ELENI XYNOGALA~ΣYMBIOSIS
Unit 2.2 . Physical Computing & Design Prototyping . Portfolio

MA Interaction Design
Communication

18 JUN 2018

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XYN17515132

London College of Communication
University of the Arts London

CONTENTS

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Introduction
Process
BackgroundResearch
Inspiration
Concepts
Implementation
Conclusion
Bibliography

INTRODUCTION“ The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to makeobjects ‘unfamiliar’. ”~ Victor Skhlosvky
Symbiosis is a mutually beneficial relationship between different organisms.
What techniques can we use to create new forms of embodiment communication between organisms?
Exploring the disparity of perception within the real and the virtual, this installation set questions about what
does experience mean to us.
This portfolio is the documentation of the project called “Symbiosis”, that developed for the “Physical Computing& Design Prototyping” unit. Here you will find the process of work, which includes contextualization, research,inspiration, conceptualization, design prototyping and experimentation. This project developed after the
research conducted in the parallel unit Interaction “Futures & Speculative Design”, which was entitled “Resetof Perception & Construction of Experiences in the Digital Age”. The purpose of the whole brief of the projectcalled “Other Machines” was to research, speculate and build designs that challenge and question normal
notions of what a machine is or could be.

PROCESS
Starting this unit, I had already rich sources of research about people’s

Research
Inspiration
Plan Feedback
Prototypes
Practice

perception and experiences in the digital era. Focusing on Virtual Reality
projects and Robert Nozick’s theoretical frame of the Experience Machine I
started to search for inspiration in other practitioners’ work. I was especiallyinterested in machines that seem chaotic and in the performative
expression of feelings of discomfort that these machines could have.
Then, I started developing my first concept which included a machine thatthe audience would connect and through this would communicate withanother body, that would perform a symbolic disembodiment situation. To
explain my ideas to others and to make them clearer for me I always sketch
them. After sharing them with presentations and tutorials I had feedback
from students and tutors that were helpful to continue.

I was confused many times on finding the meaning of my work and I needed

The second prototype consisted of three parts. Firstly, a VVVV implementation

to go back to research that I had conducted or read new books and articles.

of a real-time skeleton made of particles, which I captured with a Kinect

Furthermore, because of my interest in choreographic installation as a form

camera. Secondly, an Arduino connection between four e-textile buttons

of design, I attended many performances that helped me to structure myand vibrators. Finally, an 8-minute dancing choreography demonstrated bywork. Another useful component in the process of rationalizing my workme.

was the seminars that provided to us during the course.

To connect these pieces, I collaborated with a choreographer - Efi Klidara, amusician - Ivan Acher, and my classmate - Beatriz Lacerda, who helped me

Writing my project’s Mission Statement was the initial motivation forto create a video for the third prototype.

starting to create something tangible. Additionally, I made a Plan that I had
to follow for a seven-week period of experimentation, prototyping, testing,

For the final prototype and the crit of my work I had to book a dark room,

final implementation and documentation.

laser cut the vibrators cases, sew an e-textile costume, request someequipment from the university – like projector and speaker, test and buy

So, I started my practice experimenting with VVVV - a software for real-timesome equipment – like transparent fabric to project on, set everything inmotion graphics - and Arduino, to create interactive electronic objects. In

the space and document the performance.

the same time, I had to communicate with choreographers and develop andpractice my dancing piece.

The future plans for this installation are the improvement of the animations,the collaboration with a professional dancer to perform and improve the

My project included of many layers and different design practice and it waschoreography and the recording of dancer’s movement’s sounds and theirvery complicated to describe it. So, I had to make a cardboard and papertransform in electronic sounds.

mock-up for the whole setting of my idea, that I presented in the Prototype
party that we had in the class. My first prototype consisted also from someinteractive VVVV visuals made of particles and an Arduino to Arduino
wireless communication with LED and buttons.

BACKGROUND
Research
The choreographic installation “Symbiosis” was created as a piece of artistic
practice focusing on exhibition’s audience. It will be exhibited in Ars
Electronica Festival – with the theme of “Error - The art of imperfection”, inSeptember 2018.
https://www.aec.at/error/en/theme/
The background of this project originated from research in Platonic notionsof subjectivity, the phenomenology of perception, the Experience machine
theoretical framework, embodiment and disembodiment studies.

The eye of the skin: Architecture and the Senses ~ Juhani Pallasmaa
This book inspired from questions of perception and refers to the crucial
phenomenological dimensions of human experience in architecture. The
writer claims that “my body remembers who I am and how I am located in
the world” and he also, inspired of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, argues that“the human body is the center of the experience world”. This book supports
my assumption about the role of the body in perception and especially theimportance of touch, which is the sense of intimacy, contrast to the eyesthat create distance.

