One of the most internationally renowned artists at the crossroad of choregraphy and technology, Gilles Jobin has been exploring the “Territoires Digitaux” of dance long before COVID profoundly impacted the world of performing arts.
With works featured at major immersive events – such as the Venice Film Festival, Sundance, SIFA and others – crossing oceans and captivating diverse venues, his approach to distribution is now a key reference in the immersive sector’s discussions on the topic, alongside his innovative and impressive use of motion capture in performances.
The decision to separate the company’s creative and production activities from those dedicated to supporting the community of creators through Studio 44 MocapLab stems from the desire of Cie Gilles Jobin to offer this deep expertise to artists who request it.
We met with Gilles and the lead dancer of Cie Gilles Jobin, now also in charge of the Studio 44 MocapLab Susana Panadés Diaz, in Geneva, where Studio 44 MocapLab is based, during GIFF 2024. This is what they shared with us about their latest project.
Cover: R&D for SUNSUM by Ainslee Alem Robson, Kidus Hailesilassie, Elisabeth Sutherland at Studio 44 MocapLab
Research and development at MocapLab
G. J. – Studio 44 MocapLab is dedicated to research, development, and creation. Under the umbrella of Cie Gilles Jobin’s nonprofit structure, our studio offers artists and their teams mentoring and creative resources in a space dedicated to creation. We welcome artists early in their journey in tech, as well as experienced digital artists, and we approach each project with a global and ethical perspective, seeking to understand the artists’ unique needs.
Our projects are inclusive, and we actively promote knowledge sharing and open source solutions, diversity and gender equality. We actively consider climate and sustainability issues in our field and are mindful of the challenges related to planned obsolescence of devices and software, as well as exclusive technology licenses. Working within innovative technology requires global collaboration, and our goal is to use collaborative technologies to minimize energy consumption related to travel.
Since 2022, we’ve hosted international artists in residence like Ainslee Alem Robson from Los Angeles, Instituto Stocos from Madrid, or UK-based duo Gibson / Martelli. We’ve also worked with artists like Tupac Martir or Tamara Shogaolu, who came to shoot their mocap projects with our local Geneva cast of dancers.
We have ongoing research with Australian artists Emma Roberts and Ben Joseph Andrew while continuing to develop our own creative projects, including live broadcasts of Cosmogony from our Geneva studio or the stage piece RESET! Beasts and Demons created in January 2024 in Geneva.
We’re active within the local creative community as well, hosting local Geneva artists in residence like If Compagnie or Rudi Van de Merve, and organizing professional mocap training for performers and technologists.
Susana Panadés Diaz – Recently, a local musician came in for a residency with her technologist. They were working on a musical performance with live mocap using an inertial suit. Both are great professionals in their field, but it was their first collaboration in tech, so having Gilles and me facilitate a creative dialogue was helpful.
Technology adds pressure to the performer; in this case she had to interact with her avatar in real time while singing and playing instruments on stage, which is a lot of responsibility! The discussion centered on finding the right balance between the tech and the movement, ensuring that both artists could create a piece that was as robust artistically as technologically.
G. J. – In cases like this, we strive to protect the performer’s space. Technology often operates on its own timeline, which can end up taking time away from performers experimenting with the tech.
It’s crucial to make technologists understand that their tools should be ready when they enter the studio for performers to engage with it. Too often performers end up waiting for the tech to be ready because complexity is added unnecessarily or coming too soon in the process. We emphasize the need for tech teams to have tools ready for the performers… waiting most of the session for the tech to work is a huge waste of resources, and creative energy!
I believe that’s why we see more and more artists being drawn to our studio: they come for the way we approach digital projects, always with the understanding that quality of movement is essential, as ultimately, it’s the performer’s avatar, their movement, that the audience sees. Our mocap studio is run by dancers, movement specialists who deeply care about quality of movement, as they know how powerful tool movement is for creating meaning without narration.
For mocap shoots, we emphasize on preparation (space, objects, tech…) and we give space in the volume for the performers to warm-up and rehearse. Taking care of the performers ensures that we capture the highest quality of their movement at the peak of their performative energy. For what we hear, mocap performers are not always given ideal conditions, so we center the work around them.
MocapAcademy: enhancing digital knowledge
G. J. – We had many people visiting the studio, often for mentoring or to discuss mocap technology and art. Many of them are dancers and they have to perform using a technology they’re not yet familiar with. In these cases, Susana takes charge of their training, helping them coordinate their movements with the technology. As movement coordinator, she’s able to visualize the relationship between the performance, the directing, and the technologies used, always from the performer’s perspective. She helps them move in the way the project requires, while speaking their own language, the language of performers.
