BodyQuake

BodyQuake (photo by Carlo Maria Causati)

BodyQuake (photo by Carlo Maria Causati)

BodyQuake is is a Concert for BODIES + DATA

BodyQuake transforms scientific research and innovation in the field of Epilepsy into a participatory performance.

Project Website

BodyQuake is the result of the collaboration between IRCCS Neuromed, Fondazione Neuromed and La Cura, together with: Art is Open Source (Salvatore Iaconesi and Oriana Persico); artist and performer Francesca Fini; Flyer Communication; the international community “FLxER Live Media” and the AVNode project; the Human Ecosystems research institute.

A choreography involving the body of a performer who “wears” the data from epileptic seizures and for the bodies of the audience, who wear a device which lets them experience the BodyQuake, the telluric vibration of the seizure.

About

BodyQuake Information (PDF)

BodyQuake deals with epilepsy: it brings together current radical scientific and technological innovation on the condition with its social and psychological status.

BodyQuake is the visualization of the scientific, cultural, emotional, technological, psychological, paradoxical body disrupted by the earthquake of the epileptic seizure.

All of these aspects of the body come together in the performance: data, visuals, sounds, presence, story arcs become one – polyphonically – to create a composite, sincretic experience.

BodyQuake is the result of a joint research process: while scientific researchers capture and use massive amounts of data to investigate seizures, their devastating effects on the body and how to cure them, artists visualize this data and intertwine it with other data about the life, social conditions, desires, visions, expectations and wishes of the people affected by epilepsy.

The results are performed directly on the body, through a body-projection mapping, a set of wearable technologies and a series of information visualizations which radically interrupt the isolation condition of epilepsy, and transforms it into a shared concern in which multiple types of subjects can cooperate: doctors, researchers, people, through art and science.

At the physical level, seizures have a distinct sensory isolation effect, in which subjects turn inwards and isolate. At the cultural and social level here currently is no instrument or diffused practice to share, participate and be solidal with epilepsy.

BodyQuake addresses this fact through a wearable technology which audience can wear to feel the wave of the epileptic seizure represented in the performance – in sync, as it happens – becoming able to actually share the experience and participate.

Science and the Arts

BodyQuake is the result of the convergence of Science and the Arts.

In the project, IRCCS Neuromed and Fondazione Neuromed have opened up their vast databases of case studies on epilepsy to embrace art as a different way of knowing, as an opportunity to have greater impact on society, to communicate and interact with people.

For this, “La Cura”, the participatory performance which brought millions of people from all parts of the world together for Open Medicine, Open Science and Open Society, designed BodyQuake: an artistic performance in which scientific analysis provides an understanding of the epileptic phenomenon, visualized directly on the body, using images and devices, and united with the larger body of society, in a dance. A body earthquake, which involves everyone.

BodyQuake is a project promoted by:

La Cura, IRCCS Neuromed, Fondazione Neuromed

In collaboration with:

AOS – Art is Open source, AVNode, FLxER Live Media, Flyer Communications, Human Ecosystems Relazioni

Credits

Concept, technology:

Salvatore Iaconesi & Oriana Persico (IT)

Concept, Choreography, Performance:

Francesca Fini (IT)

Scientific Coordination, Neurosciences Research, Data

IRCCS Neuromed, Fondazione Neuromed (IT)

Projection Mapping, Stage Design, Live Information Visualization:

AVNode, FLxER Live Media (Europe / International), Flyer Communications (IT)

Data Processing, Technology:

Human Ecosystems Relazioni (IT)

Communication, Community, Open Science:

La Cura (IT – Global), AOS – Art is Open Source (International)

 

BodyQuake on AOS

AOS Art is Open Source in Madrid at MMMAD with Istituto Italiano di Cultura Madrid
BodyQuake at Infoscapes exhibit, at Pordenone Design Week
BodyQuake at T*Danse Festival in Aosta
BodyQuake at NetFutures 2017
BodyQuake. A Concert for Bodies + Data