Symbiosis is inspired from a large range of Virtual Reality projects,

How Bodies Matter: Five Themes for Interaction Design ~ Scott R.

performances, choreographies and visual graphic works.

Klemmer, Björn Hartmann and Leila Takayama
This paper focuses on theories of embodiment, stating that “our physicalbodies play a central role in shaping human experience in the world,
understanding of the world, and interactions in the world”. Their mainargument that inspired my research is that although digital world canprovide advantages, we have to take care before unreflectively replacing
the physical world.

The Look Elsewhere ~ Samuel Fasse and Morgan Belenguer
The look elsewhere is a performative artwork with three dancers wearing
VR-headset and experiencing virtual worlds in a given, defined space. This
anesthetization is a very successful representation that shows that VR spaceis limited in the physical scale. The video version is interesting as it is mixed
with uncanny virtual landscapes, that blurs the boundaries between the real
and the simulated, while expanding the artwork into the virtual and makeviewers see the differences between the spaces.
In the performance, the dancer has no contact with the audience and theaudience cannot perceive the immaterial world. However, each of thedancers carries a nomadic structure on which a scarf of the collection is
integrated. The print of the scarf becomes the reflection of their experience.
This is a very artistic and abstract way to show an impression of the worldthat the dancer experience.

Performances

Inspiration

Body talk exhibition ~ Gatehouse Gallery
Body Talk is an exhibition by six artists who present works in performance,
sculpture, video, and large-scale installation. Through the exhibition, thevisitor explores how technology is rapidly changing the human experienceby promoting a reengagement with the corporeal.

Hakanai ~ Adrien M. & Claire B.

What I found interesting in this exhibition is the work of Manners, aThis installation is not so relevant with the virtual worlds that I explore, but

collaborative project of Lisa Rybovich Crallé and Sophia Wang. This projectwith the fleeting nature of dreams and the fugacity of life. However, I am

undermines the realms of fitness regimes and exercise tools to disrupt theinterested in this project for the aesthetics. It shows a Dance choreography

static nature of art objects displayed in the museum context as well as

performed in the immersive environment of a moving cube. They project

routine behaviors.

real-time animations based on physical movement modelling. Also, they
project in invisible fabric that produces a very interesting effect. The

Manners’ large-scale sculptural environment Basic Edition, created for

choice of a cube is also important for me because of the VR physical space

this exhibition, extends their exploration of “somatic learning,” or learning

boundaries in a rectangle room. Except from the performance, the audiencethrough the entire body, to the formal realm of the gallery space.

has also the opportunity to explore the stage installation.

Smoke Screens ~ Renaud Wiser, Patricia
Okenwa,Mária

Júdová

andAndrejBoleslavský
Choreographers and digital artists collaborate
to create “Smoke Screens”, a combination ofa dance performance and an experimental
mixed reality game. This art project explores the

The performative part called “The disappearing

disparity of perception within the real and theact” was very successful. They used some

digital space, where the line between reality andprops to make the audience understand thatfiction is blurred. The body is interchangeable

the dancers experience in a virtual world.

and the person disappears under the digitalSpecifically,

interesting

The dancing part called “Glitch” had more to dolayers. This project makes audience question

headsets – not the real VR-headset, that werewith the virtual worlds that combine a shiny

what makes us choose to connect in these

uncomfortable to wear them. In this way, they

fantasy and a black chasm at the same time.

worlds that reflect black chasm.

wanted to show the loosing of control and

But in my opinion, it wasn’t so successfully

identity below the machine. They also usedconnected with the whole concept.

they

used

some

the projection of some human body parts
into some white panels that the dancers used
to cover some parts of their body. In this way,
they succeed with an easy way to mix real with
virtual and created an aesthetically interesting
result.

Animationns
Syntax Error~ Bart Bratke

This installation is the creates a digital sculpture
representation from recorded motion data of adancer and blurring the lines between physicaland digital realm through an interactive
feedback loop. What is relevant to my concept
is the fact that only the body movements createa reference to the otherwise invisible space.
The project uses interesting techniques that
I would like also to explore. The performer
moves to an interactive noise field, where asimple modification of the random seed could
iteratively create new versions of the video,
each offering a different composition of therecorded performance. She was recorded bydepth Kinect cameras, in which the intersectionof the images was later put together to a threedimensional volume for further process.

