Echoes of Motion: a Critical Convergence of Movement and Design

Echoes Motion of

A Critical Convergence of Movement and Design

by Ventcislava Nekova

“For me there has never been one way. I have always needed to explore between writing, moving, music and visual images… between the poetry of language, the sensuousness of making and the experience of the body.”

Miranda Tufnell, A Widening Field – Journeys in Body and Imagination’, 2011

Introduction p. 04 - 07

I -The Interconnection of Movement, Speed, and Technology in the Modern Society

*A Life in Constant Motion

*Why do we move?

*Tech and Body Movement

*My response

*Design, Dance and Tech

*Navigation, Participation,

Coversation and Collaboration

II - Movement and Empathetic Kinaesthesia

p. 08 - 15 p.16 - 25

*Encourage Dance as a Bonding Tool

*Rediscover closeness through Movement and

*Participatory Research

*Regrounding Feeling, and Communicating Emotion through Dance Dance Educate

*Capture Dance to Inspire, Immerse and

III - Moving through the Lens: Sharing Dance

Film-making

*Sharing Live Dance Performance

*Impact on Choreography

*An Investigation of Innovative Technologies

Conclusion

p. 17 - 31 p. 31 - 33 p. 34 - 35

In year one, while I was stuck on my Unit 3 submission, my friend Anastasia came to me, took my laptop and sat under the table. “Sometimes you need to move to get a fresher and more coherent perspective”. And she is right because we live in a world of movement. From an evolutional perspective, movement has enabled us to form social groups and communities. Geographically, for the last three years of my life, I have changed three countries of residence and travelled to more than 10 cities across 3 continents. Information and communication are moving across time and space enabling me to experience and learn about the world from everywhere. Thus, my whole life is moving and transforming.

Throughout my studies, physical movement has given me an awareness of my self, my mind and my body. It has helped me identify the topics that I find meaningful, which sometimes seems niche and specific to dancers, sportspeople and other physical practitioners. I have been visualising different dances, body behaviours, tracking my peers’s and mine body motion in order to educate, inform, encourage my audience to question the relationship we have with our bodies. This has helped me perceive in new ways my environment and the dynamics that animate it. Capturing movement through the lens of a graphic communication degree has also helped me utilise movement and has inspired the shaping of my current practice. Movement is an inherent part of human nature and is an essential means of self-expression, communication, and interaction with the world around us. This is why, it is important for me to aspire it.

One example of movement is dance as “it is a physical response" to the movement of the world today and as the world moves ever faster than ever, the artistic responses to modernity must anticipate this movement and be new ones.”(A.J, 2021). My practice uses dance as a main form of inspiration for the creation of visual outcomes. It focuses on observation and experience, interaction and responsiveness, on feeling and empathising. I want people to be physically involved with my outcomes and rethink the connection they have with their bodies and their environments. “You are an endless state of communion and infinite contemplation with other natural elements and beings” (Navarro & Marder, 2020) state Eduardo Navarro and Michael Marder in their collaborative writing piece Vegetal Transmutation. I explore further the “endless state of communion” by designing participatory experiences that bring people together through workshops, installations and performances and other immersive mediums.

Fig 1: Octavia E. Butler, notes on writing, “Tell Stories filled with Facts..”CA, 1970-1995, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, © Estate of O.B

As my exploration delves into the transformative power of movement and dance and how I can visually interpet them (fig. 2), I discovered the concept of empathetic kinaesthesia (our ability to empathetically connect with th physical experiences of others). By considering empathetic kinaesthesia and movement through the lens of a communication designer, I am aiming to forge a richer understanding of the transformative potential of movement.

How does the intersection between movement and graphic communication design serve as a means of human interaction in a fast paced, digitalised society?

Movement

As this essay progresses, I will uncover multiple approaches to design inspired by movement. I will discuss first how the swiftly moving, digitally-driven environment shapes our bodies, our movement and our society and how this related to my body of work. I will present multiple practitioners and projects revolving around the goal to use technology as a mediation tool, rather than an architect of our lifes.

