Motion Activated 

is a collaboration between Lukas Pearse (interactive live visuals and interactive electroacoustic music), animator and visual artist Susan Tooke, and dance artist Véronique MacKenzie. Through the combination of two and three-dimensional art forms, Motion Activated describes the collected intentions and movement memory of a dancer’s body while magnifying the intricacies of trained movement. The audience is encouraged to reflect on their own movement pathways and to experience what dancers and other movement specialists experience.

Motion Activated transforms the venue creating walls and pathways; the audience follows the dancer as her body melds with drawings and video through flip books, scale drawings of the dance sequence, and infra-red capture of the live performance.The movement of the dancer and/or audience triggers sound and video at various points in the installation. 

Motion Activated was presented by the Saint Mary's University Art Gallery in June/July 2013, and at ARTsPLACE, Annapolis Royal, the following September.

audience: ARTsPlace, interacting with infrared capture

Pearse and MacKenzie interacting with video/animation (Tooke)

Pearse and MacKenzie interacting with video/animation (Tooke)

9 x 9 video clip mosaic, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery

MacKenzie performing with video mosaic, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery

flip books of dance video stills with sound cards, SMUAG

plinths with flip books, SMUAG

MacKenzie with scale drawings of choreography, SMAUG

MacKenzie with scale drawings of choreography, SMAUG

still of animation/video and infrared capture, SMAUG

Choices

As a Media Arts Scholar in the Centre For Art Tapes program (August 2014-August 2015), I was immersed in intensive media training involving workshops and mentorships in video and audio recording, editing and production, the animation techniques of rotoscoping and frame animation.  I was mentored by Nick Bottomley in the use of Isadora, an interactive media presentation tool with the capacity for programming multiple video and audio layers and effects and outputting to multiple projectors.

The project that I developed during this program is 3B: Backlands, Badlands, Burbs. Initiating a discussion about choices we make as a society on the growth of a city, 3B uses layered video and sound field recordings, still photography, rotoscoping and frame animation to take the viewer from the wilderness of the Backlands to the development of the new suburban community of Governor’s Brook.

The following are stills from 3B.