The project Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience (MODINA) aims to expand 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. 

In this MODINA seminar, artists and experts will discuss and explore the main topics of the project: dance, artificial intelligence and audience interaction.

Creativity and Sensemaking Tools: from Multimodality to Human-Centered AI

Abstract:

In his talk, Diogo Cabral will cover more than ten years of research on creativity and sensemaking 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, interfaces for digital and physical information-seeking and exploration, and sensory feedback studies.

Bio:

Diogo Cabral is a Senior Research Fellow at ITI/LARSyS, IST, University of Lisbon. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Madeira, Portugal, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), University of Helsinki, Finland. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal. His research interests include creativity and sensemaking support tools, multimodal interactions, and video interfaces, crossing the Human-Computer Interaction and Multimedia fields.

Affiliation : ITI, IST, Ulisboa

The Emergent Power of the Body: Creative Intelligence Beyond the Digital.

Abstract:

In an era where digital intelligence increasingly challenges our idea of creativity, the human body remains a creative, vital source 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 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 PhD candidate in Philosophy of Science, Technology, Art and Society [University of Lisbon], Holds 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 of the international projects Blackbox: Arts & Cognition and TKB: Transmedia Knowledge-Base for Performing Arts; Organizer of Nova University of Lisbon’s TKB and PAI international conferences. Taught at various  institutions and is currently a Professor at Lusófona University. He worked in direction and performed in several Performing Arts productions in Portugal and Germany. His latest endeavours include completing the Social Presencing Theater Practitioner Development Program at the Presencing Institute and his doctoral dissertation in Emergent Embodied Creativity. He is currently at the Interactive Technologies Institute working on the MODINA – Movement, Digital Intelligence and Interactive Audience international project.

Affiliation : ITI & FBA, ULisboa

dance-led research: methods, creations, and critical reflections

Abstract:

In this talk, I trace the approaches I have followed in intersecting dance with interaction design. I describe how I apply first-person methodologies, including research through practice and ethnographic and phenomenological methods, in order to design technologies that support creating, learning, performing, and archiving dance. I describe several

artworks and interactive systems that I developed in which I focus on dance vocabularies, including that of Laban’s Movement Analysis, vocabularies that are idiosyncratic to choreographers whom I collaborated with, and those emerging from my own artistic research. I present how I choreograph dance pieces that integrate interactive technologies in order to provoke critical questions. While providing poetic experiences, my artworks enact experimental situations that enable critical reflections on how art can contribute  to knowledge or how humans co-exist with each other and with technologies.

Bio:

Sarah Fdili Alaoui is a Reader at the University of the Arts London. Prior to that, she was an associate professor at LISN-Université Paris Saclay and Ex)Situ INRIA research team in interaction design, human-computer Interaction, and dance. She is a choreographer, a dancer, and a Laban Movement Analyst. She was a researcher at the School of Interactive Arts+Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, within the MovingStories project. She holds a Ph.D. in Art and Science from the University Paris-Sud 11 and the IRCAM-Centre Pompidou and LIMSI-CNRS research institutes. She has an MSc from the University of Joseph Fourier, an Engineering Degree from ENSIMAG in Applied

Mathematics and Computer Science, and about 35 years of training in ballet and contemporary dance. Sarah is interested in intersecting research in interaction design with dance-making and choreography. She has been involved in many art and science projects, collaborating with dancers, visual artists, computer scientists, and designers to  create interactive dance performances and interactive installations, as well as systems for supporting choreography and dance learning and documentation.

Affiliation : UAL Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London

📸: Mircea Topoleanu

MODINA is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.