Figural Bodies **

Clarice Hilton, Ashley Noel-Hirst, Xan Dye, Kat Hawkins
Figural Bodies, is active research towards deconstructing mocap data from its enforced normative algorithms, celebrating subversion and difference in the immersive representation of bodies. Disabled dancers Kat and Xan connected virtually between Austin and London, connected by Goldsmiths Mocap Streamer, sharing embodied communication through virtual interaction. The dancers communicate through a co-created movement vocabulary, using motion data and machine learning to push the boundaries of how bodies can be represented in the Metaverse. This is a film adaptation of the performances weaving together footage of the performances from the virtual and video perspective and interweaving moments from the research. The video has been specially produced for Digital Body Festival.

Credits

The project is a collaboration between Clarice Hilton, Kat Hawkins, Xan Dye, Ashley Noel-Hirst and Neal Coghlan and executive producer was Dan Strutt. The project was made in collaboration with Candoco Dance Company. The film editor is Josie Rae Turnbull.

Clarice Hilton, Ashley Noel-Hirst, Xan Dye, Kat Hawkins

Clarice Hilton Clarice Hilton is a neurodiverse researcher, designer and creative technologist whose work is centered in critical disability design and immersive technology. She is currently completing a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London developing a research methodology and creative practice using critical disability design methods for performance with embodied technology. Her research and design is collaborative using participatory methods often working with artists from different disciplines particularly dance and movement practice. She is also a researcher and designer at Anagram an immersive studio. Ashley Noel-Hirst Ashley Noel-Hirst is an artist and researcher concerned with post-human and more-than-human perspectives on design and informatics. He is a PhD candidate in AI and Music at the Centre for Doctoral Training in AI and Music (UKRI), part of the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London, where he is also part of the Communication Acoustics Lab. In his artistic practice, he uses interactive sound works to foster deeper relationships with our environment and potential futures. Xan Dye Xan Dye is an independent artist whose practice emerged from a time in their life when they were learning about their neurodivergence, and beginning to explore what a movement practice could offer them in relation to this. Challenging fixed and rigid binaries, Xan explores how they embody their trans non-binary, neurodivergent, queer ways of being and thinking and works with others to create radical spaces for sensing and sensitive ways of being in our bodies and in community. Xan is an experienced facilitator with expertise in inclusive practice, working for organisations including Candoco Dance Company, Access all Areas and Entelechy Arts. Xan's work is supported by Arts Council England and platformed at venues including the Place and Independent Dance. Kat Hawkins Kat is a researcher-artist who tries their best to navigate the slippiest of experiences - being a human. Their interdisciplinary work seeks to uncover multiplicities and their application in the world, through film, language, movement and kinaesthetic experience. The(ir) crip experience keeps coming to the surface in it all and they are influenced and shaped by the teachings of Disability Justice thinkers, and trauma-informed modalities and methodologies. They are a PhD researcher at the Centre of Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University, partnered with Candoco Dance Co. uncovering how the role of an understudy can introduce care into contemporary dance settings for disabled artists. With a background in journalism and film-making, working as a reporter for BBC Click and BBC Ouch, and an MA in Religion and Public Life, Kat enjoys researching-playing at the intersections of disability, spirituality, embodiment, documentary story-telling, fiction and technology.