Sonic Organism
Audience co-emergent interactive performance is part of Hanna Pajala-Assefa’s doctoral research on Digital Choreography.
“Sonic Organism is a performance event where,
movement is the beating heart and the instigating force of the unfolding sonic organism,
sentient perceptions are the lungs breathing the chiasmic entity,
sound and image are the flesh of the world transforming the landscape.”
Sonic Organism explores the innate organization of an audience in co-expressive creative activity. Through optical motion capture, audience participants become agents in the work as performing perceivers. Whose movement generates the soundscape and visuals that support the perception of agency. Thus, the audience also becomes authors of the work, – performers for themselves and for each other, in reflective relationality to a constantly altering, unfolding performative landscape.
In the work, the human is not considered as an individual actor, but as part of a self-regulating organism, forming a complex network of human and computerized agencies. That, like natural organisms, is in constant flux and an innate porous state of awareness and self-organization. This constantly transforming mode of actualization and perception is nourished by the interactive digital system. Where the perceptual feedback loop is intuitively interpreted in both, the perceiver’s singular body and the collective body of the audience. The perceiver-performer attunes to the emerging intercorporeal expressions and the embodied experience, while being in intra-active entanglement with the digital agent. The vast array of potential actions and interpretations that thus unfolds in the work arises from, the kinetic organization of the community and its simulations. along with the individually experienced, porous, articulated embodiment.
All performances include a reflective post-performance discussion.
The Team
- Digital choreography, researcher Hanna Pajala-Assefa, Tutke
- Movement sonification design: Janne Storm (vier)
- Movement visualisation design: Tomi Paijo (vier)
- Movement capture and data algorithm design: Aleksandar Koruga (vier Aalto, Sonic Move)
Sonic Organism is produced in collaboration with Aalto University, VTT and University of Eastern-Finland Sonic Move -research project. Read more about Sonic Move project
Audience info
The artwork is generated through interaction with the group of spectators, and as such each performance is unique, and how it unfolds is relative to the interpersonal (intercorporeal) activity of the group. The work does not require any previous performing experience, but participants are encouraged to engage in observing and following the impulses and internal bodily sensations evoked by the environment and the interactions. The performance uses theatrical fog, visual projections and sound. Audience members are advised to wear clothing comfortable for moving.
As the work is based on audience participation as perceiver-performers in an interactive performance, participation requires giving consent to capture and use of movement data classified as personal data and the copyrights resulting from their performance, for the artwork and the research that examines it. The video documentation of the performance event and the following discussion are for research analyses and documentation purposes.
The work is part of Hanna Pajala-Assefa’s doctoral thesis on digital choreography and interactive performing arts. Through this performance, the researcher investigates how a mediated performative environment can support open-ended expression and inter-corporeal awareness. The examination of the artistic component takes place in 6.6. 15.00 performance.
Performance schedule
Wed 5.6. at 19.00
Thurs 6.6. at 15.00 (external examination) and at 19.00
Fri 7.6. at 15.00, at 17.00 and at 19.00
Sat 8.6. at 14.00, at 16.00 and at18.00
“Sonic Organism is a performance event where,
movement is the beating heart and the instigating force of the unfolding sonic organism,
sentient perceptions are the lungs breathing the chiasmic entity,
sound and image are the flesh of the world transforming the landscape.”
Sonic Organism explores the innate organization of an audience in co-expressive creative activity. Through optical motion capture, audience participants become agents in the work as performing perceivers. Whose movement generates the soundscape and visuals that support the perception of agency. Thus, the audience also becomes authors of the work, – performers for themselves and for each other, in reflective relationality to a constantly altering, unfolding performative landscape.
In the work, the human is not considered as an individual actor, but as part of a self-regulating organism, forming a complex network of human and computerized agencies. That, like natural organisms, is in constant flux and an innate porous state of awareness and self-organization. This constantly transforming mode of actualization and perception is nourished by the interactive digital system. Where the perceptual feedback loop is intuitively interpreted in both, the perceiver’s singular body and the collective body of the audience. The perceiver-performer attunes to the emerging intercorporeal expressions and the embodied experience, while being in intra-active entanglement with the digital agent. The vast array of potential actions and interpretations that thus unfolds in the work arises from, the kinetic organization of the community and its simulations. along with the individually experienced, porous, articulated embodiment.
All performances include a reflective post-performance discussion.
The Team
- Digital choreography, researcher Hanna Pajala-Assefa, Tutke
- Movement sonification design: Janne Storm (vier)
- Movement visualisation design: Tomi Paijo (vier)
- Movement capture and data algorithm design: Aleksandar Koruga (vier Aalto, Sonic Move)
Sonic Organism is produced in collaboration with Aalto University, VTT and University of Eastern-Finland Sonic Move -research project. Read more about Sonic Move project
Audience info
The artwork is generated through interaction with the group of spectators, and as such each performance is unique, and how it unfolds is relative to the interpersonal (intercorporeal) activity of the group. The work does not require any previous performing experience, but participants are encouraged to engage in observing and following the impulses and internal bodily sensations evoked by the environment and the interactions. The performance uses theatrical fog, visual projections and sound. Audience members are advised to wear clothing comfortable for moving.
As the work is based on audience participation as perceiver-performers in an interactive performance, participation requires giving consent to capture and use of movement data classified as personal data and the copyrights resulting from their performance, for the artwork and the research that examines it. The video documentation of the performance event and the following discussion are for research analyses and documentation purposes.
The work is part of Hanna Pajala-Assefa’s doctoral thesis on digital choreography and interactive performing arts. Through this performance, the researcher investigates how a mediated performative environment can support open-ended expression and inter-corporeal awareness. The examination of the artistic component takes place in 6.6. 15.00 performance.
Performance schedule
Wed 5.6. at 19.00
Thurs 6.6. at 15.00 (external examination) and at 19.00
Fri 7.6. at 15.00, at 17.00 and at 19.00
Sat 8.6. at 14.00, at 16.00 and at18.00