VAST BODY
Numix Grand Prize 2020, IDFA Doclab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction



Vast Body is a collaborative experiment on movement. In front of a camera, different people were invited to imagine and embody a wide spectrum of postures that the system can perceive and understand. In the installation, a myriad of alter egos continuously try to replicate the movements of the person facing it. Interpreting your behavior, the software distills this continually changing input into a projection of a body that moves fluidly with yours, yet fluctuates continuously between different bodies and identities. The experience is a playful, visually arresting act of imagination. Through some kind of magic mirror, it connects the physical body with a digital incarnation, offering the chance to briefly inhabit another through movement. The work draws on timely questions of identity, empathy and our relationship with other-than-human intelligences.


IDFA Doclab Award for Immersive Non-Fiction
" To move, to dance, to flow, to see ourselves, but most of all, to see others. Finding empathy in a digital mirror, playful and embodied, becoming one with so many. We sometimes forget to do so in our selfie times, but it is exactly that which we need to re-establish and to become team human again. Honest and full of joy, this project shows us how. The creator, the dancers, and you make the tech disappear."
- Speech from the Doclab Award jury



Vast Body. Mouvements infinis Exhibition at Musée de la civilisation de Québec
January 2022 to February 2023




























Direction: Vincent Morisset and Caroline Robert. Creative coding and machine learning : Édouard Lanctôt-Benoit. Camera and grading: Thierry Sirois (Club Vidéo) Production manager: David Francke-Robitaille (Club Vidéo). A special thanks to JP Côté and Cégep Édouard-Montpetit. Production: Vincent Morisset, AATOAA. Main choreographies: Louise Lecavalier, Kathy Kasey and Caroline Robert. Featuring Louise Lecavalier, Rachel Harris, Caroline Robert, Louise Bédard, Marc Béland, Shraddha Danielle Blaney, Valérie Chartier, Karla Étienne, Paul-André Fortier, Elinor Fueter, Claude Godbout, Lucie Grégoire, Liven Lamothe, Patrick Lamothe, Yuma Lamothe, Mia Lapierre Poirier, Robert Meilleur, Linda Rabin, Janne Rieu, Romie Rieu, George Stamos, Philip Szporer.



Presented at Musée de la civilisation de Québec, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Festival de musique émergente de Rouyn, Mutek Tokyo, IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction (Amsterdam), Hum(ai)n (Phi Center, Montreal), Imagining Our Digital Futures (Mutek, Montreal), Vincent Morisset retrospective (MuDA, Zurich).