(’Maquette’);
Maquette is a live physical-virtual performance combining motion capture, contemporary circus and gaming technology to push the boundaries of what “human” looks like to both the physical and the programmed eye. Orchestrated, captured and rendered in real time, each performance is unique, providing Maquette’s audience with a never-before-seen experience.
Drawing on research into figurative sculpture, and design and algorithmic bias, Maquette is particularly inspired by Norma, a 1940s statue created by American gynecologist Robert Dickinson. Made from the averaged measurements of 15,000 white women aged 21-25, Norma’s “ideal body” was exalted through prominent scientific and cultural institutions. Maquette Part 1 creatively explores Norma’s unsettling story, and how art, science and technology can work together to create false ideals and social bias when left unchecked. Maquette Part 2 draws on contemporary research into embodied and situated cognition to model how virtual representation can reflect and extend the nuance of physiology.
Featuring immersive projection and spatial audio, Maquette unfolds over six scenes simultaneously in physical and virtual space. Four performers marry ballet, circus, martial arts, bboying, yoga asana, and competitive dance together in a new movement style, displaying extreme feats of flexibility and strength. High-performance optical tracking creates shapes and avatar manipulations never before seen in a gaming engine, or live performance. Leaving walking, jumping and sitting behind, Maquette features contortion handstands, backflips, and kaleidoscopic shapes formed by many contorted bodies coming together. Stepping away from the pedestrian reveals the depth of human physicality, and exemplifies how cellular depth can ripple across cores, pins, and bytes.
Xtensions 2022, Onassis ONX, New York (Maquette Alpha)
ONX + IDFA DocLab MoCap Stage 2022, De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam (Maquette Alpha)
DEMO 2023, Onassis ONX,
New York
MAXlive 2023, Onassis ONX, New York
Supporters
EY Metaverse Lab
Media Art Xploration
NEW INC / New Museum
Onassis ONX
OptiTrack
Special Thanks
Eddie Berg
Todd Bryant / NYU IDM
Becky Schutt
Credits (Contd)
DramaturgEmily Reilly
Storyboard IllustrationJessica Hearn
Producer (MAXlive)Mary John Frank
Photography Alycia Kravitz
Luis Suarez
Created by
Lisa Jamhoury
Choreography and PerformanceHybrid Movement Company
Françoise Voranger, Grasshopper Mitch, Andrea Nikki Ortiz, Graham Reese
3D ModelingWoraya Boonyapanachoti, Lisa Jamhoury, Rongyu Li, Guðjón Örn Lárusson, NYCAP3D
Unreal Engine DevelopmentSneha Belkhale, Kevin Peter He, Lisa Jamhoury, Matt Romein, Yilin Zhang
Unreal Engine Development and Technician
Christopher Strawley
Motion capture technician, animation
Lisa Jamhoury, Isabella Heron (MAXlive)
Audio concept and script
Lisa Jamhoury
Audio Effects
Nicholas de la Motte
Audio Engineer
Matt McCorkle