Bristol UK). Since then, it has been installed at the Barbican (London, UK), the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany), and World Science Festival (NYC, USA). For a full list of installations visit the Events page.

dS and Hidden Fields, which is a performance created using dS, have won a number of awards, including 2013 Media Innovation Award for “Best Installation” and “Outstanding Contribution to Innovation”,  2012/13 University of Bristol Engagement Award, 2012 Royal Television Society Digital Innovation Award, and Honorary Mention for the Prix Ars Electronica. Full list of awards here.

The project received support from the University of Bristol, EPRSC, Watershed, Arts Council England, Nvidia, and the Pervasive Media Studios.

Understanding the fundamental patterns and rules that govern what matter does on the nanoscale requires insight into the strange frontier-world where classical mechanics is just starting to fade out, and quantum mechanics is just starting to kick in. On top of this, nano-systems tend to involve LOTS of atoms and molecules, with each one affecting every other one. For those attempting to fundamentally understand and predict nano-scale behaviour, it gets complicated in a hurry.

Scientists don’t really know what the nanoscale world looks like, but they’re obsessed with making representations anyway, whether it’s in terms of balls and sticks, blobs, terraces, cavities, ribbons, sheets, etc..

dS is a new attempt at visualizing the nano-world, but with a twist. It puts us in the picture. People can literally step into, wander through, and interact with the nano-world. dS invites you to move, observe, play, and even dance.

Using cutting edge 3d imaging, real-time computing, and rigorous physics, dS transforms you into a real-time energy field, which in turn warps the particle dynamics of a simulated nano-world. It’s similar to the effect of a pebble dropped into a pool of water – only the pebbles get to watch themselves and the complex ripples and waves they create as they trigger sound and image to generate interactive visuals and soundscapes.