For the London Olympics Quayola and Memo Akten collaborated on Forms, a piece that uses motion capture, animation, code, and Olympic events to create dynamic electronic art. The piece begins with static images from the video, and out of context, they don’t look like much. The forms are then set in motion and the viewer can clearly track the human body through space. In the original installation, the source footage was displayed on a nearby small screen instead of embedded in the corner of the work. The piece was on display in Bradford, England at the National Media Museum in 2012.
I’m always fascinated by the human body and its capabilities, and this work really showcases that! This piece was so intriguing to me because it abstracts the body within the frame and captures the essence of the athlete’s feat by emphasizing the motion footprint as the body moves through space. I’m not sure if this was intentionally done by the artists, but I found it interesting that in some of the shots, it’s not obvious where the body is, or what the action was while in others it’s much clearer. I’m curious how my viewing experience would change if I was able to observe the piece without the source playback.