But it’s not just the artists who need to understand technology. Not all technologists know about contemporary art or are experienced in the performing arts. We need to create a common language for a better understanding. Too often we see projects aiming at visual and technological effects that are too complex to accomplish within the time and resources of the project.
All is possible in the digital world and so many possibilities can be overwhelming. Artists and technologists can benefit from early guidance. To better support and frame the knowledge we created the MocapAcademy for our professional formation projects.
S. P. D. – Sharing our digital knowledge in movement is a fascinating job! In the workshops I lead, one exercise the dancers really enjoy is when I ask them to animate their avatar. Their first reaction to seeing themselves in an avatar in real time is always priceless… I ask them to start exploring the body language of their avatar and create a short solo. When they see the result, they can recognize themselves in that avatar, they see that the way they move is their signature! Stripping away their skin, expressions, and body, and leaving only an avatar figure that is alive and moves for real, we reveal the essence of their movement. For a performer, mocap can be a deeply revealing tool.
Artistic mocap: MocapProd at Studio 44
G. J. – MocapProd (Mocap Production) welcomes artists who need motion capture for their own projects.
Most commercial mocap studios aren’t as comprehensive as we are nor they specialize in movement and creative mocap. Commercial studios work with great technology but are often over priced and do not offer much support on the artistic side. We operate in a more open, exploratory space, offering artists the chance to better understand the relation between mocap and their work.
As a digital studio run by artists, for artists, we aim to create a comprehensive environment tailored to the needs of artists. We want to make mocap affordable for indie artists. Take data cleaning, for example: it is the rock in the shoe of all mocap projects! Billed separately, by the second, by avatar, data cleaning costs can be substantial and greatly impact the project’s economy. We decided to handle data cleaning ourselves and we teach the resident teams to do it themselves too. We realized that if the mocap session is well executed, data cleaning is reduced to the minimum, and this can be a huge cost-saver!
S. P. D. – We also provide local casting for the productions we welcome at the studio. In the Geneva area, there’s a large and diverse dance community, and being a dance company ourselves, we’re well-connected locally and internationally with next level performers. Depending on the project, we can cast the right dancers with the right style of moves.
Often we work with dancers who already work with us and we even often perform ourselves! Working with experienced performers in mocap makes the workflow easier. If artists bring their own performers and are inexperienced with mocap, we train them specifically. The same with visiting technologists: we show them how to use the mocap system so they can work as much as possible in autonomy.
G. J. – This approach, offering both artistic and technological support, autonomy in the studio is quite unique and provides significant creative energy.
Looking for quality of movement
S. P. D. – We work with different types of technology, but the performing aspect – the time spent in the mocap volume by the performers – is crucial in the creation process. It’s essential for dancers to have time to explore their avatars in movements, rehearse the sequences, experiment with props, help them understand the specificity of the technology to better express the artist’s vision of the project. Working in digital spaces, I’ve noticed a strong imbalance between time spent on technology and time allocated for the actual artistic creation.
Our in-house technologist, Adrian Barillet, inevitably needs time to develop the environment and specific digital tools. But creating in mocap is not just about world building. We also need to develop specific choreographic tools – camera movements, virtual cameras or the duplication of avatars to create a crowd in real time.
Developing all these elements and bringing them together requires time, often at the expense of rehearsal time, and we want to correct that in our pipeline. This is something we’ve learned over the years, working within the digital territories, and we’ve become quite skilled at finding innovative solutions! Making the most of the performers’ creativity and quality of movement is our goal when artists come to the studio.
G. J. – When mentoring a digital project, we always ask questions about the outcome: Will this technology truly enhance the work? Do you need to add a layer of tech complexity with the risk of sacrificing rehearsal time? Do you need face and hand capture for an AR app on a phone screen? We remind them that in digital creation, often, “less is more” and “perfect can be the enemy of good”…
S. P. D. – Planning in advance is essential as well. I’ve found preparation to be the key.
When artists come to shoot a project, I gather as much information I can upfront, ensuring we can achieve the mission within the time we have in the studio with the performers. One of the specificities of our approach is to balance the time available for both technology and artistry. We believe that the quality of movement is what will make a project unique. But to achieve this, the performers need dedicated time to preparation and rehearsals.
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