Landing on Body
Julika & Tin
Landing on Body
Julika & Tin
Description
Our project is about a speculative future body. We were thinking about how to connect the body, technology and different materials for a storytelling costume/performance.
Together with an artificial intelligence we collaboratively wrote a story, that is talking about bodies in the future (Pic.4). Those bodies have weird shapes, feel diconnected from their senses and are disgusted by their own skin. They have to find new ways showing emotions and connecting with each other.
For building a skin-like slimy texture we experimented a lot with bioplastic (Pic. 1-3). Added different ingredients, colors and salt for making it stabil and conductive. The next step was to create a new „weird“ body shape. We made some sketches (Pic. 5) and started building a basic framework with mesh fence (Pic. 6). We used paper mache and latex for the surface (Pic. 7-10) and installed four objects as sensors on the finished body-shape (Pic. 11).
There are five sensors based on the story: The „disgusting skin sensor“ ist the main sensor. By touching the bioplastic parts, all over the costume (Pic. 25) different disgusting sounds are activated depending of the pressure of the touches (sounds 1-6).
The four other sensors are used to express different emotions through movement, material, sound and video projections on the body. The videos were inspired my emotion maps (Pic. 12). We worked with anger, happiness, love/balance and sadness/depression. The maps are showing the parts on the body where you can feel heat or cold related to a specific emotion.
There is the „furious squeeze sensor“: It is an flexibel ball using the movement of squeezing for expressing the feeling of anger (Pic. 15). The video which gets activated by pressing (7_2) uses red colors and is projected mainly on the upper body and head, because you can feel heat in those areas (Pic. 13/14). The sounds are wild and agitated (sound 7).
The „suddenly sad sensor“ is used to express sadness by letting the head hang down, the chin resting on the shoulder(Pic. 18). By that a video of dark and blue colors is activated (Pic. 16/17, video 9_2), moving from top to bottom of the body to express heaviness and coldness pushing the body down. The sound also underlines this atmosphere (sound 9).
Another one is the „balancing nipple sensor“. By the movement of rotation on a massage brush – installed next to the breast, looking like nipples (Pic. 22) – dreamy, relaxing sound is activated with sparkling tones (sound 8). The video projection is mainly on the middle of the body (8_2), with soft colors illustrating the feeling of balance and love (Pic. 23).
The last one is the „happy fluffy sensor“. By stroking and twirling a fluffy tail (Pic. 21/22) colorful videos are projected all over the body and a happy sound is activated (Pic. 19, sound 10, 10_2).
The person who is wearing the costume interacts with those sensors and can use them to tell the story of this future body. When non of the sensors is activated there is a default mode, a skin like texture is projected on the body and a background sound is played (sound 11, 11_2).
Recordings
Videos
Images
