Infinite Posture Dataset

2020

She moves by endlessly morphing to the rhythm of the device – strapped in the frame of the screen - following or giving instructions; part human, part machine. The design of the device is inspired by a gadget to cheat the step-counter on your smartphone. Technology tricked by technology.

Her movements, caught within a motion capture like tight suit deconstructing her body parts, talk of complex and conflicting emotions, but her face, from which we usually read how someone is feeling, is hidden. But is the machine that is observing her deconstructed and re-sequenced postures actually capable of recognizing what the body is communicating? Are we? 

The human mind 'knows' body language from a kind of primordial memory. We seem to be capable of reading different meanings in different expressions and postures by the second, translating it into emotions based on our personal and cultural experiences when interacting with others. Teaching this complex and often subconscious 'body knowledge' to an AI is a different story.


video 4K 15min loop, 65 inch flatscreen. Relax Zone Pro Inversion Table (extended and re-assembled), 20kg weight plate, motor

Dancer: Courtney May Robertson
Choreography: Marjolein Vogels
Technique device: Johannes Wernicke & Léon Spek
Production frame: Rob den Dulk
Technique video: Geert van Schoot, Turtle Beach
Made possible by: Creative Industries Fund NL MU Artspace HeK (House of electronic Arts Basel)

instalation shot: HeK Basel, photo: Stine Deja

‘In many of her recent works Dutch artist Coralie Vogelaar questions the advancements and potential of contemporary emotion technology often by collaborating with dancers and performers. The movements of the dancer in this installation are visualizing intense feelings that are layered and sometimes even chaotic. The way she moves sometimes comes close to robotics then again it resonates with the ‘Authentic Movement’ technique invented by choreographer and dancer Mary Starks Whitehouse in 1950, who worked with free associations of the body, thus bringing more emotive energy to the seemingly cold/structured world of technology. After all emotion comes from the Greek 'emotere' which translates to 'energy in motion'. It is within these tensions that we need to decipher the body talking to us. ‘

Dagmar Dirkx, Noise is an Asset. Prix de Rome Publication 2021

Een van de hoogtepunten bevindt zich gelijk aan het begin van de tentoonstelling: de twee werken van Coralie Vogelaar Infinite Posture Dataset (2020) en Facial Action Coding (2018). Het eerstgenoemde werk bestaat uit een televisiescherm dat heen en weer wiegt tussen twee metalen stangen. Op het scherm is een wezen te zien met een gezichtsverhullend masker en een bodysuit aan die wegvalt tegen diens huidskleur. Over het lichaam en hoofd lopen verticale witte strepen die doen denken aan ducttape. Het wezen voert een interpretatieve dans uit. Het wiegen van het scherm wordt bepaald door een gadget die de lichaamstaal van de danser omzet in beweging. De vraag die Vogelaar met het werk opwerpt is of de gebruikte technologie de emotioneel beladen bewegingen ook kan duiden als de primaire drager van gevoel – het gezicht – voor het algoritme verborgen blijft. MetropolisM 08.2021, Lena van Tijen