Traveling Soul

CG art with trans-species motion capture, 2023.

Blackbox Theatre at Dazibao Gallery, the 10th Korean Film Festival Canada (KFFC)

Public Choice Award “CLOUD” by voting, KFFC, 2023

The short film “Traveling Soul” traces an autobiograpy of a migrant anima as it traverses between mice and human, while preserving its rodent behavior, un-avoiding conflicts between form and motion. A spiritual call-back to the ancient mythological archetype of the mouse-turned maid, “Traveling Soul” explores the embrace and rejection of becoming other, in the cultural context of global memory of migration in convergence with the prehistoric animal metamorphosis myth. “Traveling Soul” is the first artistic production that employs Zoomorphic Trans-species Motion Capture Choreography, investigating non-anthropocentric metempsychosis, the MIGRATION OF THE SOUL, mapping animal behavior and movement onto human body. The mouse-person is created based on both real mouse motion capture data and Yiou’s meditation on this mythological archetype, where the shape is changing, the soul is traveling, the myth is traveling, and the invisible, imponderable is traveling.

In collaboration with DANNCE team of Harvard Biology, the world’s first markerless animal mocap system, this piece questions mind-body relationship, otherness, and objecthood of animal. Harvard Mind Body Behavior Initiative funded this interdisciplinary research creation. It was awarded Public Choice Award in the category “CLOUD” by public voting after being screened in the 10th Korean Film Festival Canada, in June 2023.

短片《灵变》是一只迁徙的灵魂的自传,它在老鼠和人之间穿梭,同时保持其鼠的心智,不可避免地产生了形态和动作之间的冲突。作为对老鼠变成少女的古代神话原型的精神重述,在全球移民迁徙记忆恰巧与上古鼠人神话交汇的文化背景下《灵变》探索了对成为异类的接纳和拒绝。《灵变》是第一个采用兽类跨物种动捕技术进行艺术创作的作品,研究非人类中心的转世,将动物的行为和动作映射到人体上。故事主角是基于真实老鼠动作捕捉数据和一鸥对这个神话母题的思考创作的,其中形态在变化,灵魂在旅行,神话在旅行,而那看不见、不可名状的东西亦在旅行。

《灵变》与哈佛生物学的DANNCE团队合作,该团队研发了世界上第一个无标记动物动作捕捉系统。这个作品质疑了心灵和身体的关系,他者性和动物的客体性。哈佛大学Mind Brain Behavior资助了这项跨学科研究创作。该作品在2023年6月加拿大第十届KFFC艺术节上放映后,通过公众投票获得了“云”类别的公众选择奖。