I will then discuss the empathetic kinaesthesia approach and its link to movement and communication design, reflecting on the mind and body relationship. Lastly, I will talk about the act of capturing performance and using dance and design as a central communication methods of my practice.

one,two, three, four:

one,two, three, four: sides touching:

one touching:

Fig 2: Above: Diagrams by Mariana Valencia, p.60, from Motor Dance Journal, 2022

Fig 3:On the left: Motor Dance Journal, Issue 1: The Solo, Nov.2022, Hannah Woods, Isabelle Bucklow

Movement, Speed, and Technology in the Modern Society

A Life in Constant Mot io n

The technological advances that have taken place since the 20th century have changed the pace in which the world is moving. In the past hundred years, we have witnessed the development of countless groundbreaking inventions. These technological innovations have transformed the way we live our lives, making communication and information sharing more efficient and accessible than ever before. Technology will continue to shape and revolutionise our lives. Nevertheless, the view that “ in the digital world, we become subject to the endless procession of digital chimera, losing touch with our true selves and shares social values, eternally chasing the ghosts of the machine” (D.S 2007) suggests that there is a need to explore the consequences of technology on our bodies in order to stay in touch with our true selves.

“Our minds are trained to work as cybernetic

machines and simultaneously our bodies as well” (Bernard, 1995) and the focus is drawn away from the possibilities of human interaction. I have been fascinated by the possible intersection of technology and movement and how tech can be used actually as a mediator.

Technological advances have enabled us to move more geographically, but physically, especilly when it comes to physical interaction between people, we are a lot more static than our grandparents. We communicate through our phones, postponing meeting each other in person. The modern movement is inducing less bodily movement, less communion with the body, and consequentially, less communion with each other. Further in the essay I will discuss how this is influencing our society.

My intention is to employ design as a tool for clarifying thought, aiding our comprehension of the fast changing world through

our bodies and bodily movement.

In order to do so, I wanted to understand why a movement form such as dance brings people together at the first place and then how it has been affected by the transformation and acceleration of the digitalised society we live in.

Why do we move?

I found that human to human interaction is something natural engraved in our DNA. Interacting with one another lighten our mood and make us feel happier. Bringing people together brings positive emotions.

Émile Durkheim coined the term "collective effervescence" to describe the intense sensation of excitement and unity that arises when individuals participate in a shared experience. This feeling goes beyond the individual and creates a sense of common identity and purpose. Durkheim believed that collective effervescence is a vital component of social cohesion, and it plays a critical role in building social bonds and maintaining social order. It can be observed in various settings, including religious ceremonies, political rallies, sporting events, and music and dance festivals. “ Dance is a social glue. [...]. Keep into the beat together, we feel exhilarated due to the neurohormones and we feel more tightly bond with our fellow dancers. Such intense experiences make the collective possible without it we would hardly be human” (2018, K.A, W.R) say K.A and W.R in their short animation Dance, Dance Evolution: Why humans love to bust a move. (Fig. 4).

However, our environment is changing us, it’s shaping the ways we execute everyday activities, our lifestyles and habits. It’s also changing the way we interact with each other. We have become colder and reserved. We have become as Ollivier Dyens calls “cultural bodies”. In the current digital age, our bodies are increasingly intertwined with machines, images, and information.

The term refers to the idea that our bodies are no longer seen as autonomous entities, but rather as products of the various cultural, social, and technological forces that shape them.

Fig 4: Still from Dance, Dance Evolution: Why humans love to bust a move, K.A, W.R, 2018

Because of this, I feel that the “cultural bodies” of designers specifically are not simply a passive recipient of cultural influences, but an active participant in the creation and dissemination of culture. As a dancer and a designer, for example, I am trying to negotiate the relationship between my own embodied experiences and the cultural and technological contexts in which I operate. I think that today’s designers, navigate the tension between tradition and innovation, between physicality and technology, in order to create meaningful and impactful body of work.

