The costume of MoCap: A spatial collision of velcro, avatar and Oskar Schlemmer

Scene ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-232
Author(s):  
Matt Delbridge
Keyword(s):  
Motion Capture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Mathematical Properties ◽  
Victor Turner ◽  
Spatial Discourse ◽  
Screen Space ◽  
Contemporary Practice ◽  
A Performance

The rationale that governs motion of the organic in the cubical leans towards a transformation of the body in space, emphasizes its mathematical properties and highlights the potential to measure and plot movement – this is the work of a Motion Capture (MoCap) system. The translation in the MoCap studio from physical to virtual is facilitated by the MoCap suit, a device that determines the abstract cubical representation that drives first the neutral, and then the characterized avatar in screen space. The enabling nature of the suit, as apparatus, is a spatial phenomenon informed by Schlemmer’s abstract ‘native’ costume and his vision of the Tanzermensch as the most appropriate form to occupy cubical space. The MoCap suit is similarly native. It bridges the physical and virtual, provides a Victor Turner like threshold and connection between environments, enacting a spatial discourse facilitated by costume. This collision of Velcro, Avatar and Oskar Schlemmer allows a performance of space, binding historical modernity to contemporary practice. This performance of activated space is captured by a costume that endures, in Dorita Hannah’s words, despite the human form.

scholarly journals The Machine as an Extension of the Body: When Identity, Immersion and Interactive Design Serve as Both Resource and Limitation for the Disabled

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 121-135
Author(s):  
Donna Davis ◽  
Shelby Shelby
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Motion Capture ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Role Identity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Text To Speech ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Social Communities ◽  
The Disabled ◽  
Technological Affordances

This research explores how the technological affordances of emerging social virtual environments and VR platforms where individuals from an online disability community are represented in avatar form, correspond to these users’ development of embodied identity, ability, and access to work and social communities. The visual attributes of these avatars, which can realistically reflect the user’s physical self or divert from human form entirely, raise interesting questions regarding the role identity plays in the workplace, be it gender, race, age, weight, or visible disability. Additionally, the technology itself becomes fundamental to identity as the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), motion capture, and speech-to-text/text-to-speech technologies create digital capabilities that become part of an individual’s identity. This raises further questions about how virtual world technologies can both increase and potentially create barriers to accessibility for individuals who find freedom in their technologically embodied surrogates.

Making Up 3D Bodies

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Kiona Hagen Niehaus ◽  
Rebecca Fiebrink
Keyword(s):  
Software Tool ◽  
The Body ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Modeling Systems ◽  
Exploratory Approach ◽  
Disability Status ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Impact

This paper describes the process of developing a software tool for digital artistic exploration of 3D human figures. Previously available software for modeling mesh-based 3D human figures restricts user output based on normative assumptions about the form that a body might take, particularly in terms of gender, race, and disability status, which are reinforced by ubiquitous use of range-limited sliders mapped to singular high-level design parameters. CreatorCustom, the software prototype created during this research, is designed to foreground an exploratory approach to modeling 3D human bodies, treating the digital body as a sculptural landscape rather than a presupposed form for rote technical representation. Building on prior research into serendipity in Human-Computer Interaction and 3D modeling systems for users at various levels of proficiency, among other areas, this research comprises two qualitative studies and investigation of the impact on the first author's artistic practice. Study 1 uses interviews and practice sessions to explore the practices of six queer artists working with the body and the language, materials, and actions they use in their practice; these then informed the design of the software tool. Study 2 investigates the usability, creativity support, and bodily implications of the software when used by thirteen artists in a workshop. These studies reveal the importance of exploration and unexpectedness in artistic practice, and a desire for experimental digital approaches to the human form.

scholarly journals Organisational readiness for introducing a performance management system

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ochurub ◽  
Mark Bussin ◽  
Xenia Goosen
Keyword(s):  
Performance Management ◽  
Management System ◽  
Change Readiness ◽  
Readiness For Change ◽  
The Body ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Performance Management System ◽  
Performance Management Systems ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
A Performance

Orientation: The successful introduction of performance management systems to the public service requires careful measurement of readiness for change. Research purpose: This study investigated the extent to which employees were ready for change as an indication of whether their organisation was ready to introduce a performance management system (PMS).Motivation for the study: Introducing system changes in organisations depends on positive employee preconditions. There is some debate over whether organisations can facilitate these preconditions. This research investigates change readiness linked to the introduction of a PMS in a public sector organisation. The results add to the growing literature on levels of change readiness.Research design, approach and method: The researchers used a quantitative, questionnairebased design. Because the organisation was large, the researchers used stratified sampling to select a sample from each population stratum. The sample size was 460, which constituted 26% of the total population. They used a South African change readiness questionnaire to elicit employee perceptions and opinions.Main findings: The researchers found that the organisation was not ready to introduce a PMS. The study identified various challenges and key factors that were negatively affecting the introduction of a PMS.Practical/managerial implications: The intention to develop and introduce performance management systems is generally to change the attitudes, values and approaches of managers and employees to the new strategies, processes and plans to improve productivity and performance. However, pre-existing conditions and attitudes could have an effect. It is essential to ensure that organisations are ready to introduce performance management systems and to provide sound change leadership to drive the process effectively. This study contributes to the body of knowledge about the challenges and factors organisations should consider when they introduce performance management systems.Contribution/value-add: This research adds to the knowledge about aspects of change readiness, change management and introducing change initiatives.

