VIMMA goes Odradical PeCap Exercises for Becoming

19.5. – 29.5.2014

Inspired by Kafka’s uncanny Odradek, Peter Handke’s Sprechstück titled Self-Accusation and the works of Zdzisław Beksińskin, the 2014 live Performance Capture (PeCap) workshops of the Vimma project (2013-14) embrace the idea of becoming.

The acts of witnessing and participating in becoming not only reveal what real time PeCap with Motion Capture systems and related processes of performance, direction and animation are all about, but also determine how various factors and variables of the work – such as ableness, cooperation, and glitches – should be approached.

The Vimma workshops of 2014 address this field of problems via the following research questions and appropriate lines of practical work: What kind of psychophysical cooperation allows two or more performers to drive/puppeteer an individual virtual entity in live PeCap? What questions of direction should we address with (or are essential for) this kind of live animation? What is the role of the animator in this process? How can the above entity interact with pre-designed virtual environments, and what does this require from performers, directors, animators and virtual set designers?

The task of the May workshop is to outline and design the parameters of these questions. The focus of the 2014 workshops is on professional production and relevant training issues.

The researchers and mentors of the May workshop include
Simon Alexanderson (mocap development, Cabaret Electrique, SWE), Tanja Bastamow (set design, Aalto Univ., FI),
Joel Bennett (3D animation, Queensland Univ. of Technology, AU) Henrik Bäckbro (puppeteering, Cabaret Electrique, SWE),
Chris Carter (3D animation, QUT)
Matthew Delbridge (ws developer, Scenography & new media, QUT)! Mika Lehtinen (direction, T7, Univ. of Tampere, FI),
Jaakko Lenni-Taattola (ws coordination, T7, UTA),
Steven Mohr (3D animation, QUT),
Riku Roihankorpi (ws convener, Theatre and drama research, UTA), and a number of set design students from Aalto University.

Additional information:

Riku Roihankorpi
Principal investigator
riku.roihankorpi@uta.fi

Jaakko Lenni-Taattola
Project coordinator
jaakko.lenni-taattola@uta.fi