Following the first tutorial meeting I have been thinking about how I could move my research towards new territories. The current situation related to the pandemic and the consequent restrictions forced me to reconsider my initial intentions to pursue the path of the performance, or at least its enactments. Challenged by this limitation I asked myself how I could reformulate the concept of the performance keeping its significances intact.
As pointed out by some feedback I received on my symposium presentation, the performance as a method presents the phenomenon of the handshake as a ritual which follows a precise protocol, therefore the two performers act as inanimate bodies/puppets moved by external forces, which in my case are represented by social expectations.
In particular, I found extremely insightful and useful the comment from Max, who suggested me explore the technique of rigging models in a 3d environment. The idea of setting up specific parameters to control the movements of the hands fully embraces the insight of the performers as marionettes, and moreover allows me to continue the exploration shifting from the physical world to its virtual depiction.
After these considerations I opted to start the first project of the third unit following the prompt of learning a new tool. I spent the first week following several tutorials on LinkedIn Learning about rigging 3d characters in 3dsMax. Then in the second week I tried to apply the knowledge I gained to my practice. I rigged the model of a right hand which can be used to re-enact the handshakes from my archive of political greetings. Using some controlling objects in correspondence of the joins of the knuckle and the phalanxes, I created a series of parameters which allowed me to control the movement of each finger and the spreading between all of them.
At this point a thought came up to me: it would be possible to organise a new taxonomy following the specific parameters of each politician, for instance the curling of the fingers or the angle inclination of the palm, and eventually interrogate the data acquired through the lens of the gesticulation’s manuals I have already encountered in my research.
After having rigged my model I realised that probably the starting mesh was too detailed and consequently the deformation generated by changing the parameters in some points created unrealistic bends in the skin. This problem can be easily fixed using a lower poly model, also because what matters to my investigation is the general position and movement of the hand rather than the truth of its texture.
After these first experimentations the question that raises spontaneously is what the new implications of transposing the project into the virtual reality are and how the project could benefit of the new environment.
This further exploration follows the path already drawn in few previous iterations which consists in extrapolating the event of the handshake from its context to conduct a thorough analysis of the motion itself. The actual greeting deprived from its framework makes room for new narrations, but the problem to spot is where the threshold from which the abstraction becomes too detached to reality is.
A critical point which I already touched in this process is the problem with still images. The handshake is a fluid event and freezing it into a single shot may not be relevant to capture its complexity. For this reason, I believe the handshakes I will create in 3D have to be animated and in order to achieve it a motion capture technology would be necessary. Central Saint martins have it but in the current situation it is impossible to take advantage of it. Animating the model manually would be extremely difficult and time consuming, additionally the result of the motion could be quite unnatural.