News

Following the final conference of the BlackBox project, a new book has just been published with Routledge, Taylor&Francis.
The volume is edited by Carla Fernandes, Vito Evola and Cláudia Ribeiro, and covers the best peer-reviewed papers of the conference, including the main results of BlackBox.
Dance Data, Cognition, and Multimodal Communication is the result of a collaborative and transdisciplinary effort towards a first definition of "dance data", with its complexities and contradictions, in a time where cognitive science is growing in parallel to the need of a renewed awareness of the body’s agency in our manyfold interactions with the world.
It is a reflection on the observation of bodily movements in artistic settings, and one that views human social interactions, multimodal communication, and cognitive processes through a different lens—that of the close collaboration between performing artists, designers, and scholars.
This collection focuses simultaneously on methods and technologies for creating, documenting, or representing dance data. The editors highlight works focusing on the dancers’ embodied minds, including research using neural, cognitive, behavioural, and linguistic data in the context of dance composition processes. Each chapter deals with dance data from an interdisciplinary perspective, presenting theoretical and methodological discussions emerging from empirical studies, as well as more experimental ones.
The book, which includes digital Support Material on the volume's Routledge website, will be of great interest to students and scholars in contemporary dance, neuro-cognitive science, intangible cultural heritage, performing arts, cognitive linguistics, embodiment, design, new media, and creativity studies.

Upon invitation of Professor Carla Fernandes, coordinator of the Blackbox project, choreographer Thembi Rosa, from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, will direct next Friday, 26th July 2019, the workshop Parquear Bando, at the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences - New University of Lisbon. Parquear Bando is an urban intervention carried out since 2015 by Parquear Dança Multiplex, proposed by Margo Assis and Thembi Rosa with the participation of guests. The aim is to experiment the use of bamboos as a device for deceleration, balance and composition. This is a nomadic choreography, multiple and engaged in establishing connective itineraries, perceiving the body itself, composing with the city,with others and with everything that crosses our paths.

Participation is open to all interested people. It is not necessary to have previous experience in dance.

More information: Parquear Bando Lisboa - Facebook event

Professor Carla Fernandes, Principal Investigator of BlackBox project, was invited to participate at the Motion Bank Lab Brazil, taking place at Sesc Palladium in Belo Horizonte, from the 1^st to the 5^th of May.

Motion Bank is a research project of the Mainz University of Applied Sciences co-directed by Florian Jenett and Scott deLahunta, dedicated to researching the documentation and translation of contemporary dance practice into digital form, with a focus on annotation and presentation of time-based recordings. The main goals of this Lab in Belo Horizonte is to nourish the dialogue between Motion Bank and the work of local choreographers: Dudude Herrmann, Dorothé Depeauw, Margô Assis and Thembi Rosa. They will be engaged with the Motion Bank team in the digital documentation, annotation and visualisation of some of their choreographic works and processes. In special, A projetista, Bols & Worp and Parquear Dança Multiplex. Public workshops, presentations, conversations with local and international artists are part of the program.

Motion Bank Brazil is coordinated by Scott deLahunta and Thembi Rosa and has the participation of Luiz Naveda (Brazil), Carla Fernandes (Portugal) and Daniel Bisig (Switzerland).

More information about the program of Motion Bank Lab Brazil:
www.facebook.com

Professor Gale Stam, from the National Louis University, USA, visits BlackBox project to present a talk entitled “Gesture: A Window Onto the Mind in Thinking, Learning, and Teaching”, on the 25^th of March, at FCSH ID Building.

This talk will discuss how gestures allow us to see speakers’ conceptualizations in first language and second language thinking for speaking and how speakers vary their gestures depending on the task they are engaged in and the proficiency of their interlocutor. It will present evidence from several studies that demonstrate that speakers’ gestures indicate how they are truly thinking and to what extent teachers use gestures to increase comprehension.

