This project has received funding from the European
Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon
2020 research and innovation programme.
Grant agreement No. 834033 AN-ICON.

2022 Presence

Event

17 feb 2022

17:30 — 19:00

Aula 309

Presence

From screen to body

Margherita Landi and Agnese Lanza

Screens are progressively getting closer to the user, changing the interaction and the engagement between these technologies and the body. The content watched and how it is experienced has also a powerful impact on the emotional state, opening new forms of embodiment.

After several stages of research, Margherita Landi and Agnese Lanza approached Virtual Reality, developing a method playfully based on interaction between audiovisual material and movement.

This way of dealing with the VR generates two different levels of fruition: the dimension of an “inside” the headset, where an intimate experience only visible to the user takes place and, at the same time, an “outside” the headset, showing how the VR experience affects the body of the user.

Margherita Landi

Choreographer, dancer and anthropologist since 2014 she has been involved in research on the body and new technologies and how this relationship transforms some of the most common human rituals, over time she has explored Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Projection mapping and different social media . In the last two years she has focused on VR for the embodiment potential that this technology offers, studying choreographic transmission techniques through the VR headset, in 2020 her choreographic project “X-Dealing with Absence” was selected by Biennale College Cinema VR. Her work aims at a reflection on the conscious use of technology as an experiential and creative tool, eliminating the human/artificial dichotomy that tends to attribute a negative value to the technological tool, interpreting it instead as a possible extension of the body itself, therefore capable of ” augment” the experience that can be made of it.

 

Agnese Lanza

Contemporary dancer, she has worked with several choreographers such as Rosemary Lee, Tino Senghal, Robert Clark, Anton Mirto, Maciej Kuzminsky, Sioned Huws, Virgilio Sieni, Company Blu and others among the UK, Italy and Japan. In London she worked as a rehearsal director for young companies such as Dance United Company, Trinity Laban Youth Company and Step into Dance Company, as well as teaching dance for children at Trinity Laban. From 2017-2020 she has been working as artistic assistant to Virgilio Sieni for all the project of Accademia sull’Arte del Gesto.
As a choreographer she created the “Inter Pares Project” (2013-2017); “In / ti / mo” (2018); “Tactum” (2019-22); “Tu-Torial” (2020); “Lullaby” (2021); “Peaceful Place” (2021); “Dealing with Absence” (2021) plus other commissioned works, all in collaboration with other dancers. While keeping on with her dance research, she works as dance teacher for children and adults in Firenze.