Capturing Stillness
2013 Falling Upwards – Realtime Virtual Environment with Oculus Rift (video extract).
Capturing Stillness uses performance capture and computer game worlds to create transformative experiences derived from Skinner Releasing Dance Technique and its poetics. The study questions the relationships that arise between the poetic imagery cited in the pedagogy aligned with motion analysis, visualisation techniques and digital technologies & how these findings in combination with SRT principles can permeate the development of kinaesthetic Human Computer Interfaces for mobile devices and large scale projected realtime 3D environments.
Gibson / Martelli performance captured 16 dancers from across the globe in the Bugatti Lab at Coventry University and motion.lab at Deakin University, Melbourne. Visualisations of the movement data are incorporated into a series of new Augmented Reality and Stereoscopic Virtual Environments for CAVE & Oculus Rift.
As the first study of its kind to interrogate SRT dance practice in the field of motion capture and interactive virtual environments, the project resulted in exhibitions, conference contributions, multimedia publications, didactic materials and various other events and public engagement activities.
Selected Talks:
Figure in a Landscape Institute of Sustainable Engineering, Derby University.
Figure in Landscape CAFKA 14 Communitech, Kitchener, Canada.
Walking with Dancers Leeds University.
Palais de Danse III C-DaRE, Coventry University.
Sensing Virtual Space QUAD, Derby.
2013
I danced myself to a standstill Research Seminar Series Plateau a loeuvre. Universite Stendhal, Grenoble, France.
Figure & Landscape at Proto-Tools, a 2 day event at Flat-Time House, London.
kinosphir: shes lost control at Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, London.
spatial illusion velocity perception: places that exists in reality but may only be found in the imagination Dance & Somatic Conferences, Streamed event from Canada.
Gestalt Grace Psi Stanford University, USA.
Figure & Landscape OCADU, Toronto, Canada.
still moving Unknown Fields Division Architects Association, London.
Palais de Danse Salon II ICE, Coventry.
hanging in the balance Shifting Balances Symposium, ICE, Coventry.
kinosphir – shes lost control – as yet Impossible- futurology lecture series MediaCity /Salford University.
kinosphir – shes lost control Computer Arts Society Lectures, British Computer Society, London.
2012
and the stillness is dancing National Institute of Creative Arts, Speaking Performance Series at University of Auckland, National Institute of Creative Arts, NZ.
Figure & Landscape Media Design School; Game Development Department Auckland, New Zealand.
Keynote Address: Dance research directions from a UK perspective – and the stillness is dancing National Dance Research Forum, Ausdance held at Deakin University motion.Lab and Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia.
2011
Motion Capture and Dance: what it can do, what it can’t do, what it should never attempt ISEA Sabannci University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Capturing Stillness Best Papers Electronic Visualisation and the Arts EVA British Computer Society.
Porous Borders Dance & Somatic Conference, Coventry.
2010
Capturing Stillness Somatic Embodiment, Agency & Mediation in Digital Mediated Environments (SEAM) Conference, The Seymour Centre, Sydney, Australia
Credits:
Gaby Agis, Eszter Gal,Bettina Neuhaus, Kirsty Alexander, Joe Moran, Florence Peake, Julie Nathanielsz, Nicola Gibbons, Siobhan O’Neil, Robert Davidson, Theresa Moriaty, Titta Court, Katye Coe, Wendy Smith, Polly Hudson & Ruth Gibson.
Special thanks
Joan Skinner, Skinner Releasing Institute, Patrick Dickinson, Duncan Rowland, Ida Topft
Supported by
AHRC Creative Fellowship, Coventry University C-DaRE (2010-2013)
Lisa Ullmann Traveling Scholarship (2010)
Deakin motion.lab artists- in- residence ( 2012) Australia, ARC Discovery Grant – Project Building Innovative Capacity in Australian Dance.
Communitech, Kitchener, Canada.
CAFKA/Christie artists -in-residence ( 2013 -2014), Canada