Tech and Body Movement

On the other side, the same digital technologies have enabled us to extend our bodies beyond their physical limitations and interact with the world in new ways. I am interested in the wearable devices that track our movements (Fig 5), to virtual reality experiences that immerse us in new environments, our bodies are now linked to the digital space.

An elaborate example is the TESLASUIT (Fig 6): a digital interface that enables humans to interact with technology and improve their performance by monitoring their behaviour. Such devices can help us establish a simultaneous connection with the digital world and be more embodied with our bodies, or with another person if programmed so.

Fig 5: Me wearing the Rokoko Suit using the Rokoko Motion Track System in Central Saint Martins, 2022

Fig 6: Tesla Suit, from Teslasuit website

My response

In order to better understand the influences of technology on us, I conducted a project exploring the formation of human connections and the role of empathy in building relationships. Through observations of daily human interactions, I noted that our body language is influenced by the digital age and the various technological and social forces that shape us (try to recall the way people walk in the tube and then compare it to the way people walk in a smaller city that you visited recently). In response to this, I set out to create an environment that responds to empathy and encourages genuine physical interaction between people.

To achieve this, I used movement as a way to encourage people to connect through physical rather than submitting to their environment. I aimed to communicate the positivity and necessity of human connection in a fast-paced world I created a video that combined footage of strangers’ interactions in different places in London, bonding workshops that I organised, and hand-drawn animations. (Fig 7)

Fig 7

Fig 7

Navigation , Participation, Conversation, and Collaboration

In my second self directed brief, I explored a new set of media, involving different types of innovative technologies as Google Media-pipe (machine learning), webcameras, electronics (Arduino), creative coding and motion tracking. My experience of working with those was very challenging and complicated as I am not used to their use. I found the possibilities of learning about them very exciting and beneficial to my understanding of the future of design.

Fig 10 : My workshops where I asked my peers to follow the flow of a chosen body part, and different walking activities

I focused on my strength which is communication and so the most stimulating part of my process was the organisation of the movement workshops (Fig 10) with different groups of people. I provided them with a set of instructions based on the four categories of interactivity in artwork: Navigation, Participation, Conversation, and Collaboration. They were also inspired by the exercises in different dance styles I have tried, yoga but also pure observations on how people behaved in the tube and other public spaces. When executed in a set frame though, the participants felt uncomfortable, cheerful, insecure or surprised by the way they felt their own bodies in relation to the others. By making people participate together, I aimed to heighten the sense of energy and emotion among my peers using the principle of collective effervescence.

My initial idea was to film my peers performing my instructions in a studio where a motion tracking web camera sends signals of proximity between people to a programmed Arduino. The Arduino would make lamps situated in the room perform different light patterns when connection is recognised. The environment in which the workshop would be set reflects the connection of people. Through movement and the use of technology, I aimed to encourage genuine physical interaction between people and communicate the positivity and necessity of human connection in a fast-paced world.

However, due to technical issues, I ended up creating a research documentary instead of a video of my workshops. This initially frustrated me, but didn’t discourage my intention to learn more about tracking techniques and computation. Moreover, through this project I discovered movement direction, a form of guided choreography that is improvisational and inspired by various themes. In this project I positioned myself as the movement director.

Design, Dance and Tech

My inspiration came from Wayne McGregor's choreography in collaboration with Random International, a post-digital art group exploring the impact of technological development on the human condition. In Future Self (Fig 8), two dancers move around the perimeter of an installation, and 3D cameras record the shapes made by their bodies and replay them on a grid of over 10,000 LED lights. All information recorded by the device passes through a computer, so it can also be played back with a time delay or saved to replay later. The image created by the lights always resembles a single figure. The whole creates an enchanting performance and suggests an environment that is influenced directly by human motion.

