What is „European Tele-Plateaus“?

European Tele-Plateaus is an international initiative planned to run through 2010 with an aim to create publicly accessible networked audiovisual sites. The main objective is to make possible and support real-time sensory-physical interactions of people over long distances. Therefore, we work to establish a permanent network allowing for direct audiovisual real-time interactions between similarly configured public sites and performance stages across Europe. Tele-Plateaus will be composed, controlled and structured by movements of people from different cities. Within these networked stages and sites people from Dresden, Madrid, Norrköping, and Prague (among the first connected cities) can dance and play together. They can simultaneously create pictures, sounds, and light effects by means of their own movements without operating any additional interfaces. The shared virtual hyper-site is based on the generation of data that is available for processing to all computers within a common network. Movement parameters (speed, spatial position, etc.) are captured and digitalised by camera-based motion system and exchanged between computers at distant locations with a technically similar configuration. At concrete sites the numerically coded movement parameters are creatively transformed into audiovisual outputs and processes. Tele-Plateaus will ultimately provide accessible environments for live telematic artistic performances and other collaborative activities.