Gale Stam is Professor of Psychology at National Louis University in Chicago an alumna of the McNeill Lab - Center for Gesture and Speech Research at the University of Chicago. She has a M.A. in Linguistics from Northeastern Illinois University and a Ph.D. in Psychology (Cognition and Communication) from the University of Chicago and extensive experience in teaching English as a second language. Her research interests include language and culture, language and cognition, gesture and first language and second language acquisition, and pedagogical gestures. She has published articles on changes in thinking for speaking, the importance of looking at gesture in second language acquisition, and language teachers’ gestures.

More information on Gale Stam´s work:
www.nl.edu
works.bepress.com

The BlackBox Arts & Cognition project presents on the 11^th of March the documentaries “O que fazer daqui para trás” [“What to do with what remains”] (2017) and “Um olhar sobre os bastidores de ‘Quinze Bailarinos e Tempo Incerto’” [“A Backstage view of "Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo"] (2019), developed in the context of the research on the work of the choreographers João Fiadeiro and Rui Lopes Graça. The event, which will take place from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Auditorium 1 of the FCSH – Universidade Nova de Lisboa, also includes the presentation of a 360 degree viewing video platform developed by BlackBox project on the piece of the National Ballet of Portugal (CNB) “Quinze Bailarinos e Tempo Incerto” ["Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo"].

The event, with the presence of the principal investigator of the BlackBox project Carla Fernandes and the interdisciplinary team of researchers, begins at 2 PM with the projection of the documentary “What to do with what remains” (2017), which approaches the composition method of the choreographer João Fiadeiro and closely follows the creative process of the piece with the same name, co-created by the choreographer and five performers. The guiding thread are the 4 phases of composition that Fiadeiro identifies as his choreographic modus operandi: Affect; Formulation; Device and Dramaturgy. The documentary is the result of the first case study of the BlackBox project, that for four months accompanied the choreographer and other creators from the first talks in the Studio Re.Al to the opening night at the Maria Matos Theatre in November 2015.

At 3 PM is screened the documentary “A Backstage view of ‘Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo’" (2019), created from the material resulting from the second case study of the BlackBox project, and focused on the work of the choreographer Rui Lopes Graça within the National Ballet of Portugal (CNB). The documentary specifically addresses the creative process of the ballet "Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo", by the visual artist João Penalva and with choreographic direction by Rui Lopes Graça, presented by the CNB in ​​October 2016 at Teatro Camões.

After the screening of this documentary, and still about "Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo", BlackBox project will present a 360-degree viewing platform, a new concept to study the creative processes in the dance / performance area using a camera of 360 grades and interactive and animated annotations. The public can view the research results obtained in this platform, available for computer, mobile devices and VR glasses, accessing the specific web page: blackbox.fcsh.unl.pt/360/index.html

BlackBox Arts and Cognition and choreographer Sylvia Rijmer will host an informal showing on cognition and dance, on Friday 12th of October, 8 pm, at Centro Coreográfico de Lisboa.

Sylvia Rijmer is the invited artist of the third case study of BlackBox project, which aims at the analysis of the invited artists’ unique conceptual structures, by crossing the empirical insights of contemporary creators with research theories from Multimodal Communication (Human Interaction, Gesture Studies, Cognitive Science) and Computer Vision.

According to BlackBox research team, “this study resulted from the convergence between Sylvia’s drive to formalise her compositional and choreographic methodologies, and a scientific drive to frame, analyse and make tangible an artistic process with factors and patterns which influence the decision-making processes underlying the creation of a dance. Sylvia set up an analytical investigation to structure her empirical knowledge framed around cognitive attention and movement habitual patterns within an artistic dance practice poised to question and challenge the negotiation of choice in dance. Specifically, she generated tools for compositional (Dodging) and typological (Scanning) movement possibilities, and (partly) superimposed them on a re-enacted MAP of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise Score.
In the near future, both the artistic and scientific teams will develop and provide alternative ways of seeing Sylvia’s choreographic process, both in the making of, and in the form of a choreogaphic excerpt. We will do so by demonstrating alternative perspectives on a human dance process using New Media, 3D Rendering techhniques, stereoscopic photography, infographics, discourse analysis and gesture studies approaches.”