The Body Imaged: The Human Form and Visual Culture since the Renaissance

1994 ◽  
pp. 117
Author(s):  
Caroline Evans ◽  
Kathleen Adler ◽  
Marcia Pointon ◽  
Lynda Nead
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form

The Body Breached: Post-Soviet Masculinity on Screen

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Goscilo
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Male Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Soviet Cinema ◽  
Material Values

Whereas the utopian male body of the Soviet Imaginary hyperbolized and recast in steel or bronze the anatomical ideals of classical antiquity (Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘closed body’), post-Soviet cinema typically has featured a male corporeality resembling the open body of apertures and protruberances posited by Bakhtin, but as degraded, marred, and vulnerable (Kenneth Clark) rather than celebratory or regenerative. Thus the indomitable heroes of hypertrophied bulk, brawn, and beauty in Stalinist films such as Grigorii Aleksandrov’s Circus (1936), Mikhail Kalatozov’s Valerii Chkalov (1941), and Mikheil Chiaureli’s Fall of Berlin (1949) have been superseded by the dramatically violated and traumatized physiques of protagonists in recent films confronting war—Aleksandr Nevzorov’s Purgatory (1998 ), Valerii Todorovskii’s My Stepbrother Frankenstein (2004), Aleksandr Veledinskii’s Alive (2006)—and those reassessing the Stalinist era: Aleksei German’s Khrustalev, the Car (1998) and Pavel Livnev’s Hammer and Sickle (1994). Indeed, the latter explicitly deconstructs the forcible transformation of Soviet citizenry into fantastic icons of Stakhanovite virility and its tragic consequences. Similarly, post-Soviet onscreen crime devastates the male body, and nowhere more vividly than in Filipp Iankovskii’s Lermontov-indebted Sword Bearer (2006), which violently imprints all contemporary experience, most of it lethal, on the human form in a world ruled by material values and devoid of communal ideals.

Fractured and Effaced Façades

2021 ◽  
pp. 162-185
Author(s):  
Ron J. Popenhagen
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Deprivation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Antonin Artaud ◽  
Body Form ◽  
Dynamic Expression ◽  
Marc Chagall ◽  
Dynamic Form ◽  
The Face ◽  
Involuntary Displacement

The rise of Fascism in Europe and its aftermath rest ever in the background of Chapter Six and its collection of ‘Disfigured Bodies’. The face and gaze of Antonin Artaud best characterises the tone of this series of violent destructions, lost ones and the isolated (like Picasso in occupied Paris). Amid ‘Veiled and Displaced Faces’ and ‘Empty Gazes’, involuntary displacement and sensory deprivation haunt representations of the human form. The head and human figures presented here are almost unrecognisable when re-conceived by a metteur en scène like Étienne Decroux or a sculptor like Alberto Giacometti. Marc Chagall, in exile, invents fantasy forms that masquerade the figures of opera and ballet performers with colourful, cushioned exteriors in magical scenographic spaces. Experimentation with actor as object manipulator or manipulacteur, like the scenographic, dynamic form in some of Jacques Lecoq’s work, displace dynamic expression to ‘things’ outside of the body form itself. In Chapter Six, some non-verbal performers search for statements beyond language: texts in the materiality of space itself. The abstracted silhouette speaks as depersonalised, masquerading image.

The Werewolf, Inside and Out

2020 ◽  
pp. 82-108
Author(s):  
Daniel Ogden
Keyword(s):  
Inner Core ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Human Element ◽  
The Core ◽  
Opposite Process ◽  
Human Flesh

Ancient werewolf thinking was strongly articulated in accordance with an axis between an inside and an outside, in three ways. First, the werewolf was often understood as a combination of an outer carapace and an inner core: more often the human element formed the carapace, and the lupine element the core, but the opposite arrangement could also obtain. Usually the humanoid carapace was identified, awkwardly, with the werewolf’s human clothing, and the wolf was revealed once this was shed; but sometimes, perhaps, the wolf could be more deeply buried within, as in the cases of those, like Aristomenes, that boasted a hairy heart. The inner and outer form could be pinned together, as it were, by an identifying wound; it is also possible that the belief that a wound could force a werewolf back into human form existed already in the ancient world. Secondly, a werewolf transformation, in either direction, could be effected by the taking of a foodstuff within the body: a man could be transformed into a werewolf by eating an (enchanted?) piece of bread, or the food most appropriate to a wolf, human flesh; he could be transformed back into a man either by abstinence from human flesh or by the equal-and-opposite process of eating a wolf’s heart. And, thirdly, it was the impulse of the werewolf, when transformed from man to wolf, to make a bolt from the inner places of humanity and civilisation for the outer places of the wilderness and the forest.

