Transformation of dance motion data to form through the computational environment

Everything in nature is moving constantly. Even stillness is a kind of motion; thus motion is an essential fact of life. All the actions performed in daily life are combination of motions. Motion can be defined as movement or relocation in a unit of time and location. Considering moving parts of the body, body is the essential in motion at live beings. Movement of body is being analyzed for years. Movement analysis provides important data in explanation of how the body moves. In recent years, involving computers to design process leads to digital analysis of movements. Analysis, reformation or deformation of an action, performance or motion in a smaller scale is becoming easier in computational environment. Movement data is available with movement analysis in digital spaces. These data can be used as a first input of a design process in computational environment. By this way, movement which is interpreted as displacement, can be used as design components for different disciplines. An action in physical space defined by time and place of the motions which it consists. In case of computational environment, movements can be interpreted without its time and place. For the above mentioned reason it is possible to produce motions and forms in computational environment instead of direct interpretation of movement in physical space. One of the processes which the motion can be observed most intensively is dance performance without any doubt. Dance performance consists of motions which interact with each other. When it is considered that, each motion has it is own distinctive dynamics, each successive occurrence of the mentioned dynamics provides a variety of movement composition. Besides that the relation between body and movement creates foundation of dance like all other actions. Dance is one of the fields which body moves intensively. Dancer expresses herself/himself with her/his body and movements. He/she creates geometrical shapes and forms with her/his body movements in space during dance performance. Understanding tracks of body movements interests many choreographers and artists. Body and body movements are one of the most important research subjects for architecture. From ancient times to the present day, human body and body movements are examined permanently by artists and scientists. Body and movement are highly being taken into consideration in architecture as well as dance. Architect takes user requirements and user movements in design process as an input. In a similar way an environment needs to be experienced with body movements. Therefore, architect's knowledge and ability to analyze body and body movements enables the successful completion of the architectural subject. This thesis focuses on occurring movements by dance, analysis of movements and interpretation of this data on space and form. Within this scope, the study is consist of five parts. Firstly, the relation among the time, space and movement is examined. Because the study about the dance movements, researches about body, movement and dance have been analyzed by focusing especially on modern dance to begin with. As a dance type, modern dance is selected for this thesis study since it is much more challenging than more traditional forms. It is less bound by set routines, having more potential moves than in a classical style like ballet. The rhythm and speed can be changed suddenly and unpredictably during the dance performance according to the dancers. Modern dance choreographies are suitable for improvisation. In contrast, contemporary dance techniques leave small opportunity to personal improvisations. As an art form dance relies on the expressive qualities of the human body, is suitable for movement analysis. For this, the terms of dance, choreography, dance notation are investigated to comprehend the background of the dance movements. For the analysis of dance, first, it is necessary to illustrate the movements of the dance forms. That's why, the first part of the study continue with the movement analysis; the former examples are researched to contribute the further stages of the study. Secondly, motion capture, which is the process of recording the movement of objects or people, and motion transformation techniques are studied. It can be defined as recording the motion and conversion them to the digital data. In motion capture sessions, movements of one or more actors are sampled many times per second. The former motion transfer metods are examined. Besides, the relation among the movement, physical environment and the computational environment is disclosed. Apart from all these, with giving examples, the contribution of the computational environment to dance analysis is clarified. In the computational environment, it is possible to express the movements gained from the physical environment, like a model, a system and a process. Thanks to the benefits offered by computer technologies, multiple models related with the motions can be created in computational environment. Besides, these models can be examined from different perspectives. Thirdly, the relation between dance and architecture had been researched and usage of space in dance had been analyzed. Executed performances and models are studied. Despite the fact that architecture and dance are considered as two distinct disciplines, they provide a supplementary relation with regards time and space. Dance and architecture are both materialized forms of visual arts. Architecture and dance shares common grounds in terms of shape and form. Bacis dance movements can be analys into geometrical shapes and forms such as points, lines, planes and volumes. Likewise architecture is use these basic shapes too. Both disciplines use solid objects and transforms space to define themselves. The definition of dance is moving architecture, rhythmic movements in time and space. In this context, dance data can be used to create dynamic spaces in interaction with body movements. Accordingly, spatial representation of interaction between the movement and space is examinded. At this point, the term of "Interactive Architecture" is profoundly studied. To understand the interactivite in architecture, an example named Bubble, which is an adaptable spatial pneumatic installation at an urban scale, is given. Within this example, sensor based interactive architecture is examined deeply to used in the thesis study. In the later stage, transforming dance performance to movement data had been studied. In this scope, it has been worked with a group dancers as subjects and their movements had been transferred to computational environment. For the performances, the same music piece is given to each dancer. Thus, each dancer have the same amount of time to perform his/her coreography. Besides, they are free to do improvisation while performing. Improvisation in performance is a combination of intuitive reaction and body movement. Within this scope, each dancer design their own performance with his/her body, using it as an instruments. Hence real time movement data of the subjects had been recorded by using Kinect, Grasshopper and Quokka interfaces and every motion of their joints had been stored in computational environment. Kinect is used a a real- time 3D scanner. Quokka is an add-on to Grasshopper that allows the use of Kinect in Grasshopper for Rhinoceros. Both Kinect and Quokka are proper and easy to use for this thesis subject. Movement models have been produced according to stored data. Movement analyses had been done regarding to parameters within the scope of this thesis. Especialy, Laban Movement Analysis table is used while the movement data is expounded. Laban Movement Analysis, known Labanotation is the most commonly used notation system in contemporary dance. Labanotation is proper for this thesis study as well since defines movement description in clearly measurable terms. Transforming dance motion data to form had been stared with analyzing intangible tracks of motions in space. Within this scope it had been worked primarily on movement mapping to study movement density and movement tracks had been mapped. Movements, used to movement analysis, are represented as a point cloud, under favor of gathering the Quokka interface. In a point cloud, every point is defined by three coordinates; x, y, z. The study had been focused on movement maps of every individual dancer and interaction with their next move. Interaction between dancer and the form shaped by this study and reflection of body dynamics on created for have been also analyzed. Besides that it has been shown that by changing movement map data parameters, deformation on movements and movement variety can be maintained. Thus it has been possible to create different forms besides exact transformation of dance to form. With this study, expression of dense movement utilization in dance as forms, had been created by using dancer's moves instead of drawing lines. It has been studied that digital analysis of dance moves to find answers for form pursuit, and creating interaction between forms and body movements. In order to express the interaction between body movement and form, the interative surfaces are designed from each dancers movement. In form finding process, the movement points are used for the first step of design. Then, a grid system is designed according to these movement points for each dancers. While a grid system is look like a surface, the spheres centered the movement points are modeled. Radius of the spheres are associated with the movement density. Meanwhile, the form is changed according to the movement density, movement point by means of movement sensors. Movement sensors work as a nerve system for the surface so it can determine whether there is a movement or not. This thesis consist of both information and experiments about the movement, dance and architecture. From this aspect, it can be useful for interdisciplinary studies of architecture and dance in the future. Further studies can be examined the interaction for more than one dancers at the same time. Besides, music factor is also can be take into consideration while looking for the movement changes.