In November last year, we launched a call for XR artistic projects, in the context of Realities in Transition.
After a selection process involving our partners in the RIT consortium, and the immersive performance pioneers of CREW Brussels, we are very happy to announce we have chosen the proposal Чули? Чули of Letta Shtohryn.
At RiT residency at iMaL, the project "Chuly? Chuly" has moved from the prototype stage to a fully structured performance, with the mentorship of Crew Brussels and the collaboration of dramaturg Julie-Michèle Morin and dancer Marion Bosetti.
The work development at iMaL has focused on enhancing the immersive experience dramaturgically and technologically. We have particularly explored deliberate motion capture (MoCap) un/calibration in order to understand how different types of movement, movement speed, and object-to-sensor proximity affect the un/calibration of the dancer's avatar. These experiments have informed adjustments to interaction mechanics, ensuring that the physical movements of the dancer and player are accurately represented in the XR world and subsequently decoupled via un/calibration at choreographically necessary points.
With the mentorship of Crew Brussels, we have developed an intro and outro, co-written with Julie-Michèle Morin, to add a VR layer of experience and a live face-to-avatar stream. This further fragmentation of the story also strengthened the viewer's connection between the core narrative in the intro and its mutated forms throughout the work. The outro, or final scene, highlights the conceptual parallels between the core narrative and our interpretation of the contemporary giants it describes—of planetary scale, ambiguous, unidentifiable, yet that exercise power on macro, micro, and cognitive levels.
Finally, we want to take this opportunity to remind Belgium-based artists that they can apply to our iMAL Projects Office call until February 18th!
How we experience digital content is changing rapidly with the emergence of extended reality, or XR. XR brings together virtual, augmented and mixed reality to create a blended reality in which data seamlessly mingles with the physical environment.
To activate a Creative and Activist European XR community, Realities in Transition aims to support projects that reflect on alternative XR creation and promote the methodologies that are in line with the values driven by the concepts of commons and commoning.
Top image: Letta Shtohryn
