Ensemble, Entrainment, and Movement in the Mess of the Matter: Non-anthropocentric Design of Responsive-Media Environments

In this paper, we describe an experimental approach to the study of coordinated group activity (ensemble) through the development of a responsive media system and enacted movement-based research. Interested in how ensembles emerge, we take into account the material conditions of phenomena associated with coordination and entrainment. To this end we share about the development of a responsive media system and as well as a series of movement experiments with the system. As a unframing tactic, we suspend ontological assumptions which occlude, mask, or ignore relation and event as emergent and unprestateable. This tactic belies both our observations of event as well as the design of responsive behaviors in the media environment apparatus. Our investigations yielded insights for us about embodied experience with respect to technicity.