For this piece, Sylvia Rijmer worked in collaboration with dancers Teresa Alves da Silva, Allan Falieri and Elson Ferreira. The musical composition is by Miguel Lucas Mendes.

Estúdio CAB – Centro Coreográfico de Lisboa is located in Rua Tenente Raul Cascais 1B, Metro station: Rato.

Prof. Carla Fernandes is going to participate in a discussion with artist João Penalva and choreographer Rui Lopes Graça on September 12th at MUDAM Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, on the occasion of the ballet Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo by the National Ballet of Portugal being presented at the Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg on September 15th.

During their conversation the panel will share experiences of collaboration and of coming together for the creation of this ballet, with Prof. Carla Fernandes presenting a BlackBox research programme that examined non-verbal communication between the choreographer and dancers. This discussion will be an opportunity to gain deeper insight into this conceptual and poetic work.

MUDAM is holding at this moment and until September 16th a major exhibition on João Penalva's work, which include large staged installations combining painting, photography, video and documents; and also image, text and sound.

More information: www.mudam.lu

The researchers of BlackBox project will be participating in the 8th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies, to be held in Cape Town, South Africa, July 4-8, 2018. This edition of the conference will be dedicated to the thematic “Gesture and Diversity”.
BlackBox researchers will present the following communications:

Interplay of choreographic decision-making and bodily communication between choreographer and dancer, by Ana Rita Fonseca and Carla Fernandes. This study aims at uncovering the decision-making processes underlying dance composition from the perspective of neuroscience, therefore gaining a better grasp about the intentions and emotions that are being communicated between choreographer and dancer.

Iconicity and gesture reduction: A study on marking in dance, by Vito Evola, Carla Fernandes, and Stephan Jürgens

Creating sense with nonsense: Pervasive use of iconic co-vocalized gestures in artistic settings, by Joanna Skubisz

DynAVis: Visualizing Static Multimodal Annotations in a Dynamic Virtual Environment, by Rafael Kuffner, Vito Evola and Cláudia Ribeiro

The conference is organised by the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS), an interdisciplinary group of researchers including anthropologists, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, linguists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and semioticians, which every two years convokes a major international conference to share perspectives on the study of gesture and bodily communication.
This first conference on gesture on the African continent will focus on the rich diversity of human gestural communication, examining the wide range of linguistic and cultural phenomena and other factors that influence and shape gestural diversity.
More information on the 8th ISGS conference: www.isgs8conference.com

BlackBox project has created a new concept to study creative processes in dance and performance using a 360º camera and animated and interactive annotations.
The results of this research can be viewed in a new platform that will be launched on the 14 of March, 10h00 (am), at São Jorge Cinema, included in the program of the Lisbon Animation Film Festival, Monstra 2018.
BlackBox invites the general public to discover the piece “Quinze Bailarinos e Tempo Incerto” (Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo), a work by the visual artist João Penalva and the choreographer Rui Lopes Graça, which was presented by the National Ballet of Portugal (CNB) in 2016. Rui Lopes Graça has been the second case study of the project BlackBox since May 2016. The project has accompanied the entire compositional process of the piece until its premiere.
Fifteen Dancers and Changeable Tempo 360º is a multiple viewport platform (for computer, tablet and VR headsets) conceived and realized by Stephan Jürgens (BlackBox Arts & Cognition Project) and Roger Oliveira, a digital media producer from Space Tailor (an interactive media company dedicated to the development of 360º digital environments), produced by Carla Fernandes (principal investigator of the BlackBox Arts & Cognition Project). The platform introduces the viewer to selected compositional strategies and artistic ideas by the authors of the ballet, João Penalva and Rui Lopes Graça, as researched by Stephan Jürgens. In collaboration with the dancers of CNB and Rui Lopes Graça, a rehearsal of two sections of the ballet “Quinze Bailarinos e Tempo Incerto”was filmed for the 360º video environment by Roger Oliveira. Moreover, both films include graphic information, which allow the viewer to understand essential compositional ideas underlying this dance work.
More information about the event:
www.monstrafestival.com/talks/

