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Meet the Artist Building an Open-Source Database of Everyday Movements

Rosana Antolí conducts the world's first gestural census by recording everyday actions of East Londoners.
Installation shots from Rosana Antolí's "Virtual Choreography." All photos ©Erola

Arcalís.

The vibrance and diversity of East London is captured through the physical gestures of its inhabitants in Rosana Antolí’s Virtual Choreography, what the artist calls the world’s first digital archive of everyday motions. Cataloging gestures like the thumbs-up of a security guard and the moves of a basketball player, the project spans performance and video to evoke daily life in the rapidly-changing neighborhood of Hackney Wick.

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Though she started the project in East London, canvasing the area and documenting the movements of community members, Antolí is working towards a “world gesture map,” an open source database of everyday motions around the globe. “Right now, Hackney Wick is quite eclectic,” she tells The Creators Project. “You have the builders of new constructions in development, you have the locals that are living here, you have industries, there’s several representations. So what I did was ask these different people what gestures they did the most throughout their days.”

Antolí recorded approximately 40 gestures for the first iteration of Virtual Choreography, from a priest delivering a sermon to a receptionist answering a telephone. Each subject mimed their chosen action to the camera for 60 seconds, and the resulting footage turns seemingly menial tasks into choreographed performance, highlighting the unique movements and behavioral traits of Hackney Wick’s population. The gestural census is archived online for all to view and contribute their own movements.

“I think it’s a very good critique of how we live,” Antolí says. “The movements show what gestures we use to do our jobs, which we usually automate, and because they’re normally automated we don’t get a chance to think about it.”

The visualizations of the gestures of Hackney Wick residents are being exhibited, along with physical elements, at arebyte gallery in London. They’re also available through a digital open database, and Antolí plans to expand the project to neighborhoods in other cities, comparing and contrasting cultural norms and psychogeography around the world.

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“It’s like conducting an archaeological survey of an area. When I bring this project to Jerusalem, India, or America, it’s going to be totally different because of cultural differences in the areas I choose to do it in,” Antolí explains. “I’m sure in five or ten years, the skaters who are in Hackney Wick now won’t be here, because the neighborhood is changing and new construction is coming.”

Influenced by Erwin Wurm’s One Minute Sculptures, which turn participants into works of art while they hold everyday objects in outlandish positions for 60 seconds, Virtual Choreography deconstructs participants’ body language in a democratic exploration of their lives and the realms they inhabit.

“For me," Antolí concludes, "the aim is to create choreography for the Hackney Wick area, as well as choreography for other cities, through the natural movements of people who live there."

Virtual Choreography is on view at arebyte gallery through Nov. 8. More information about the project can be found here, and you can try uploading your own gesture to the database here.

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