[ISEA2011] Panel: Sarah What­ley – Trans­lat­ing Mo­tion Cap­ture Analy­sis into Per­for­mance

Panel Statement

Panel: Motion Capture and Dance: what it can do, what it can’t do, and what it should never attempt

This paper speaks about how mo­tion cap­ture analy­sis trans­lates into per­for­mance events, and specif­i­cally the im­pact on the viewer; what choices do artists make in terms of com­po­si­tion/en­vi­ron­ment/du­ra­tion and how does motor ac­tion and em­bod­ied human ex­pe­ri­ence com­mu­ni­cate through mo­tion cap­ture vi­su­al­i­sa­tions?  What does the viewer ex­pe­ri­ence and what are the crit­i­cal frame­works that the artist/viewer/scholar draws on to de­scribe and doc­u­ment the work?

  • Sarah What­ley is Pro­fes­sor of Dance at Coven­try Uni­ver­sity (UK). As a re­searcher and dance artist, her re­search spe­cialises in the in­ter­face be­tween dance and new tech­nolo­gies, dance analy­sis, so­matic dance prac­tice and ped­a­gogy, and in­clu­sive dance. She is work­ing on sev­eral AHRC-funded pro­jects: she led the the Siob­han Davies archive pro­ject and is now work­ing on the Dig­i­tal Dance Archives pro­ject and is part of the Screen­dance net­work. She is host­ing Ruth Gib­son, AHRC Cre­ative Fel­low, re­search­ing mo­tion cap­ture and Skin­ner Re­leas­ing Tech­nique for im­mer­sive en­vi­ron­ments and is a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tional Ed­u­ca­tion Work­group for The Forsythe Com­pany’s Mo­tion Bank pro­ject. She edits the Jour­nal of Dance and So­matic Prac­tices and is on the Ed­i­to­r­ial Board of the In­ter­na­tional Jour­nal of Screen­dance. siobhandaviesreplay.com