Languages of Motion
Data Visualization, Motion Graphics
I created a photography-based data visualization for the “Impact” Exhibit in collaboration with a student curator, photographer and three dancers. We experimented with photographic and animation techniques to reveal the geometric shapes within arcs of three different dance styles: modern, contemporary, and ballet.
With the help of small flashlights and long exposure technique, the variation in dance styles (from top to bottom: modern, contemporary, and ballet) creates hypnotic calligraphic patterns. The differences in the dancer’s repetition of the same dance resemble signatures drawn with the body, unique to each iteration.
I mapping the shifting distance between points on the body to track them throughout the three dances. The graceful expressive motion of a ballerina’s arm can be reduced to fluctuating relationships between two points.
The visualization above adds the dimension of time, displaying the spatial relationships between the same points on the body over the course of the whole dance. If I could redo the project, I would have also liked to convey the speed of the movement.
