Description
'Bodies in the Anthropocene' is a workshop co-designed and organised by Patricia Wu Wu and Asad Khan, as part of the Festival of Creative Learning, University of Edinburgh.The Anthropocene is the geological epoch in which the collective actions of human activities have been the dominant influence on our environment. The aim of our workshop was to address this ecological crisis, in creative ways that engage participants to think and explore collectively through the making of narratives. We encouraged them to re-imagine their relationship with the world using LiDAR scanning as a means to challenge their perception of body and surroundings, and how that in turn generates alternative modes of seeing.
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scanning uses an infrared light in the form of a pulsed laser beam to measure distances when in contact with an object, and converts the signal’s return time back to the scanner as a discrete set of distance values in the form of X, Y, Z coordinates. These coordinates are stored in a 3D point-cloud archive, which produces a highly accurate production of its target. Our focus was not to use LiDAR to reproduce a replica of the physical environment, but we were looking to subvert this particular technology into glitched and fragmented errors of alternate realities that could not otherwise be seen by the human eye. Through this thought process, we encouraged participants to arrange choreographed scenes through the use of gestures, body movements, materials, etc to potentially distort the machine vision of LiDAR into unexpected, unknown visual possibilities.
| Period | 19 Feb 2019 |
|---|---|
| Event type | Workshop |
| Degree of Recognition | Local |