“Longing + Forgetting” explores the ways in which machines are ascribed intelligence, whilst humans are increasingly treated like machines. Combining physical and algorithmic choreography with architectural projection, the work questions the relationship between the inanimate and the animate: how are our bodies measured and controlled by the structures of technology? And what traces do our bodies leave on the structures around us?
“Longing + Forgetting” combines these histories of optical control and filmic expansion of the body, extending it to the architectural scale. Both critiquing and using machine learning, we wanted to create a work that animated architectural dance through projection technologies, but also evoked an immediate, emotional and embodied response.
“Longing + Forgetting” is a collaboration between media artist Matt Gingold, Philippe Pasquier, a world leading expert in machine learning and director of the Metacreation Lab, and Thecla Schiphort, a pioneer of digital choreography who co-created Lifeforms, the choreographic software used by Merce Cunningham.