Synthetic Bodies

Synthetic Bodies

Matias Vilaplana (SMTD)

Collaborators: Megan Bascom, MFA Student, Graduate Student Instructor and Dancer, School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Hannah Marcus, BFA Dance Student, School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Utku Gurkan, BMusic and Technology and BScience-Engineering Student, Programmer and Technologist, School of Engineering and School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Kate Derringer, current BFA PAT Student, Technologist, School of Music, Theatre & Dance; Isabelle Molnar, current BFA in Design & Production student, School of Music, Theatre & Dance

Synthetic Bodies Technology is constantly shaping the ways we interact and communicate. This is also true for artistic creative processes, affording collaborations that put us in the boundaries of our own disciplines. In this case by using technology as a medium that blends sound and body, it forces new interactions between the disciplines of music and dance in a collaborative context. The computational system affords dancers to control and interact with sounds by using their own bodies, for example, controlling the pitch of a digital synthesizer with the height of the hand, or controlling the envelope of the same synthesizer with the velocity of the arm. The aim is to experiment, document and analyze the methodologies that emerge of a creative process in an interdisciplinary context, contributing to the design of future interactive systems of this nature. The final outcome will be a performance piece based on the interactive system, which is set for April 2019, in the Davis Technology Suite at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.