Shanghai-based artist Lu Yang, the winner of the eighth edition of the BMW Art Journey in 2019, completed the first leg of her travel, which took her to Bali, Indonesia from 12 to 21 January 2020. Her following trip to Kerala, India had to be postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and at the moment is on hold, while she works in her studio.
Represented by galerie société, Berlin, Lu Yang was selected as the winner of BMW Art Journey at Art Basel in Hong Kong in 2019. Her winning project, entitled Human Machine Reverse Motion Capture Project, aims to explore human mimicry of robots by capturing the movements of Indonesian, Japanese and Indian dancers.
The project “examines how the human body can be trained to overcome its physical limitations and explores its deployment in historical and present-day cultures”. Lu Yang conducts research into how humanity negotiates its relationship with machines, which although created by human minds, will ultimately surpass human limitations. The artist employs the latest digital technologies in her work, and for her BMW Art Journey she is using motion-capture devices to record dancers’ movements and gestures. Her recordings include facial, finger- and eye-capture techniques that can collect and analyse the subtlest body movements, and mimic these using robotic technologies.
For the past two to three years, Lu Yang has been using motion-capture technology to create her work, capturing motions of the limbs. However, this is the first time she is capturing facial expressions and finger movements. After careful research into potential partners for her project, Lu Yang and her team decided to partner with facegood from China. The company possesses the most advanced patent technology in China to capture facial micro-expression. facegood’s technology is capable of capturing facial expressions and body actions on the spot. They will be responsible for the postproduction, in which they will create virtual digital human renderings with matching action data.
Lu Yang is deeply interested in robotics and will soon start graduate level training in the field. For her, there is no distinction between art and technology, as she says “robots and our bodies are both carriers. […] both substances. Buddhism refers to the physical world as a world of matters. From a macro point of view, arts, culture, technology, tradition, and modernity all belong to the same system. This way of thinking is less limiting,” she explains. Her art in fact encompasses all of these elements into one single artistic creation. Moreover, her interest in the body – the human and robotic body – takes centrestage in all of her artworks, as the exploration of its limits sees a unique expression.
In a conversation with András Szántó she says that her interest in the body is not unique to herself and her art, but it is “a common attribute shared by all humankind”. She continues:
If you look at religions and myths from the ancient times, you can always see the pursuit and longings of human beings going beyond one’s own flesh. The traditional dances that we are shooting for the BMW Art Journey reflect the efforts and attempts of humankind throughout history to break through one’s own physical limitations. Instead of calling it a unique interest, I’d rather say this is a shared exploration of all human beings – a journey which transcends history.
For her BMW Art Journey, the exploration of body and movement is pivotal, as she studies the ways in which traditional dance overcomes physical limitations. In Bali, Lu met traditional Balinese dancers, and with the support of the Japan Foundation, PARCO in Tokyo and the Tokyo-based company Akar Media, Lu invited kEnkEn, a celebrated young Japanese dancer, to join her in Bali. In collaboration with him, Lu was able to collect data of kEnkEn’s facial and body gestures. At the same time, she captured dance motion data from Bali’s Indonesian dance traditions, including famous dancing actor I Wayan Purwanto, Legong dancer Ni Kadek Sudarmanti, Rangda dancer Made Sukadana, as well as from the warrior dancer Dewa Putu Selamat Raharja. In Balinese dances, movement is controlled to such a degree that dancers are able to manipulate their finger joints individually.
Asked why she has chosen these three locations – Indonesia, Japan and India – for her BMW Art Journey, Lu Yang responds that she is impressed by the culture of body under these different backgrounds throughout history, and expresses her deep affection and appreciation for both Indonesia and Japan, whose cultures have been of great inspiration for her past work. She concludes:
These three locations are all in Asia, and the cultural attributes to be explored span from ancient times to the present. I am deeply influenced by the Orient – in thinking, religions, philosophy, and aesthetics… Asia is a vast continent. There are many connections to be made, as well as contradictions to uncover.