“unnamed soundsculpture”





Project by Daniel Franke & Cedric Kiefer



produced by:

onformative

ChopChop



Documentation:

vimeo.com/38505448

Text: Sandra Moskova



The basic idea of the project is built upon the consideration of creating

a moving sculpture from the recorded motion data of a real person. For

our work we asked a dancer to visualize a musical piece (Kreukeltape by

Machinenfabriek) as closely as possible by movements of her body. She was

recorded by three depth cameras (Kinect), in which the intersection of the

images was later put together to a three-dimensional volume (3d point cloud),

so we were able to use the collected data throughout the further process.

The three-dimensional image allowed us a completely free handling of the

digital camera, without limitations of the perspective. The camera also reacts

to the sound and supports the physical imitation of the musical piece by the

performer. She moves to a noise field, where a simple modification of the

random seed can consistently create new versions of the video, each offering

a different composition of the recorded performance. The multi-dimensionality

of the sound sculpture is already contained in every movement of the dancer,

as the camera footage allows any imaginable perspective.

The body – constant and indefinite at the same time – “bursts” the space

already with its mere physicality, creating a first distinction between the self

and its environment. Only the body movements create a reference to the

otherwise invisible space, much like the dots bounce on the ground to give it

a physical dimension. Thus, the sound-dance constellation in the video does

not only simulate a purely virtual space. The complex dynamics of the body

movements is also strongly self-referential. With the complex quasi-static,

inconsistent forms the body is “painting”, a new reality space emerges whose

simulated aesthetics goes far beyond numerical codes.

Similar to painting, a single point appears to be still very abstract, but the

more points are connected to each other, the more complex and concrete

the image seems. The more perfect and complex the “alternative worlds” we

project (Vilém Flusser) and the closer together their point elements, the more

tangible they become. A digital body, consisting of 22 000 points, thus seems

so real that it comes to life again.

nominated for the for the MuVi Award:

kurzfilmtage.de/en/competitions/muvi-award/selection.html

see video in full quallity:

daniel-franke.com/unnamed_soundsculpture.mov

HQ Stills

flickr.com/photos/37752604@N05/sets/72157629203600952/



