scholarly journals 3D Motion Capture May Detect Spatiotemporal Changes in Pre-Reaching Upper Extremity Movements with and without a Real-Time Constraint Condition in Infants with Perinatal Stroke and Cerebral Palsy: A Longitudinal Case Series

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (24) ◽  
pp. 7312
Author(s):  
Julia Mazzarella ◽  
Mike McNally ◽  
Daniel Richie ◽  
Ajit M. W. Chaudhari ◽  
John A. Buford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cerebral Palsy ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Upper Extremity ◽  
Motion Capture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Laboratory Simulation ◽  
Perinatal Stroke ◽  
3D Motion ◽  
Spatiotemporal Characteristics ◽  
3D Motion Capture

Perinatal stroke (PS), occurring between 20 weeks of gestation and 28 days of life, is a leading cause of hemiplegic cerebral palsy (HCP). Hallmarks of HCP are motor and sensory impairments on one side of the body—especially the arm and hand contralateral to the stroke (involved side). HCP is diagnosed months or years after the original brain injury. One effective early intervention for this population is constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT), where the uninvolved arm is constrained by a mitt or cast, and therapeutic activities are performed with the involved arm. In this preliminary investigation, we used 3D motion capture to measure the spatiotemporal characteristics of pre-reaching upper extremity movements and any changes that occurred when constraint was applied in a real-time laboratory simulation. Participants were N = 14 full-term infants: N = six infants with typical development; and N = eight infants with PS (N = three infants with PS were later diagnosed with cerebral palsy (CP)) followed longitudinally from 2 to 6 months of age. We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using 3D motion capture to identify the differences in the spatiotemporal characteristics of the pre-reaching upper extremity movements between the diagnosis group, involved versus uninvolved side, and with versus and without constraint applied in real time. This would be an excellent application of wearable sensors, allowing some of these measurements to be taken in a clinical or home setting.

scholarly journals Exploring the effects of deep brain stimulation and vision on tremor in Parkinson’s disease - benefits from objective methods

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Per-Anders Fransson ◽  
Maria H. Nilsson ◽  
Diederick C. Niehorster ◽  
Marcus Nyström ◽  
Stig Rehncrona ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Deep Brain Stimulation ◽  
Motion Capture ◽  
Brain Stimulation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Motion Capture System ◽  
3D Motion ◽  
3D Motion Capture ◽  
Deep Brain

Abstract Background Tremor is a cardinal symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) that may cause severe disability. As such, objective methods to determine the exact characteristics of the tremor may improve the evaluation of therapy. This methodology study aims to validate the utility of two objective technical methods of recording Parkinsonian tremor and evaluate their ability to determine the effects of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus and of vision. Methods We studied 10 patients with idiopathic PD, who were responsive to L-Dopa and had more than 1 year use of bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation. The patients did not have to display visible tremor to be included in the study. Tremor was recorded with two objective methods, a force platform and a 3 dimensional (3D) motion capture system that tracked movements in four key proximal sections of the body (knee, hip, shoulder and head). They were assessed after an overnight withdrawal of anti-PD medications with DBS ON and OFF and with eyes open and closed during unperturbed and perturbed stance with randomized calf vibration, using a randomized test order design. Results Tremor was detected with the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) in 6 of 10 patients but only distally (hands and feet) with DBS OFF. With the force platform and the 3D motion capture system, tremor was detected in 6 of 10 and 7 of 10 patients respectively, mostly in DBS OFF but also with DBS ON in some patients. The 3D motion capture system revealed that more than one body section was usually affected by tremor and that the tremor amplitude was non-uniform, but the frequency almost identical, across sites. DBS reduced tremor amplitude non-uniformly across the body. Visual input mostly reduced tremor amplitude with DBS ON. Conclusions Technical recording methods offer objective and sensitive detection of tremor that provide detailed characteristics such as peak amplitude, frequency and distribution pattern, and thus, provide information that can guide the optimization of treatments. Both methods detected the effects of DBS and visual input but the 3D motion system was more versatile in that it could detail the presence and properties of tremor at individual body sections.

Nice Girls Gone Blue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Schwadron
Keyword(s):  
White Women ◽  
Jewish Woman ◽  
The Body ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Performance Ethnography ◽  
At Will ◽  
Jewish Mother ◽  
A Performance

This chapter foregrounds a performance ethnography among New York’s Jewish neoburlesque and cabaret spoofs on the Hanukkah circuit from 2011 to 2016. By looking at what the body does to mock and modify stereotypes of the Jewish woman, it frames the ways that performers utilize physical humor to critique harmful images of the unsexy hag, Jewish mother, and Jewish American princess, while posing new identity gags. Yet in performing Otherness from positions of race privilege, Jewish neoburlesquers distance themselves from the very epochs they evoke, securing their status as white women who can presumably put on and take off Otherness at will.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document