i_mBODY lab

The 3rd of March was the presentation of the Performance Una Noche con Ramona and Joakinator: A Technological Embodyment of Onyric World at the Feel My Body festival, held at Link, Bologna, Italy.

Una Noche con Ramona is an interactive performance.

Ramona is a “Love Influencer”, a “heroine of love”, a “collective body” that exists on the net, feeds through networks, feeds on desires and fantasies, travelling in our collective dreams.

Through a ritual, she is embodied in those who wish to experience it.
The audience has the role to imagine and, if they wish, to interact and co-create Ramona. This performance arises from real experiences. Ramona
has her Instagram page (IG: ramona_abate) and interacts with the people who write to them.

The play is inspired by these relationships filtered through the technological medium.

Director and performer: Raffaella Menchetti
Performer and multimedia creator: Joaquín Díaz
Playwright: Sara Serrano
Performer and creator: Francesca Vantu
Performer: Sofia Galliano
Online performer: Elissa

Joakinator: Technological Embodiment of Onirical Worlds

The Joakinator is a performative and technological device that allows us to introduce concepts, ideas and dreams into the body of the performer and explore them through their movements. Through this corporeal device, the integration of the oneiric world will be explored in the piece “Joakinator: Oniric Body”, turning it into a crossover point between consciousness and dreaming.

The interactive device uses muscle sensors, pressure sensors and accelerometers that feed an A.I. system which translates the movements of the performer into a control/decontrol over the sound material. This performance explores different sound materials,
for this occasion, the audios are texts read from the performer’s dream diaries and psychoanalysis sessions. This archive has been collected over a period of 4 years.

The Joakinator is an electro-shamanic device which helps to materialize inner worlds into the movements of the artist’s body. The performer becomes a shamanic cyborg that translates these inner worlds with his movements, serving as a hatch for the audience to get a glimpse of these worlds.

Original idea:
Joaquín R. Díaz, Mexico (Interactive design, Robotics
and Performance)
Performance (still work in process):
Joaquín R. Díaz & Franccesca Vantù
Raffaella Menchetti, Italy (Dramaturgist, Performer,
actress and visual artist)
Technological Research:
Marta Timon, Spain (Computer Scientist, and
biometric signal acquisition)
Pedro López, Spain (Reactive Shaders and
Electronic Engineering)

These projects have been funded and supported by: Sneo.es, Hamlet.Love and BODYinTRANSIT ERC project