Sympoietic Bodies
Private work as CGI Artist
Short Film by Flavia Mazzanti, 2020
Written, directed and produced: Flavia Mazzanti
Performers: Cat Jimenez, Elisa Elektra Pirone
CGI: Manuel Bonell, Flavia Mazzanti
Digital Camera: Gabor Racz
Voiceover: Victoria Hogan
Supporting Cast: Martin Eichler, Dila Kirmizitoprak, Davide Porta, Maximilian Unterfrauner
Motion tracking operator: Flavia Mazzanti, Manuel Bonell
Kinect Camera: Manuel Bonell
Faro Scan operator: Flavia Mazzanti
Editing: Flavia Mazzanti
Color grading: Manuel Bonell, Flavia Mazzanti, Laura Skocek
Sound design: Wobblersound (David Zahradnicek, Markus Zahradnicek) & Flavia Mazzanti
Mastering: Lenja Gathmann
ORF III post production: Laura Skocek
Programme manager: Judith Revers
Technical Support: Werner Skvara, Michael Bonell, Damjan Minovski, Christina Jauernik
Filmed on locations: Vienna, AT
Hergestellt mit der Unterstützung der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien; ORF III Kultur und Information; Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlicher Dienst und Sport; Magistrat der Stadt Wien – Magistratsabteilung 7 Kultur.
Danke an den ORF III Kulturbeirat. Realisiert im Rahmen der Reihe “Pixel, Bytes + Film - ORF III Artist in Residence.”
Flavia Mazzanti © 2020
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Institute for Art and Architecture
Vienna 2020
Concept
The hybrid short film Sympoietic Bodies explores the disruption of the boundaries between human body and its social and physical surroundings. By considering borders and constraints as a pure product of the anthropocentric, the film shows a world seen from a hybrid post-anthropocentric view.
The narration develops alongside three key moments — 'Skin', 'Hybrid' and 'Sympoiesis' — interconnected with each other through the questions of the body, transformation and fragmentation. Through the use of different cameras and technologies, the main intention and attempt to move from an anthropocentric binary view to a post-anthropocentric one.
CGI - The Making-of
Through the use of the Motion Capture Technology and its further processing in animation / simulation softwares, the human body gets completely transformed in its appearance. The movements of the performer have been recorded and then translated into different abstract geometries, tracking its movement in time and space, while the body is no longer recognizable. This transformation affects not only the physical aspect of the body, but also its temporal and spacial mutation. Time and space are assumed as the main perception marks, both hybrid figures of a deconstructed post-anthropocentric world. The words “body” and “city” lose their literal meaning in a fluid configuration in which borders are substituted by linking network systems, rigid walls by flexible membranes. Surfaces turn into pieces. Fragments dissolve and transform into new skins, new bodies.
The Faro Scan has been used to scan different locations of the city as point cloud data. Static scans are turned into an infinite dynamic network in which each place is connected and related to others. Particles float in space and transform from an object to another, from a surface to another. Through the use of the Kinect Sensor it was possible to record real time sequences of people’s movements as point cloud data. The recorded data from the two different technologies have been then merged together and distorted further on in animation / simulation softwares.
Film Stills
