Game Art

MOTOBallet (2024)

TECHNICAL INFO: 4K (16:9) – 3’28”

ENVIROMENTS: Godot(game engine) and SuperCollider(music)

motoBallet is a video produced using the Godot game engine (open source) and the SuperCollider sound synthesis language (open source). The work was created from screen captures of real-time performances, which were then edited with selected takes.

The project emerged from the question: How can I create a dance performance with many game dancers, and how can I control them? Imagine if it were possible to play The Rite of Spring.

Thus, motoBallet simulates a kind of generative ballet, virtual human toys dancing their ritual of avatarization and mechanical reproduction. A generic race car driver model (generated on the Mixamo platform) proliferates in the 3D scene space, while dancing in movements programmed using trigonometric and pseudo-random functions (Perlin noise).

Each new model generated in the scene is instantiated by a keyboard command. In most takes, the movements and direction of the models are entirely controlled by functions after instantiation, creating a chaotic group texture arising from the unpredictability of each model’s movement and direction. In a few other takes, the direction of the entire group of models is controlled by keyboard commands, allowing for a certain level of organization while maintaining pseudo-randomly controlled movements for some body parts.

Just like the models, the camera and lights are also controlled by functions. On the sound side, rhythmic cells and samples of orchestral percussion instruments are randomly alternated from predefined lists.

motoBallet seeks its expressiveness in the relationship between something as formal and difficult to execute as a classical ballet or a contemporary dance performance, and something that exists in the playful, fleeting context of the gaming/virtual world.