Being Digital

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I have recently been thinking about our relationship with technology and what it means to be human today. How successful technologies do not exist superficially or outside of our body but actually deep inside us. Shaping, transforming, and evolving our specie. 

Perhaps influenced by the light of our screens, Being Digital takes place in a pitch dark room, where the light of a projector determines what exists from what does not. In a dream-like state, parts of my body appear and fade away as the light clashes against it. 

On my left hand, extruding form my forearm, is a cellphone. Inspired by our current times, the device reduces my identity to the sensors inside it.  

 

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As I move my body, the phone mediates the motion and communicates with a local server. The server then analyzes the information to match it against pre-learned sequence of movements using Wekinator, a machine learning platform. 

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Mantra:
My body serves technology.
My body has to match with mechanical repetition.
The system neglects my  humanity. 

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Full Performance:

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Thank you:

Tiriree Kananuruk
Aaron Montoya-Moraga
Yuli Cai
Sejo Vega-Cebrian
NIME class of 2017

Documentation:
Tiriree Kananuruk
Regina Cantú de Alba
Ariana Vassilopoulou
Akmyrat Tuyliyev
David Lockard
Leon Eckert

Software:
Wekinator
Processing
Isadora
Ableton Live
Node.js