Body/Traces

New media artist Sophie Kahn and choreographer Lisa Parra present a work-in-progress showing of their video installation, Body/Traces, a 2008-2009 EMPAC DANCE MOViES Commission.

Using a DIY 3D laser scanner and stop-motion 3D digital animation to track a dancer's movement through space and time, they are creating a single-channel video to be projected at life-size. The showing is the culmination of a three-week creative residency at EMPAC, and will be followed by an open discussion.

The project Body/Traces explores the female body through 3D laser scanning and structured improvised movement, where the images become alive and what is alive becomes idle, illuminating the physical presence and disappearance of the body. A dancer's body is scanned at various stages of movement, and the resulting images are re-animated in 3D. The result is an imperfect document of the traces left by the dancer’s body in space. The deeper one looks, the less familiar the body becomes, appearing awkward and fragmented. The project looks at the unstable representation of womens' bodies and of movement by addressing the questions: What happens to the body in motion when it becomes a still image? And what becomes of that image when it is returned to the moving body whence it came?