Wayne McGregor Studio experiments with new technological advances such as AI in the research and the conceiving of his art. He explored the connection between human, dance, environment, science and technology in the work Living Archive. (Fig 9) Using motion capture and AI, the project creates a live dialogue between dancers and his body of work. He says that “These physical experiences are priming the imagination, and the physical sense system to be able to do things that it’s never experienced before.”

Therefore, I want to translate movement through design thinking in a way which will resonate with people and offer them and me a new point of view of our surroundings and themselves in an immersive and engaging way.

Fig 8: Below: Future Self, 2012, MADE space, Berlin

Fig 9: Living Archive: A tool for choreography powered by AI. A collaboration between Google Arts and Culture Lab and Studio Wayne McGregor.,2012

and Empathetic Kinaesthesia

The movement director (p.13) is responsible for coordinating and choreographing the movements in a production. If my projects are about movement that I am directing, I felt that this term is suitable for my role. During the process of my projects, I discovered another term which I felt was directly linked to both movement direction and communication design.

Empathetic kinaesthesia: from “kinein “to move”, “ aisthēsis “sensation” and em- ‘in’ + pathos ‘feeling’ I realised that this term feeds into my practice and to my position. “To ‘choreograph empathy’ thus entails the construction and cultivation of a specific physicality whose kinaesthetic experience guides our perception of and connection to what another is feeling.” (F.S. 2010) (Fig. 11). It is the ability to understand and embody the movements and emotions of others. Empathetic Kinaesthesia and Communication Design are linked as they both focus on understanding the movements and emotions of target audiences. It is all about the ways we express physically and emotionally our reactions to our environments and experiences.

Fig.11 - Choreographing Empathy, Susan Foster, 2010

Re-grounding, feeling and communicating emotions through dance

In Cafe Muller (Fig 12), Pina Bausch communicates through dance and play, how when someone is absolutely absorbed in their inner world and expressing themselves freely, they might get hurt by society, symbolised by the cafe (with its chairs and tables) in which the performance takes place. One of the messages I remembered was that our environment shapes the ways we want to be perceived and sometimes we can find ourselves repressed. Looking even at a still from Cafe Muller, one can empathise with the feeling of loneliness and isolation, of impossibility and tiredness of the childhood memory of Pina, who would wait for her father to finish his work at the café.

Fig 12: Pina Bausch in Cafe Muller, 1978

For me as well ,dancing is the purest form of selfexpression. “Maybe dance, more so even than tears, is the gentle, whistling of the safety valve of the soul. It is a plea to stop being a socialised, well-ordered, tame human being and become an animal again, a god of water or fire.” states Hervé Guibert (Wuppertal, Allemagne, 2010). Dance always helps me cheer up and see things from a new perspective. It has become such an important part of my life that it has partly shaped the way I act, so my body language tends to be quite expressive as well. My peers characterise me as a touchy, energetic, physically active person. But they also say that my behaviour is quite unexpected. This led me to try to understand why my peers feel so disconnected with touch and movement (Fig 13).

Fig 13: From: A Practice-Inspired Mindset for Researching the Psychophysiological and Medical Health Effects of Recreational Dance (Dance Sport) (F. Christensen et al., 2021)

These are the components of any dance.Thinking of them as the six parts in-between the spokes of a wheel offers an excellent metaphor for illustrating the different elements and how they should be considered in equal terms, and explains why each of them has its own relevance and importance, both for practice and for empirical research.

I conducted research on the topic of body language. I found that expressing our emotions through body language is the most natural, so natural that we cannot control it (Fig14). It ends up being written all over our faces, along with our shrinking shoulders, trembling hands, down to the tapping of our feet. “With his weak body, he has dramatically externalised his behaviour, scattering the surface of the globe with his artefacts - his implements, machines, weapons, vehicles, roads, works of art, buildings, villages and cities. Throughout it all, he has remained a creature of action - a gesticulating, posturing, moving, expressive primate.” (Morris, 2002) states Desmond Morris. We are brought up in a world with manners and rules that shape our code of behaviour. Each country as a matter of fact, has their different ways but one thing in common is the inclination we have to be in control of our body language, of our personal space for various reason (in order to please, fit, be understood etc, to keep boundaries etc.).

