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Actor

Actor is a film that investigates the narrative possibilities of the motion capture suit. It presents research into the implications of new technologies and the moving image. The “MoCap” [motion capture] suit ‘captures’ an actor’s performance without a camera, feeding physical movement into a computer programme, from which both the physical appearance of the character and the camera movements can be later generated by the filmmaker. In Actor, the performance is turned through computer post production, into a knight in armour. He recites the missing last chapter (Chapter 21) of Anthony Burgess’s Clockwork Orange, the final redemptive passage which was omitted in the American edition of the novel and subsequent Kubrick film. Whist this technique has been used widely with dancers, and commercial animation, it has been hardly explored by artists (although Beverley Hood has done some work on bodies and representation). One reason is the complexity and cost of the equipment, which was enabled by a collaboration with the MMU engineer Dr. Peter Twigg, who is himself interested in gait analysis through motion capture. Actor has been shown at the Burgess Foundation, Manchester and at a curated exhibition at Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre on the theme of Appropriation, March to May 2013 http://en.bacc.or.th/ A conference presentation

made with engineer Dr. Peter Twigg exploring the themes behind the research, made in November 2011 at CARPE Utrecht was published Feb 2012 as Hawley, S. and Twigg, P. (2012) MOTION CAPTURE: Art, Technology & Collaboration. In Juha Kettunen, Ursula Hyrkkänen & Anttoni Lehto (eds.) APPLIED RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

Proceedings from the first CARPE networking conference in Utrecht on 2–4 November 2011 RESEARCH REPORTS FROM TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES 36

Turku University of Applied Sciences Turku 2012

ISBN 978-952-216-250-2 . pp. 340-351. Retrieved <30 June 2013> from URL

http://www.carpenetwork.org/~/media/HU-PORTAL/Docs/Carpe/Downloads/isbn9789522162519.pdf