[Re]moving Bodies – A Shared Diminished Reality Installation for Exploring Relational Movement

In this article we explore an epistemic approach we name dis/embodiment and introduce “Articulations,” an interdisciplinary project bringing together Virtual Reality (VR) designers, cognitive scientists, dancers, anthropologists, and human–machine interaction specialists. According to Erin Manning, our sense of self and other emerges from processes of bodying and relational movement (becoming oneself by moving in relation with the world). The aim of the project is to exploit the potential of multi-person VR in order to explore the intersubjective dynamics of relational movement and bodying, and to do so with scientific, artistic and therapeutic purposes in mind. To achieve this bridge, we bring up a novel paradigm we name “Shared Diminished Reality”. It consists in using minimalist representation to instantiate users’ bodies in the virtual space. Instead of using humanoid avatars or full body skeletons, we reduce the representation of the moving bodies to three spheres whose trajectories reflect the tracking of the head and the two wrists. This “diminished”virtual rendition of the body-in-movement, we call dis/embodiment. It provides a simple but clear experience of one’s own responsive movement in relation to the world and other bodies. It also allows for subtle manipulations of bodies’ perceptual and cross-perceptual feedback and simplifies the tracking and the analysis of movements. After having introduced the epistemic framework, the basic architecture, and the empirical method informing the installation, we present and discuss, as a proof-of-concept, some data collected in a situated experiment at a science-art event. We investigate motion patterns observed in different experimental conditions (in which participants either could or could not see the representation of their own hands in the virtual space) and their relation with subjective reports collected. We conclude with reflection on further possibilities of our installation in exploring bodying and relational movement.

Inductive Rectilinear Frame Dragging and Local Coupling to the Gravitational Field of the Universe

There is a drag force on objects moving in the background cosmological metric, known from galaxy cluster dynamics. The force is quite small over laboratory timescales, yet it applies in principle to all moving bodies in the universe. The drag force can be understood as inductive rectilinear frame dragging because it also exists in the rest frame of a moving object, and it arises in that frame from the off-diagonal components induced in the boosted-frame metric. Unlike the Kerr metric or other typical frame-dragging geometries, cosmological inductive dragging occurs at uniform velocity, along the direction of motion, and dissipates energy. Proposed gravito-magnetic invariants formed from contractions of the Riemann tensor do not capture inductive dragging effects, and this might be the first identification of inductive rectilinear dragging. The existence of this drag force proves it is possible for matter in motion through a finite region to exchange momentum and energy with the gravitational field of the universe. The cosmological metric can in principle be determined through this force from local measurements on moving bodies, at resolutions similar to that of the Pound–Rebka experiment.

The Lively Intra-Actions of Athleisure: A Baradian Analysis of Fit Femininity

Since the early 2000s, athleisure (clothing designed for physical activity) has been gaining popularity as both a functional and fashionable clothing trend, particularly among women. Thus far, scholars have explored the gendered nature of athleisure and the neoliberal, postfeminist, and healthism discourses present within this fitness clothing phenomenon. However, the research has yet to account for the materiality of athleisure and its impacts upon women's experiences of fitness and the construction of idealized female bodies. In this article, we use new materialist theory, specifically Karen Barad's agential realism, to explore the material-discursive dimensions of athleisure. Drawing upon a diffractive analysis of interviews conducted with 22 women in Aotearoa New Zealand, in conjunction with social media analyses, we explore two lively intra-actions of women's athleisure-clad moving bodies – the ‘muffin top’ and the ‘big booty’ – to reveal what athleisure does to/with women's bodies. We highlight how these athleisure-body intra-actions work to create boundaries around acceptable femininity and give rise to particular constructions and meanings of women's bodies.

Vocalizations in dance classes teach body knowledge

Language is believed to be a central device for communicating meaning and knowledge between humans. It is superb in its capacity to code abstract ideas and displaced information, which can be conveyed from person to person, sometimes across centuries. When it comes to instructing a bodily skill in co-present situations, language is used along with other multimodal resources. This paper focuses on the role of vocalizations in dance teaching, syllables that express simultaneous body movement rather than abstract lexical content. While being essentially a vocal resource, the meaning of vocalizations arises in the simultaneously moving bodies. By carrying indexical and only partially conventionalized meaning, vocalizations constitute a puzzle for linguistic theory that preferably targets the arbitrary, symbolic and conventionalized aspects of human vocal production. The meanings conveyed from one body to another through a vocalization are experiential rather than intellectual. Vocalizations provide a solution to the problem of transferring body knowledge from one autonomous organism to another, and can even be embedded in syntax. The analysis is based on an occasion of teaching a jazz routine to a larger group of students.