Body and Light in movement

Four days of research. Our starting point was the question : "Can these lights become a living organism, an moving inteligence able to interact with a human body ?"

Many options were though as interactive set ups, technologies, interfaces, algorythms, etc. in order to make possible the comunication between this body moving and this laser light.

To start simple we created a sound controled "laser-entity" in one setup and a remote controled "laser-entity" in another set up. This second set up ended up being a Contact Improvisation space to explore the connexion between one body dancing-interacting with the light and the person controling it's behaviour.

We would like to improve this set up of contact-improvisation between body and light. Further steps would include working on a more organic set of movements, speeds, reactions, for the light entity.

In adition to the playfull game it creates between the remote player and the mover, we can imagine to develop a beautiful interface for dance between not-disable bodies and movement restricted bodies.

Another field of research was light-painting - through long exporsure photography - and the question was "How body and laser can paint together ?" We used many set-ups for research, playing with tools sur as Led-gloves, candles, flashlights and of course, Lasers.

We had a question mark over video light-painting as the maximum time-exposure is constraint by framerate. We still had some nice results as laser frequencies are high.

As a surprise we discovered a new definition to light-painting : literally drawing with the light of the laser on a phosphorescent canevas. A mark made by light on the phosphorescent surface lasts between one and two minutes. It became an interactive/participative performance during which the same canevas were drawn and drawn again, painted, covered, transformed by dozens of participants during more than 8 hours.

This improvised perfomance became a work on memory and impermanence reminding us that the greatest discoveries are made through serendipity.