CapturedBodies [work in progress] (2025)

 

We investigate the creative potential of technical body extension and the danger of surveillance and manipulation in the InternetOfBodies. We research how the individual movement material of four dancers changes when it simultaneously becomes sound material through technical body modification and the classical boundary between choreography and composition dissolves. For this we use a self-built motion suit that captures the dancers' movements and sends the data to a machine learning system that analyzes them and generates sounds from them. 

The CapturedBodies project is divided into several modules. In 2022, we developed the motion suit and ML/AI system as part of a fellowship at the Academy for Theater and Digitality called MergingEntities (modul 1). In 2023 we explored the new system in a perfomatic context, elaborated movement and sound material and developed the light concept, where the dancers are tracked by moving head lights through a LiDAR laser tracking system and create light sculptures in space with their formation (modul 2). From the developed material, a dance piece is to be created in 2025 that takes up the content of our last work "SystemFailed" and poses the question of whether increasing digitalization with the expansion of our possibilities and individual abilities represents a positive drive in human development or an algorithmic control and thus manifests compelling architectures in which we inevitably become norm-conforming subjects (modul 2).

Teaser

team

Concept: ArtesMobiles | Performance: Sharlan Adams, Howool Baek, Mad Kate , Hayato Yamaguchi | Direction, Choreography, Costume: Nina Maria Stemberger | Composition, Sounddesign: Birk Schmithüsen | Light Design: Hans Leser | Programming: Daniel Dalfovo, Aaron Schwerdtfeger | Operator: Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger | Motion Suits: Felix Bonowski | Compositorial Support: Bnaya Halperin-Kaddari | Production: ehrliche Arbeit - Kulturbüro_ Sandra Kloess | Production Assistance: Isabella Jahns | Video Documentation: Alexander Hector | Unity Support: Elisabeth Scholz Mentoring: Prof. Dr. Dirk Helbing, ETH Zürich

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Nina Maria Stemberger

is a performance artist, choreographer, theater and dance educator. She cofounded the performance company ArtesMobiles. In her work, she repeatedly asks herself how art in public space can be an integral part of the development of future perspectives and how it can be shaped.

further projects: SystemFailed, BehindWalls, SpeculativeAI, *JU.PI.TER*, MagicDrink, LaBodega, SquareLand

artesmobiles.art

Birk Schmithuesen

is a media artist living in Leipzig. His work is shown internationally at key media art festivals in France, Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Germany, including re:publica, Chaos Communication Congress, Ars Electronica Festival and ZKM. Birk Schmithüsen is co-founder of ArtesMobiles and FlashClash. For collaborations with the performing arts, he produces interactive audiovisual environments using generative sound design, multi-channel sound, lighting design, video projection mapping and motion tracking.
The performers can interact with the immersive sceneries and the audience is diving into.

further projects: SystemFailed, BehindWalls, SpeculativeAI, *JU.PI.TER*, MagicDrink, LaBodega, SquareLand

birkschmithuesen.com

flashclash.de

soundcloud.com/birk-music

Hans Leser

is a lighting designer, lighting technician, effects artist and electronics hobbyist. In addition to freelance work as a lighting technician in the theatre and event sector, since 2006 he has worked as a lighting designer for various theatre productions at HAU (Berlin), Ballhaus Naunynstraße (Berlin), Theater am Neumarkt (Zurich), Theaterdiscounter (Berlin), Volkstheater Wien, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. He has worked with directors Patrick Wengenroth, Barbara Weber, Bruce LaBruce, Nurkan Erpulat, Hakan Savas Mican, Christiane Rösinger and the groups Die Skills, CHEAP and Rimini Protokoll, among others.

Sharlan Adams

As a first-generation Canadian with Afro-Caribbean heritage, music, culture and expression through movement have always been strong pillars within her early home life and throughout her artistic journey. A practitioner of the performing arts for over 20 years, her dance studies began and centered around ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, hip hop, dancehall and traditional West African dance. After obtaining her bachelors of arts at George Brown college in the commercial dance program. She then went on to explore and work professionally as an international movement artist and choreographer for theater, tv/film and recording artists alike. 

Her creative work has included many different landscapes throughout her career such as audio production, video editing and photography. Now based in Berlin, Shar is looking forward to continuing her journey collaborating, contributing and pushing her boundaries as a choreographer and multidisciplinary performance artist.  

Theater - ( Volksbühne theater; ASFY production, Halle em Berghain; Codess prod. Harbourfront Theater; Gimme one riddim). Tv/Film (O2, Netflix, Nintendo, Ergo, Canon Camera, Mac Cosmetics).