Fig 14: Hypothetical evolution of eyebrow movements into signals in man (from eibl-Ebesfeldt, 1972)

Rediscover closeness through movement and dance

Human beings move and use dance and celebrate since the the dawns of time. From ritualistic dances of tribes to medieval carnivals, to dancing crowds in social movements, “people find in their movement, the immediate joy of solidarity, if only because, in the face of overwhelming state amd corporate power, solidarity is their sole source of strength” (H.B 2007).

In London, latin dance social events bring people together. The photographs on the left (Fig 14: Quintanilla, 2023) were taken during a latin social dancing event in London. I am part of this community and I often participate in the events and experience the power of connection in dance. What has always mesmerised me is how moving together, strangers start feeling connected to one another. In university, I always encourage my peers to take up a dance and explore their bodies in a new way and each other as well. But as you can imagine, it’s not easy to convince anyone to take such a huge step out of their comfort zone. I decided that one of my tasks as a communicator is to make everyone move.

Fig 14: The Feeling of Connection by Briana Quintanilla, 2023

Participatory Research

In order to get an insight into how to do this, I participated in the movement workshops of Bethany Moulange and Nichola Woods who are both members of Academic Support at UAL. Moulange used to teach dance and performance, as well as dance education at the Royal Academy of Dance. Her expertise is in experiential learning, an educational approach which emphasises direct experience and reflection. In their series of workshops, they focus on a different academic skills and teach them through group movement workshops. I participated in the session focusing on Collaboration. We were asked to experiment and create a short sequence using: a wrap, a push, a release, an extension, a a fall, a rotation etc.

What I found interesting is that these workshops (Fig.15) weren’t made for dancers. They taught through elements which belong to the dance domain, but the core idea relied on sharing the experience, actively listening verbally and physically to the ideas of our team mates and

applying them directly and co-creating. The last part of the workshop included reflection where nondancers can gain deeper understanding of their bodies and the feeling of the movement and what does it mean. (Moulange and Woods, 2023)

One of the quotes I kept from this experience was “To thrive during digitalisation, we need physical activity to enhance neuroplasticity, i.e, brain development, learning or differentiation of new behavioural strategies and to allow spontaneous movements” (Pawlik 2021)

My GCD community and I find ourselves in a moment which seemed crucial to our higher education, thus everyone is striving for the best of themselves, spending a lot of time immobile, back crunched forward, eyes starring at a 14inch screen. “We are witnessing a systematic and rational exploitation of the psychomotor skills of each individual with a view to achieving exceptional performance, in other words maximum output.”(Bernard, 1995). Many of my friends are not aware of how precious the connection between our mind and body is. But our bodies can tell it all. What ways are there to practice mindful movement?

Fig 15: Movement Workshop ,The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, n.d.

Encourage Dance as a SocialBondingTool

Our body language translates our emotional states and those emotional states are very often influenced by the environments we inhabit and our entourage. I decided that I want to encourage my community to be more selfaware and eventually stimulate them to dance, because dance as any physical activity is a source of endorphins. According to dance psychologist Peter Lovatt, “Dancing can help enhance a person’s self-esteem and it can help people overcome social isolation and shyness.” Dr. Lovatt work uses dance and movement in order to enhance people’s lives. In his lecture “Dance and the Mind”, he makes a hall full of strangers dance and learn an easy choreography together

Many of my peers, feel that they don’t have the control of their bodies, required to dance nor to execute other physical activities. I wanted to reverse this statement and tested the principle of mimicry: “When we observe another person moving, this activates a region in our brain which helps us make the moves ourselves” states Dr. Lovatt.

