Jessica Medenbach – Looking Outwards – 06

“Atomos” is a dance production by the choreographer Wayne McGregor. In this production, McGregor created a computer based dancer who is fed random movement data from a sci fi film of McGregor’s choosing. The computerized body then responds to the random algorithm created by the frames in the film and responds in real time, never repeating the same movement.

Real dancers would then respond to the movement of the computer creating a human-digital dialogue. As the dancers moved to the computer, the costume designers then monitored the biorhythms of the dancers, and then created costumes based off of that.

What I find to be interesting and inspiring about this piece is that it takes in so many different kinds of data, turns that data into numbers or movement based off of numbers and then creates something entirely new out of that. This creates a constantly evolving piece. To me, using all this outside data to stimulate the next part of the process creates the possibility for really interesting moments to take place that are completely grounded in the present moment of performance making the viewer aware of their own body and relationship to various outside stimuli and technologies.

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/unlikely-algorithms-wayne-mcgregors-troupe-combine-biometric-data-80s-sci-fi-movies-and-computerized-choreography