(April 2020)

STRINGS is a live-streamed and interactive performance. The dancer is wearing electronic devices that react to the collective actions of the audience through a web interface. 

It explores how digital technology can enable collaboration and help us dance together, hold each other from a distance and find a new sense of togetherness.

The dancer is found in her living room after several weeks of self-isolation, losing connection with the outside world, fighting against anxiety and apathy, and contemplating the self. She will rely on the audience interaction to help her live through movement again and reconnect with others.

Using this interactive system, the audience is able to watch the performance in live-stream while collectively deciding how the dancer should move. Each instruction act as invisible strings to (re)animate a living and dancing body. 

STRINGS has been presented as part of 19 Acts of COVID-19 Bravery, a selection of digital performances prompted by the coronavirus outbreak, curated by Brendan Drake and Kate Ladenheim.

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Credits

Direction, performance, creative coding, electronics: Clemence Debaig
UI and network development: Ed Boucher (https://www.artconnect.com/profile/ed-boucher-jeanpaulsoftware-ltd)
Music: Christina Karpodini (https://www.artconnect.com/profile/christina-karpodini)
Creative input and dance partners: Chloe Bellou, Kristia Morabito, Marcello Licitra


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Next performance: 13th of June 2020 (online) - See links

STRINGS

(December 2019)

AUTOMATA is a performance device allowing the dancer to move elements of the outfit by his/her movements.⁠

The project explores the relationship between puppeteer and object, and the transfer of agency between the two. Is the dancer moving to manipulate the objects or is the movement of the objects influencing the dancer. Who is controlling who?⁠

The dancer is wearing an accelerometer on the right arm and another one the left leg. The values received on the accelerometers control the movement of 7 servos placed on the outfit, moving mechanical parts. 3 "flowers" and the left shoulder pad are controlled by the right arm. 2 other "flowers" are controlled by the left leg.⁠⁠

Particular attention has been put on the analysis of the acceleration values on each axis (X, Y, Z) to determine with one to use and set different thresholds for each servo.⁠

Automata

(September 2019)

BOTHER [/ˈbɒðə/] (verb) - Take the trouble to do something / Feel concern about or interest in / Cause trouble or annoyance by interrupting or otherwise inconveniencing someone.

BOTHER is an interactive and durational dance piece inviting the audience to influence, positively or negatively, the fate of the dancer in front of them.

It explores the notions of control, care and digital harassment, questioning how we behave differently when interacting with each other through the proxy of technology. It also intends the portray the impact of that alien agency, inducing pleasure, joy, violence or pain.

BOTHER is set up as a social experiment, exploring how the audience will react when given the power to control the dancer. Will they behave in an empathetic way, allowing the dancer to be free and happy? Or will they act in a more sadistic way, generating violent reactions? Will they care more about the person in front of them or the entertainment they get from the performance?

Performers:
Clemence Debaig, Marialivia Bernardi, Ashley Kim Wakefield, Kristia Morabito, Oliver Charles, Marcello Licitra, Tracy Garcia, Konstantina Katsikari, Ana Vallejo Buitrago, Chloe Bellou, Pedro De Marchi

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Latest exhibitions:
- How is THAT working for you, Goldsmiths University, London - September 2019
- The London Ultra, Bargehouse, Oxo Tower, London - November 2019
- Exit, Ugly Duck, London - April 2020 [postponed]

BOTHER

(April 2019)

Join Me Inside is an interactive installation, inviting visitors to explore their relationship with their own body, especially filtered through digital technology. 

It looks at how it can turn into an obsession. It transforms our body into a kaleidoscopic and hypnotic experience, turning it into an obsession.

It also encourages us to be playful and to embrace our body movements. While observing the beauty of its shapes, it offers a way to abstract ourselves from its materially and help us reconnect with it.

When left alone, Join Me Inside is a projection mapping piece, showing a series of generative visuals. When visitors approach, their own silhouette becomes the graphical shape projected onto the surfaces, creating a kaleidoscopic effect and inviting people to create new visual shapes with their own bodies.

This piece has been presented during the following exhibitions and events:
- Take Courage Gallery - Re-opening night - London, March 2019
- Anamorphic Waves - Ugly Duck - London, April 2019
- Kallida festival - Somerset, July 2019
- The London Ultra - London, November 2019

Join Me Inside

(October 2019)

More Than My Name is a music video realised in collaboration with Mee & The Band. The video is using computer vision algorithms to generate effects based on the movements of the dancers and the tracking of their faces.

The song explores the notions of identity and diversity, especially how modern technology defines us and our identification. However we existed as an identity when we are first born, before we are named, and when our bodies die we somehow still exist having lived, we leave an imprint. This video reveals the us that is unseen, a spiritual take on mental health and proof of our existence.

Technical details:

All the effects have been realised using openframeworks, using computer vision algorithms, there is no post-production. Editing software has only been used for the final edit. 

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Clemence Debaig