The documentary about the creative process of choreographer João Fiadeiro, “O Que Fazer Daqui Para Trás” (eng. “What To Do With What Remains”), produced by BlackBox project, will have a preview release in the 2017 edition of InShadow - Lisbon ScreenDance Festival, at Cinemateca Portuguesa on December 15th, 9:30pm.
The documentary, directed by Carla Fernandes and Stephan Jurgens, with the artistic direction of Francisco Henriques, closely follows the creative process of the piece "O Que Fazer Daqui Para Trás ", co-created by the choreographer João Fiadeiro and five performers. The documentary uses video material gathered during 4 months of filming since the first conversations in the studio of Re.Al to the debut of the play in the theatre Maria Matos, in November of 2015.
The projection will be followed by a conversation with the authors and the choreographer.
InShadow - Lisbon ScreenDance Festival is an event that explores interdisciplinary atmospheres with emphasis on the convergence of language between body and image, based on technology. Genres and language intersect in video, performance, installations and exhibitions that present the vitality of a dialogue between established artists and emerging creators.
More information about the documentary and the festival here:
InShadow: www.voarte.com
Cinemateca: www.cinemateca.pt

BlackBox researcher Joanna Skubisz, supervised by Prof. Carla Fernandes, is presenting a talk at StuTS (Studentische Tagung Sprachwissenschaft, engl. Student Conference Linguistics), a conference which provides a platform for scientific exchange between students of linguistics and related disciplines.
The conference takes place in Nijmegen, between 23 and 26 of November. During the event the students present their own projects and papers, attend talks held by others and initiate discussions.
Joanna Skubisz is going to present the talk “Touching the touch: tactile communication in a contemporary ballet piece”, based on her current research about the communicative relation between the choreographer Rui Lopes Graça and his dancers. Focusing specifically on the “touch”, Joanna Skubisz will argue that “Compared to everyday life situations, tactile communication is an important and necessary aspect of artistic work in Dance and any other Performing Arts domain using the body as object and subject”.
The presentation will provide a first insight into a part of her planned dissertation work.
More information about the conference on the webpage: 62stuts.ruhosting.nl/?lang=en

Carla Fernandes and David Santos were invited to participate in the international seminar “Práticas de Arquivo em Artes Performativas”, which took place between 16 and 18 of November at Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente (Coimbra) and Mosteiro São Bento da Vitória (Porto).
The seminar aimed at discussing the archive practices in the performing arts considering several different disciplines (theatre, dance, performance, music), and also the possibilities of constituting different "archives" in the technological and mediatized present, as well as the dynamics that are established between the archive and the contemporary practices of creation and embodied memory.
Carla Fernandes and David Santos presented the case of TKB – Transmedia Knowledge Base, as the first national open platform to archive compositional processes in the performing arts.
The seminar was coordinated by Fernando Matos de Oliveira (Ceis20-UC/TAGV), Cláudia Madeira (IHA/FCSH-UNL) and Hélia Marçal (IHA/FCSH-UNL). The complete program can be accessed here: www.uc.pt/iii/ceis20/praticasdearquivo/programa_final

Carla Fernandes was interviewed by Adriano Cerqueira for “90 Segundos de Ciência”, for RTP - ANTENA 1, a radio programme highlighting the work of Portuguese researchers from different fields living in Portugal and abroad.
The interview aired on August 29th and was repeated the next day, in the morning and in the afternoon. The interview is also accessible online, including a summary, through the official webpage of the program: www.90segundosdeciencia.pt/episodes/ep-202-carla-fernandes/
The program “90 Segundos de Ciência” is a joint project by the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Portuguese national radio Antena 1. All episodes are available on their webpage: www.90segundosdeciencia.pt

