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Kristin Anne Carlson

Artengine's Artificial Imagination

Kristen Carlson, an assistant professor at Illinois State University, merges computation with embodied creative processes across choreography and media performance. Her diverse background includes movement, technical theory, theater, interaction design, and programming. She is notably published in fields like cognitive science, computing, and electronic arts. During her talk, Carlson emphasized the integration of procedural coding in reconsidering compositional processes in choreography. Her approach combines technology with traditional movement practices to explore how these domains influence and enhance each other. She is fascinated by how technology can capture and respond to the nuances of bodily movements and the potential to create generative works from this interaction. The presentation also touched on her interest in how motion capture technology impacts movies and video games, noting the lack of use of machine learning to manipulate data in these fields. Carlson’s work exemplifies a cross-disciplinary inquiry into the intersection of technology, movement, and artistic expression.

This presentation was part of the symposium ARTIFICIAL IMAGINATION which unites innovative artists engaged with emerging technologies. This focused on exploring and sharing their individual practices, experiences, and insights related to algorithms, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. It served as a platform for an enriching exchange of ideas between the artists and the audience, aiming to contribute a distinctive artistic viewpoint to the ongoing discussions about our evolving relationships with machine collaborators. Each session, including this one, highlighted how these technologies are being integrated and reflected in contemporary artistic processes, encouraging a broader understanding and appreciation of the creative potential of new digital tools.

Kristin is an Associate Professor in the Creative Technologies Program at Illinois State University, exploring the role that computation plays in embodied creative processes. She has a history of working in choreography, computational creativity, media performance, interactive art and design tools due to her background in movement, technical theater, interaction design and programming. Kristin is a researcher with the movingstories: Tools for Digital Movement, Meaning and Interaction research partnership exploring the cognition of movement experience and designing movement applications for creativity support tools. She hosted the 2022 International Conference on Movement and Computing in Chicago (MOCO2022), and was the Executive Producer for the 21st International Symposium for Electronic Art  (ISEA2015) held in Vancouver, Canada. Kristin publishes in the fields of cognitive science, computational creativity, movement and computing and electronic art. She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana, Champaign, an MSc and PhD from Simon Fraser University in Interactive Arts and Technology, studying with Dr. Thecla Schiphorst and Dr. Philippe Pasquier. Kristin holds an AmSat certification in Alexander Technique and is finishing a certification in Laban Movement Analysis.

I’ve done a lot of work designing a system that would help me get out of those patterns and I found that providing new inspiration was not enough.

Technology and thinking through procedural code made me reconsider my compositional processes.