My response to this was tested in the instructions I set for my peers in a series of movement workshops (see p.12)

Fig 16: Photographs from the making and the presentation

Capture Dance to Immerse, Inspire and Educate

Another project which inspires mindfull movement is DANCELIVE (Cornejo and Sebring, 2021) (Fig 16).It is a collaboration conceived by choreographer and dancer Herman Cornejo and film director Steven Sebring. They created a media lab that utilises advance technology and multiple cameras to showcase the behindthe-scenes process of live-performances. The use of multiple cameras allows the audience to be submerged. But, also, for those who are interested in the technicality and the mindfulness of the movement, seeing the performance from those multiple views, would allow to study the motion and provide educational research material of dance. Personally the project struck a chord with my beliefs and emotions and it inspired me to look at film as a medium at last.

Lens- Sharing Dance Filmmaking Sharing Live Dance Performances

Empathetic kinaesthesia, as mentioned before, refers to the sensation or feeling of the experience of movements of someone else. This term is present in most of my work as I always engage my audience with my outcome or the making process of my outcomes. “[...] people make aesthetic and experimental meanings directly through physical, sensorimotor interaction with their world which includes emotional couplings with other living beings.”(Arons and May, 2012). By saying emotional coupling, the author means the experience of similar emotion of two people simultaneously which creates unity and engagement.

In the last part of my degree, I decided that the most logical conclusion to my degree would be to direct and capture a dance performance. In my whole body of work, I have been showing in various ways that movement of the body speaks on its own and that it is a highly empathetic type of communication. “Contemporary dance is engaging - by its very nature it automatically handles some of the most complex problems and crises of modern societies, crystallised in the human bodyidentity, gender, race, sexuality, and its ephemeral nature it makes it hard to sell, which automatically does a form marginal to the economy of growth.” (Vassilev, 2021) discusses Bulgarian journalist Yasen Vassilev in Vij!, an independent arts and culture media outlet from my city, Sofia.

Fig 17: “Watching dance” has become a hot topic since seminal studies in the mid-2000 used dance movements as stimuli to uncover important neurocognitive evidence about how movement expertise shapes the human Action Observation Network, Sina HN Yazdi has created this visual showing the different domains of dance, 2021

Thus, I wanted to work with professional dancers, who understand even more deeply the power of the contemporary dance movement and that would help me translate the urgency of human empathy and interaction in a fast-paced world. I opted to capture dance through film as well because there were multiple parallels I identified between these two mediums. Many of my peers, are film-makers and through their films I realised that the control in the planning and pre-production can contribute to a very powerful immersion, and that’s what I feel when I dance, that’s what I want my audience to feel.

Furthermore, by editing, lighting and other technological techniques, performances could be enhanced even more (Fig.19), rhythmic elements can be emphasised (in the sound for example) and multiple perspectives can presented (camera movements). My practice as a designer is hybryd and multidisciplinary, involving the use of variable skills and practices. Working on a dance film, felt as something I will continue doing.

Fig 19: Photograph by Moment of Transverse Orientation, by Papaioannou, 2021

Fig 18: Stills from the film about choreographer Pina Bausch, 2011

Impact on Choreography

Dance and film-making are both collaborative practices and I think this could create a greater impact coming up with different perspectives. As I stated previously, I need to be physically involved in the process of making and communication with people is something I enjoy and I am good at. However, doing an art film was a challenge at times since I felt I am not proficient in any of the required spheres: I am not a professional dancer, nor a cinematographer, nor a set designer so I felt quite insecure at times. But as I was the director of the whole projects, I was in charge of all the most important decisions. The dancers, Emma Poyer and Sophia Morton, shared with me that I was a very approachable person, and even if sometimes I lacked the precise vocabulary used in movement (I haven’t been to Contemporary Dance School), I knew how to communicate what exactly I want.