The team participated with the following peer-reviewed presentations: Performance mode under the microscope: A cognitive semiotic analysis of eye gaze and other body movements in a contemporary dance improvisation exercise (Vito Evola, Joanna Skubisz, and Carla Fernandes); Qualities that count: Social cognition and collaborative coordination in a conceptual dance improvisation (Carla Fernandes, Vito Evola, and Joanna Skubisz).
La Dynamique Interactionnelle du Geste “Making sense together”

Expresso Interview with Carla Fernandes about the blackbox project by Luciana Leiderfarb (Photo: João Lima). More

Vito Evola, Joanna Skubisz, and Carla Fernandes present a peer-reviewed presentation entitled “The Role of Eye Gaze and Body Movements in Turn-Taking during a Contemporary Dance Improvisation” at the 3rd European Symposium on Multimodal Communication, held at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland).

The session really highlighted the multitude of ways in which the Pilot's tools might inform and facilitate engagement with dance, both in and out of the studio. More

The Europeana Space Dance Pilot travelled to Lisbon, Portugal mid-May, to hold its first usability test for the two applications it has been developing. A two-day session was organized by FCSH-UNL under the coordination of team members Carla Fernandes and João Gouveia but included all members of the Pilot, Sarah Whatley, Alexandru Stan and Rosamaria Kostic Cisneros. Coventry University, IN2 , and FCSH met at the RE.AL Studios, a company led by contemporary choreographer João Fiadeiro, to evaluate the “DanceSpaces” tool and the “DancePro” tool. More

A grant from the ERC (European Research Council) in the amount of EUR 1.4 million was awarded to Carla Fernandes, a researcher at the Linguistics Centre of the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (CLUNL / FCSH) for her project "BlackBox - A collaborative platform to document performance composition: from conceptual structures in the backstage to customizable visualizations in the front-end". It’s the first time that this type of grant is awarded in Portugal in the area of Cognitive Linguistics in intersection with the Performing Arts and the Digital Media.

The "BlackBox" project was motivated by Carla Fernandes’ interest in investigating the involvement of mental processes and decision-making during the composition of artistic performances. It all started with a seemingly simple question: do artists working systematically with human bodies moving in space, in conjunction with verbal language, actually possess different mental schemes of mathematicians, for example?

Issues, such as the endless creativity of human beings and science in general, the preservation of the more intangible cultural heritage and intrinsic relationships established between people who work for a common artistic purpose, were the catalyst for this project, which the researcher hopes to provide a contribution to the advancement of the research in a domain which still little is known about.

With a team of seven postgraduate researchers, the starting point of this Art & Science project is the analysis of complex processes of "translation" of conceptual and linguistic structures underlying the work of several contemporary choreographers during their rehearsals (i.e. backstage, behind the curtains of the composition of a piece) to bodies and / or moving objects. These metaphorical translation processes, usually "invisible" to the audience, will be decoded through new forms of multimedia viewing on personal screens (i.e. on the front-end) of end-users. For this, a collaborative digital platform will be built from scratch for all artists and researchers involved which will allow public access to knowledge and materials compiled over the five years’ end of research project, by making use of the potentialities of web-design, 3D technology and real-time video annotation.

"The entire performing artists community right now has a strong interest in digital tools to support their creative processes of composition," says Carla Fernandes. At the same time, "researchers in computational and cognitive sciences are increasingly interested in developing supporting technologies to documentation and transmission of more intangible cultural heritage, as is the case of contemporary performing arts," says the researcher at CLUNL.

ERC grants are awarded by the European Research Council and have five years of validity. Their purpose is to support the most promising European scientists so that they can become leaders of new research teams in areas of recognized scientific value.

Carla Fernandes had been responsible for the TKB project, which culminated in the 1st International Conference on "Multimodal Communication: Language, Performing Arts and New Media Digital" and had the aim of reflection on the practices of performing arts documentation (with special focus on contemporary dance), intersecting with linguistics, cognitive science and new technologies.

Read more about this news at Newsletter from FCT - August 2013 Edition:
newsletter.fct.pt/erc-atribui-cinco-starting-grants-para-portugal/