Panel Statement

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

Gib­son/Martelli use an­i­ma­tion tools and dig­i­tal meth­ods to ex­plore and re­alise unique ap­proaches in de­vel­op­ing real-time screen based works. This paper will ex­plore the cre­ative ex­pan­sion of in­ter­face de­vel­op­ment into new ter­ri­to­ries evolv­ing sci­ence and new dis­play tech­nolo­gies. Spe­cific at­ten­tion will be paid to the mod­i­fi­ca­tion that na­ture un­der­goes as tech­nol­ogy de­vel­ops.

• Ruth Gib­son & Bruno Martelli  (UK) col­lab­o­rate to cre­ate vir­tual en­vi­ron­ments as lo­ca­tions for in­quiry. The artists’ first work won them a BAFTA nom­i­na­tion and their in­stal­la­tions, video works, on­line pro­jects and per­for­mances have fea­tured in in­ter­na­tional ex­hi­bi­tions and fes­ti­vals in­clud­ing the 52nd Venice Bi­en­nale. Their prac­tice com­bines the phys­i­cal & vir­tual and re­la­tion­ships be­tween nat­ural and ar­ti­fi­cial to make com­puter gen­er­ated en­vi­ron­ments, novel in­ter­faces and video in­stal­la­tions. By re-pur­pos­ing media tools and com­bin­ing them with re­mod­eled ob­jects, prints and in­ter­rupted sur­faces they cre­ate am­bigu­ous topogra­phies to sim­u­late and re­con­fig­ure rep­re­sen­ta­tions of the world. The artists? work pre­sents us with sur­pris­ing jux­ta­po­si­tion of places, trans­pos­ing sites and de­sign­ing in­ter­ac­tive ex­pe­ri­ences for au­di­ences, their in­ves­ti­ga­tion aims to chal­lenge ideas of place & un­der­stand­ings of it. Based in Lon­don, the artists work to­gether and often as igloo with in­ter­na­tional artists. Much of their work is in recre­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments and sys­tems where cod­ing joins hands with chore­o­gra­phies of the body. Their core con­cept is the in­ter­sec­tion be­tween tech­nol­ogy and the human spirit, where our am­biva­lence to tech­nol­ogy is ex­plored with orig­i­nal­ity, hu­mour and in­tel­lect. Their prac­tice is mul­ti­fac­eted rang­ing through in­stal­la­tion, in­ter­ven­tion, vir­tu­al­i­sa­tion, film and per­for­mance draw­ing on the mul­ti­ple lay­ers of re­al­ity and un­re­al­ity.   igloo.org.uk