Controlled evaluation of screen-free lighting feedback

Determine whether projecting per-dancer ambient lighting onto performers, rather than using a screen-based visualization, changes participants’ experiences of shared agency and social presence in collaborative dance with the Encypher system.

Background

The live performance replaced Encypher’s visualization screen with colored pools of light projected onto the dancers’ zones, with each dancer’s movement energy controlling the intensity of the corresponding light. The authors observed that this arrangement restored mutual attention among dancers and made individual contributions legible to the audience.

Because the performance did not collect participant or audience feedback, the authors explicitly leave unresolved whether this screen-free lighting configuration produces different experiences of shared agency and social presence. A controlled comparison is needed to distinguish the effects of ambient lighting from those of screen-based feedback.