Symbiosis is a mutually beneficial relationship between different organisms. What techniques can we use to create new forms of embodiment communication between organisms? Exploring the disparity of perception within the real and the virtual, this installation consists of three layers. In the first layer, a body is trapped in a virtual world that the audience cannot perceive. The person disappears under the digital layer of the virtual self of this body, that is ultimately dependent, symbiotically, on the physical body. These bodies swing between oblivion and memory, experiencing an endless fusion between real and virtual. The audience is connected with this symbiotic organism through external tactile stimuli and is being questioned about what experience means to us. www.elenxyn.com 2018

This work can be presented as an interactive installation for the audience and/or as a choreographic installation/live performance. In the first case, the audience enters the dark room and comes across with its digital form that is projected in the wall. The projection depicts the visitor’s skeleton made of real-time particle-animations. The visitor can also explore an embodied tactile experience, playing around with the e-textile costume which is connected wireless with the acrylic objects that vibrate. The screen is presenting the recorded performance that helps the audience to empathize with other organisms through the proposed symbiotic techniques. In the case of the live performance, there is going to be a dancer who wears the costume and lives symbiotically with her holographic form that is projected on the wall. The audience can explore the performer’s movements through the embodied objects that are connected with her costume and are vibrated every time she touches her palms or her feet.

The interactive animations created by the VVVV software and are captured in real time from a Kinect camera. The props that I use for the performance are a VR headset, but also a Wearable Technology costume, that I sew with the e-textile buttons, highlighting the connection points with black fabric. I have also laser cut a pair of feet and hands made of acrylic, where I have placed the vibrators that are connected with the buttons and are controlled with Arduino and XBee paired modules. So, the audience is called to stand in the feet and touch the plastic hands to feel the external stimuli of the dancer’s movement. The goal of this construction is to make people empathize with the other person but also with the no-human — alien body. The choice of the cold hard plastic material was made to create a distance of the physical body.

The installation consists of many different objects and equipment, such as a Kinect V2 camera, a short throw projector hanging from the ceiling, a plinth or a table with dimensions 40cm x 40 cm x 100cm and with storage for laptop underneath, headphones, a screen, 5 acrylic objects with vibratos, an e-textile costume- made of conductive fabrice, Adafruit, Lilypad and XBee- a Windows laptop, a screen and Arduino.