Forms ~ Memo Akten and Quayola“Forms”

is an animation based on humanmotion and its reverberations through space
and time. It explores techniques of extrapolation
to sculpt abstract forms of athletes, who pushtheir bodies to their extreme capabilities.
What it interested in me in this work is the
choice of graphics. Although they are digital,
they are like geometrical shapes from metal andeven the sound makes you feel that is a moving
sculpture. Furthermore, they are constructedin a very successful way so as to understandthat is a moving skeleton that jumps or swim.
I would be interested to see the production ofthese visuals in real-time performance fromathletes too.

Momentum ~ schnellebuntebilder
This project creates a synaesthetic experienceof sounds and visuals generated from body
movement. The person and his surroundings
transform into a fluid creature in an evertransforming system of particles. A virtual
reality, in which movement becomes soundand music and matter seem to dissolve.
This gradual transition from something physicalin something completely abstract and digital isvery successful and inspire my future practice.

The Choreographic Coding Lab and Motion
Bank

This show explores how we lose touch with ourThis abstraction and metaphorical connection

bodies in virtual spaces. The artist had beenwith the feelings of a continues VR experience isworking for a year on a Virtual Reality series

magnificent. I would love to use her techniqueand through this exhibition, she expresses afor transforming the acrylic pieces of hands andcritical undertone for these systems that she

feet that I have created, to give the visitor theuses to create art. So she created this exhibition

feeling of hugging from a plastic material.

in response to the disembodied feeling she got
while sculpting in VR. As she claims “Instead oflooking at a reference image, I was recalling

The Choreographic Coding Lab, an outcome

the memory of what having a body was like.

ofuniqueIn VR, you feel like the memory of a body, theopportunities of exchange and collaboration

emotional memory of a body. I thought about

for digital media artists who have an interest inwhat parts of my body I remembered.”MotionBank

project,

offerstranslating aspects of choreography and dance
into digital form and applying choreographic

In the specific interview, her words are very

thinking to their own practice.

inspiring for me, but also her artistic practice.
She created paintings and virtual reality

They have many inspirational projects in thisenvironments made of plexiglass pieces,field, like Momentum and Syntax error that I

which were 3D prints of those environments.

mentioned above. I would be very interested

She printed the paintings and then used a

to participate in any future workshop of thisblowtorch to form these substrates. She put onlab and explore new techniques in this artistica flame-retardant suit and folded the plexiglass

combination of the ancient art of dance andaround her body, giving it these kinds ofthe contemporary technology.

impossible hugs.

Materials

Peak Performance ~Rachel Rossin

Choreographies

Phi ~ Stratofyzika
Phi is an audiovisual dance performance

Warehouse Samba ~ Gabriel Shalom

inspired by the slowly changing, repetitive

In this dance film, a trio of dancers moves

structures of minimalist music, and theirthrough an empty industrial warehouse.

incremental alteration of perception.

Contact

improvisation

techniquecreates

encounters between bodies and architecture.
I am interested in the way that they use the

The sounds created by the dancers’ interactionstransition between light and shadow, orbiting

with space serve as concrete music.

the dancers’ bodies, alternately illuminating
and obscuring. But also, the sound choice that

I like that the dancers dance to music made fromemits poly-rhythmic, electronic soundscapes

the sounds of their own movements. For mywhere the dancers express a repetitiveown future practice, I would be interesting tocontinuity of movements, like experiencing

use this technique and going one step further, I

and remembering.

would like to transform the physical sound thatthe dancer creates with her movements into a
digital form, so as to add value in my concept.

Riders ~ Lenka Vagnerova
Riders is a dancing performance that draws
inspiration from birds. Birds are witnesses to ourlives and stories, but their worlds are elsewhere
and it is a world of different dimensions.
Seeing this performance executed from thedancing company VERVE, I made a symbolic
connection with my concept, because of thisidea of looking in a world of other dimensions,a non-human place.
I inspired also from the strength and energy ofthis choreography, and also, I came across themusic that I wanted to use for my composition.

CONCEPTS
Nostalgia
In the initial idea, my goal was to create a
Machine and a Choreographic Installation tocriticize the discomfort and disembodimentof futuristic experience machines. To do so,
I wanted to create two different situations.
Firstly, a person- the audience, connected toa haunted machine that makes him/her feelloose of control, only passive visual and audio
receiving experience and disembodiment. This
would be a symbolic representation of theexperience machine. Secondly, a “blind” andlost body in a plastic world – an unstructured
no-space. My concept based on the memoryof the body that virtual systems make you feel.
When you are connected and stay inside forhours you forget your real body and you focus
more on the virtual one. That’s why I entitledthis idea “Nostalgia”. In this way I wanted tolocate an expanded awareness of “how wephysically engage the world, using our entire
bodies – not just our heads”.

