Dance and Technology

Friday, 28 November at 2:00 p.m.
seminar
Kino Šiška, Komuna

The seminar will include presentations and discussions on solutions developed in the European collaborative project MODINA (Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience). In this framework we explore the expansion of the creative possibilities for contemporary dance performances, and augment the experience for the audience, using digital technology – with an emphasis on exploring artificial intelligence (AI) and audience interaction, on-site and online.

The project partners are three academic institutions and five dance centres, across six countries, namely: Tallinn University (Estonia), Coordinator, Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava (Estonia), Hochschule Düsseldorf (Germany), tanzhaus nrw (Germany), ITI, IST-ID, University of Lisbon (Portugal), Kino Šiška (Slovenia), Trafo (Hungary), CNDB (Romania). The dance centres are the main interface with the artistic community and audiences. The universities provide technical and theoretical knowledge and solutions.

Seminar structure
– Lecture 1 by Diogo Cabral
– Lecture 2 by David dos Santos
– Brief introduction by the artists, followed by round table with the artists and audience

Artists from the Modina showcase:
* Liis Vares and Taavet Jansen: Still Moving
* Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli: Nino
* Marko Milić and Uroš Krčadinac: Gaitless

Lecture details:
Lecture 1 – Diogo Cabral
Creativity Tools: from Multimodality to Human-Centered AI

In his talk, Diogo Cabral will cover more than ten years of research on creativity support tools. He will discuss the issues and benefits of multimodal interactions and present the challenges of human-centered artificial intelligence for these tools. Diogo’s work includes the development of video annotation and editing tools, sensory feedback studies, and ideation with AI.

Bio: Diogo Cabral is a researcher at ITI/LARSyS, and was previously an assistant professor at the University of Madeira and a postdoctoral researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, University of Helsinki. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the Nova University of Lisbon. His research interests include creativity and sense-making support tools, multimodal interactions, and video interfaces, crossing the fields of human-computer interaction and multimedia.

Lecture 2 – David dos Santos
The Emergent Power of the Body: Creative Intelligence Beyond the Digital.

In an era where digital intelligence increasingly challenges our idea of creativity, the human body remains a creative, vital source that is often overlooked. This talk builds on David dos Santos’s concept of emergent embodied creativity, as developed in his PhD thesis, to highlight the unique ways in which the body can produce knowledge and foster creative processes. Drawing on the philosophy of art and science and performing arts practices such as contact improvisation and social presencing theater, we will explore how the body can generate insights that challenge the capabilities of AI. By examining this form of emergent embodied creativity, we aim to enrich our understanding of how the body contributes to both artistic creation and our broader conception of intelligence in a tech-driven world.

Bio: David dos Santos is a postdoctoral researcher at ITI/LARSyS, IST, University of Lisbon, working on the projects MODINA and eGames. He holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science, Technology, Art and Society (University of Lisbon), an MA in Multimedia Culture and Art (FEUP|U.T. Austin) and a BA in Theatre Studies (ESMAE). In scientific research, he was an FCT doctoral grantee and a collaborator/researcher on the international projects Blackbox: Arts & Cognition and TKB: Transmedia Knowledge-Base for Performing Arts, as well as the organiser of international conferences at Nova University of Lisbon. He has taught at various institutions and is currently a professor at Lusófona University. He has worked in direction and performed in several performing arts productions. He recently completed the Social Presencing Theater Practitioner Development Program at the Presencing Institute and his doctoral dissertation in Emergent Embodied Creativity.

Live stream:

* The presentations and discussions will be held in English.
Organised by: Kino Šiška and NDA Slovenia

Free entry

Supported by:

Cover photo: Chris Ziegler and Christine Bonansea: Yugen, 2024, Kino Šiška. Photo: Urška Boljkovac