At parts where their movements didn’t stick up with my intentions, I advised on the choreography of the piece. During the filming days, we elaborated together a structure which a nondancer audience will still understand. An important realisation for me was that I felt understood by the people I was working with. Dancers communicate with movements, with sounds (breathing, tapping, body percussion etc.) and with diagrams to structure their dance and the space they inhabit. And I completely related to their approach, because, even if I am a designer, I work in the same way. (Fig 20)

Our final film was set in two locations. One outside, in central London and one in filmstudios. The first part of the film, consists of a pedestrian-like choregraphy, including bumps, glitches, and movements from our daily life, such as looking at the phone, buying a ticket, drinking coffee. At certain moments, the two dancers start noticing one another and everytime they touch, they are transported to an inside location, where they eventually build a relationship through contact improvisation. Elements of choregraphy include using each other’s body weight, changing the direction of one another, hugging, mimics and entrelacement.

Fig 20 : Images from the rehearsals with Emma and Sophia

An Investigation of Innovative Technologies

Working on the dance film, I investigated different technologies and tools that would enhance the dance but also communicate the subtle but massive impact of technologies and speed on our lives.

One of my study cases, is Creature by Akram Khan (Fig 21), set in the near future in the High Arctic. The synopsis follows Creature, who is “conscripted by a military brigade and being tested for his mental and physical ability to adapt to extreme cold, isolation and homesickness: vital qualities in mankind’s proposed colonisation of the final frontiers on earth and in space”(Khan, 2023).

Just by reading the synopsis, the reader is triggered by those future plans of the world. Sound composer and designer Vincenzo Lamagna uses pulses, ryhtmic beats, mirroring the heartbeat of the dancers and creates layers of complexity to the performance, but without overwhelming the audience. When creating the soundtrack for my project, I collaborated with my friend, peer and

sound mixer Anastasia Kozlova. One of our challenges was to create a piece which includes all these layers but wasn’t overwhelming when adding the dance and light footage. When it comes to the light, Michael Hulls creates a future set by using flickers, a combination between cold and warm light, an interplay between light and darkness to translate

Fig 21: Creature, Akram Khan, 2023

the themes of human condition. I evoked the themes of technological submersion by using light. Inspired by Hulls, I used warmth and coldness in the second section of the film. For the third part, I decided to project onto the dancers the footage that we shot in outside location, symbolising haste and difficulty of human interaction. In this last part of the performance, they are submerged in the influence of technology but also in need of interacting together. Thus, their movements are glitchy and interupted when they are apart and flowy and connected when they are together.

Capturing light in production and minapulating it together is sound them in post-production helped me enhance and unfold my narrative. Through their strategic use they became participants rather than just tools. What I did was just a small proportion of what is possible to achieve but it was an essential part of my process as to evoke a multisensory experience of speed and digitalisation, elegance and connection.

Fig 22: Emma Poyer and Sophia Morton in shot of my film, Echoes of Connections

Fig 23: Woolf Works, Wayne McGregor, 2023

When I started this course, I had in mind the idea that I wanted to help people to slow down their lifestyles from time to time in order to realise what all this speed and technological change means. Back then I was scared to engage with more contemporary softwares and mediums. But since the beginning of this year, I haven’t stopped pushing further and further out of my comfort zone trying out methods I wouldn’t think I would use. I have been immersed in the possibilities and excitement that come with the wide variety of technological techniques because of the endless possibilities, endless representations and interpretations.

Movement is essential to our society. Capturing it, analysing it it, visualising it, and graphically modifying it has been part of my process. My interest in translating the link between body-environment led me to physical computing and electronics. I have developed a practice with the use of bodily movement and the sensory experiences that go with it to create and communicate my ideas. “The evolution of technology over the last two decades is such that there is an URGENCY to develop the skills to participate or intervene effectively in the process” says Paul Pfeiffeer (Conversation: Josh Kline and Paul Pfeiffer art in the age of the internet). For me, one of the reactions to the urgency is involving movement. So, I define my practice as a kinaesthetic communication design one as it involves performances, installations and user experience designs, studying the perpetual transformation of our bodies, translating the endless possibilities that the movement of our bodies can offer us.

a diagram of choreology and graphic communication design

a narrative

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Ventcislava Nekova