Symbiosis
In this concept, my initial idea changed and focused more on the creation of
new forms of embodiment communication. In this scenario, there are threelayers. In the first layer, a body is trapped in a virtual world that the audiencecannot perceive. The person disappears under the digital layer of the virtual
self of this body, that is ultimately dependent, symbiotically, on the physicalbody. These bodies swing between oblivion and memory, experiencing an
endless fusion between real and virtual. The audience connects with thissymbiotic organism through external tactile stimuli and is being questioned
about what does experience mean to us. In this way, I create a new form ofexperience that can contribute to the field of embodiment communicationin virtual spaces.

In my first prototype, I tried to explain the different roles, the scenario, mysetting, the interaction and the visuals that I wanted to present. So, I made amockup from paper with the two roles of the dancer and the audience andI highlighted the points – hands and feet - of tactile connection between
them. I also had implemented some interactive graphics using VVVV andparticle systems. I created them based on some tutorials that I watched, so
as to learn the software.
Finally, I had created a connection between two wireless Arduino boards
with buttons and led to show the output that the one role would have fromthe input of the other. For the whole Arduino coding, I was helped by Tom
Lynch, a prototyping lab technician.

Prototype I

I M P L E M E N TAT I O Nthat I used Vinzenz Reinhardt’s implementation of a particle system to create my final visuals. I alsochanged the Arduino buttons system to e-textile buttons and I used Adafruit Flora and Lilypad for the
performer’s hands and feet input. The wearable workshop from Emilie Giles was very important in orderto know what I need to do with this technique. Additionally, I used vibrators instead of LED, to create thetactile stimuli that come from the performer to the audience.
Trying to experiment with a video edition of this implementation I collaborated with Beatriz Lacerda
to film and edit it. We filmed the choreography in an LCC room that was ideal for the concept of thedifferentiation between a sunny physical space and a body trapped in a digital no-space, seeing througha dark headset. In the editing used particles, developed in VVVV, that follow the skeleton and the
movements to create this blurred line between the physical and virtual self. The editing of the initialmaterial made with Adobe Premiere and After Effects. My goal is to improve this video and to createa tactile sensation for the audience that watches it when I am not presenting the performance in the
exhibition.
You can check a sample the video temporarly here:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=5TPCAp2n1UM

Prototype II & III

Later, I started working with the Kinect 2 in VVVV, that recognizes people’s skeleton. It was very useful

Acher’s archive. He is a specialist composer in contemporary performances music. So, I asked his
permission to use his music and we talked about future collaboration for an original music composition.
I also collaborated with Efi Klidara, a dancer and choreographer, who helped me to choreograph theperformance. I took inspiration also from other dancers, like Maria Papadopoulou, Andre Kamienski andFaye Revlon. I was practising the choreography in a Student’s Union activities room for a month. The goalof the choreography is to show a body that is always connected in a virtual world. It sleeps and wakes
up there. It experiences a passing through from something that existed in something that is coming,
between and betwixt a no-space. At the end of the choreography, there is a feeling of discomfort from somuch seeing and over experiencing. The body acts like wanting to escape from this world that is trapped.
I use an invisible fabric on which I project real-time skeleton made of particles that represent the virtual
self that is trying to be shown out of the glasses. This body is like playing with the particles and at thesame time, it is made of them. This fabric screen which stands in front of me symbolizes also a divider
between the 3 symbiotic organisms, the physical body, the virtual one and the connected audience.
You can check a sample of the video temporarly here:
https://www.vimeo.com/275540940

Prototype IV

My final implementation takes place in a dark room, where I dance using 2 different songs from Ivan

The props that I used for the performance are some handmade glasses ofgood quality plastic paper, that symbolize a virtual reality headset, but also

CONCLUSIONa costume, that I sew with the e-textile buttons, highlighting the connection
points with black fabric. I have also laser cut a pair of feet and hands madeof acrylic, where I have placed the vibrators that are connected with the
buttons. So, the audience is called to stand in the feet and touch the plastic

Symbiosis was a really interesting project for me. I experimented with many

hands to feel the external stimuli of the dancer’s movement. The goal of thisdifferent technologies and methods. I also collaborated and took feedback

construction is to make people empathize with the other person but also

from a lot of people. However, I believe that the project started as a speculation

with the no-human - alien body. The choice of the cold hard plastic material

with the Experience Machine and the discomfort of these technologies, but

was made to create a distance of the physical body.

then the final result is a new way of experiencing. If I would do this again, I
would change or improve some things as I said above, but also, I would try
to include fewer components, to be clearer. On the other hand, through thisproject, I gained experience in many different prototyping platforms and I
experimented both with technology and tangible constructions. The final
video and the photos documentation of the darkroom are not so successful,as they created and edited in the end in a limited time. My future plans are
to improve the project and the documented media in order to present it in
Ars Electronica.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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