Hayato Yamaguchi

Dancing and Machine Training

Hayato Yamaguchi is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and street artist, who grew up in Tokyo. His style is based on contemporary, jazz, ballet, street dance and acrobatics. After he moved to Germany in 2012, he was engaged with Theater Bonn (Kati Farkas, Caroline Finn), Theater Dortmund (Michael Schmieder, Ricarda Regina Ludigkeit), Dance Compagnie Fredeweß (Hans Fredeweß), Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Karl Alfred Schreiner, Anna Holter), TANZ theater INTERNATIONAL 2015, Dance Theatre Luxembourg (Jean-Guillaume Weis), Theatre Rites in London (Director / Sue Buckmaster, Choreographer / Jamaal Burkmar), Tanzmoto dance company in Essen (Guest Choreographer / Royston Maldoom) etc. He has been a potential artist (dancer) of Cirque du Soleil since March 2015.

https://hayatoyamaguchi.com/

 

Kathryn Fischer | Mad Kate

(they/them) is an electronic producer, sound designer,      performance artist and writer who began working the Berlin performance and club scene in 2004, expanding their unique identity-queering, genderfucking and sexpositive performative work throughout music, theatre and film. Their explorations of borders between/within bodies and touch as political practice have brought them to theaters, communes, technomansions, prisons, dungeons, squats and galleries around the world, often with their multimedia artist duo HYENAZ.

further projects: SystemFailed

Howool Baek

Berlin based Korean choreographer Howool Baek has established her own choreographic language by discovering faceless body expression through body fragments. And she proposes a different perspective on the body through the deconstruction and transformation of the body. By breaking stereotypes about the body, she wants the audience to have a new experience with the body and to look at society from a different perspective. Recently, she expanded the concept of the stage to the digital space and is experimenting with her own choreography method on the digital stage.

Daniel Dalfovo

Integration of the Machine Learning and Tracking Logic in TouchDesigner

Daniel Dalfovo is a Media Artist based in Berlin. After his studies at the University of the Arts his work focused around the intersection of  art, technology and science. From this interdisciplinary genre grew a  body of work and collaborations with internationally renowned artist, research institutions and design studios. Additionally Daniel Dalfovo taught at multiple universities, ranging from Moscow and Shanghai to Berlin.

https://danieldalfovo.de/

Elisabeth Scholz

Support with a “Unity” workshop

Elisabeth Scholz completed her bachelor's degree in computer science and media at Bauhaus University Weimar. During her studies she focused on interface design, robotics, AR & VR, 3D animation and game design. Afterwards, she worked at schnellebuntebilder for a year, working on projects in the field of interaction design.
She gave a three-day workshop in Unity and Blender at Theater Dortmund. There she worked together with ArtesMobiles on a workflow on how to string together animation clips recorded with a motion tracking system to create choreography in three-dimensional space. They also explored how to illuminate the scene using volumetric light.

https://www.elisabethscholz.de/

Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger

Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger is a media computer scientist who studied at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. As a creative coder and visual artist, his focus is on immersive augmentation of reality in the context of computer games, spatial installations and performances. In his work he often uses shader-based video processing and spatialized sound.

Since 2020 Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger has been working for Not A Number GmbH at the Center for Immersive Media Art, Music and Technology in Leipzig. Here he is developing a 3D sound audio plugin. He has also been adding interactive visuals to the Tarmac Festival since 2021 with Polynoiseon. In 2022 Phil Hagen Jungschlaeger participated in the Sound Ecology project "If We Vanish" with cinematographic contributions in India. He currently lives in Berlin. In the interdisciplinary artist collective Latenter Raum he is involved in installations for the art biennial Ortung 13. In addition, he participates in the artist collective minus.eins in productions such as "Lügen über a.l.i.c.e." with the Berliner Symphony and in "Hinter den Zimmern" at Schauspiel Köln in theater productions.

Alexander Hector

studied film at the Kunsthochschule in Hamburg, lives in Berlin and has been working as a freelance filmmaker for 12 years. He works in feature films and documentaries and has shot countless films, trailers and documentaries in the beautiful world of theatre and puppet theatre. Other projects are clearly inspired by the stylised aesthetics of the stage.

further projects: SystemFailed, SquareLand, LaBodega, JU*PI*TER

alexanderhector.com

 

 

Isabella Jahns

graduated from the University of Leipzig in 2022 with a degree in communication and media studies and works in the field of PR and public relations. She has always been interested in theater and creative work, as well as the process of creating different projects and the interaction of all contributors.

further projects: SystemFailed,

CapturedBodies (1. Modul - "MergingEntities") funded by the Digital Culture Programme of the German Federal Cultural Foundation

Developed@AKADEMIE FÜR_THEATER_UND_DIGITALITÄT

"CapturedBodies:exploration" (2. modul) supported by:

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