BODYNET

Broader bandwidth bodies in times of social distance

Critical modes of reinventing telematics are needed more than ever, in times of the pandemic. Bodynet will draw on the experience of previous EU projects, Metabody and European Tele-Plateaus, for developing visionary and experimental forms of telematics that involve a rich and indeterminate corporeality in motion, diametrically opposing the dominant tendency to immobility, reduction and control.

This implies reinventing not only telematic relations mediated by digital and electronic technologies, but also physical relations where bodies are subdued to a new regime of social distance: how to make of both distances a means for reinventing the social?

BODYNET currently proposes four interrelated performative environments and techniques:

  • ALIEN EMBRACE / POSTHUMAN EMBRACE / METAHUMAN EMBRACE / AUTOEMBRACE / METAEMBRACE / …  – hugging at a distance through Reverso’s Flexinamuc robotic architectures – started in 2020, presented in Metabody Toulouse 2020 – new developemts in 2021 including telematics and slow AI, for a planetary embrace where we feel our entanglement with planetary disruption.
  • ALIEN INTIMACY – Online and disaligned (propriocepting at a distance) – telematic encounters ontohacking usual videconferencing tools – Started in 2020, presented at the Metabody Forum and Metabody Toulouse 2020 – with two major subscenes and techniques:
    • Disalignments
    • Microsexes
  • ALIEN AVATARS/PLANETARY EMBRACE / ABSTRACT AVATARS / DISTANT EMBRACE – online metagaming environments with digital architechtures and sounds created through movement data of interactors in different locations using phone sensors – Presented in Metabody Toulouse 2021 – In January 2021 we created and tested a new app and software to use data from phone sensors and send them, or any other data, for online interactions.
  • CHORUS / DISALIGNMENTS – reinventing the new distance between physical bodies by enriched modes of multisensory and proprioceptive experience of oneself, others and the environment. See workshops since 2014 all over the world.

They become enacted through the following:

  • METATOPIAS
    • where all the above come together in unique co-creation processes/residencies
  • ONTOHACKLABS
    • online and physical workshops
  • MULTIVERSITY
    • online and physical events, talks, conferences and publications, with focus on theorical and educational aspects

Concept, coordination and development:

    • Jaime del Val – Reverso – Metabody Institute and Forum

Current collaborators:

    • K. Danse – Metabody Toulouse – Jean-Marc Matos
    • Michele Abolaffio  – Holland – (programming)

Forthcoming collaborators:

    • TMA – Dresden – Thomas Dumke
    • (and other potential partners from the Metabody network)

 

ALIEN EMBRACE

ALIEN INTIMACY

ALIEN AVATARS

CHORUS / DISALIGNMENTS

 

With the support of / con el apoyo de: