Design And Performance Lab

"Kimospheres" are kinetic atmospheres currently explored in installations and performances built by DAP-Lab and associates during research on wearable space for the European "Metabody" project. These kimospheres behave as if they are active living architectural organisms that have an auditory, visual, and tactile sensory quality, with subtly changing states and affordances. They can be worn and breathed, felt and imagined, transported and taken off. Elements and objects from environment can be passed and shared, some of them emit intimate sounds, they are tactile sonic emanations from the environment. They vibrate in the light of distant voices.Others are constructed as costumes/garments that inspire movement and new forms of proprioception and kinaesthetic awareness relating to the environment and others.

These atmospheres of choreographic and garment design are developed by members and associates of the DAP-Lab, directed by Johannes Birringer & Michèle Danjoux.

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DAP-Lab workshop rehearsals (Yoko Ishiguro above) with visiting artist Jaime del Val (Instituto Reverso, Madrid/coordinator, METABODY Project) during October 28-31, Artaud Performance Center, Brunel University.

Del Val had initiated research tests with his 'metakinespheres', which were first introduced as industrial readymades before being hacked and adapted, during the Metabody platform at STEIM, December 2014, following upon his earlier performances with a gauze-and-metal exoskeleton during the Madrid July 2014 platform. The metakinespheres were then explored alongside the 'Loop' protopype spine for a dynamic architectural pavilion structure proposed by Nimish Biloria from Hyperbody Architects, as well as alongside other wearables that had been developed by DAP-Lab and STEIM.

The DAP-Lab co-directors develop new conceptual outlines for performance-costumes interlinked to architectural atmospheres and kinetic states - these phenomena will now be examined under the name "kimosphere". The initial kinespheric tests, proposed by Jaime del Val in Amsterdam and tested there by the METABODY co-organizers, were elaborated by Azzie McCutcheon and the lab team in London. Azzie was joined my Martina Reynolds for the test development, material construction, conceptual-choreographic evolution of the physical kimosphere-structure, and then joined by Chris Bishop and Cameron McKirdy for the software programming, the live kinect camera interface (Bishop) and generative algorithms written by McKirdy. The concept for an immersive installation was developed over several weeks in February-March 2015, and on March 31 Azzie performed live with Helenna Ren and Yoko Ishiguro, with Johannes Birringer and Barbara Ulaite shaping the sonic elements, and Pernille Rübner-Petersen joining on vocals. This kimosphere was vastly expanded in Madrid (July 2015) during the METABODY platform at Medialab Prado. During the residency in Madrid, the DAP Lab began to work collaboratively with the Hyperbody architects from TUDelft on the interactional kimosphere that involved a dynamic, motorized and programmable origami architecture prototype. In the fall of 2015, DAP-Lab developed design concepts for a transformative environment consisting or hard and soft responsive elements.

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kimospheres with inhabitant-performers (above) seen from several angles (c) DAP-Lab; and experienced (below) from inside in the fleximatic materials Jaime del Val brought to the rehearsals, performed by Yoko Ishuguro with styling by Seeta Indrani, Vanessa Michielon, Jaime del Val. (c) DAP-Lab 2015

Rehearsal October 30- 31, 2015, Artaud Performance Center