Gibson & Martelli

Shadows play
on weathered textures,
landscapes both natural and surreal.
Light dances
on surfaces,
virtual and visceral.
Avatars breathe,
embodying the earth,
the sky,
and the storm within,
drifting between worlds—
animated by the unseen currents
of a dancer’s breath,
captured in the pulse
of motion.

In James Lovelock’s Novacene, humans and AI systems coexist – with purpose and intelligence. Even though their relation could be amicable or hostile, the planet’s current state demands cooperation. The future will be determined by the necessity to preserve Gaia, Earth, and not by the egotistical desires of humans or other intelligent species. 
nino invites us into a game world controlled by individual visitors: AI, here, is used as a creative muse, to generate figures from input. Dance practice Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) utilises spoken text as input to foster creative movement and play in a similar way. Gibson & Martelli employ scripts as input to generate avatar designs. They subsequently sculpt and animate them in three dimensions. The SRT process influences the movement improvisation to draw spectators into the energies and qualities of movement. Human experience is shaped by the boundaries of identity – gender, race, age, and culture. Non-human avatars, animated by dancers through motion capture, dissolve boundaries and offer a space in which identity becomes fluid, modifiable and infinite. These avatars scrutinise the boundaries of the meaning of “to be” and “to experience”, enabling fluidity and existence that occupy spaces beyond the body.

The performance, originally developed at Trafò in Budapest, will be remodelled into a game world controlled by individual visitors for TEMPS D’IMAGES.

Creative technologist Bruno Martelli and dance artist Ruth Gibson create site-specific, grand scale works for parks, hospitals, museums, galleries, and theatres. Employing machine learning, simulation and motion capture, the artists shape immersive virtual realities. Topics such as disguise, camouflage, surveillance, and identity continuously reoccur. Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli completed a joint PhD in Media and Communication at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. The duo was nominated for a British Academy of Film & Television Arts Award (BAFTA), received numerous awards and became first artists in residence at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture as well as artist in residence at #studios44Mocaplab in Geneva. They were presented at the 66^th BFI London Film Festival as well as at the 79^th Venice International Film Festival of the La Biennale di Venezia.


In English.

Access is possible at any time without reservation.

As part of MODINA, the symposium Dancing in the Digital Age: Bodies, Codes, and Affective Futures will take place on 24 January, featuring keynote speeches, panel discussions and a lecture performance.