Simon McKeown aims to challenge perceptions in his new exhibition. Pic © Simon McKeown
Exhibition preview: Motion Disabled, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, 24 January – 25 April 2009
Artist Simon McKeown’s Motion Disabled, a moving digital sculpture of films recapturing the movements of disabled actors through miniature, skeletal robots, is designed to re-present the ways in which five physically impaired people galvanise the capabilities of their bodies.
Frank Letch in the University of Teesside motion capture studio. Pic © Simon McKeown
Frank Letch, whose ultra-developed dexterity in his lower body saw him drinking beer with his feet in a video for the News of the World last year, picks up a phone with his foot, launches it into the air and catches it with his chin to answer a call, and Mat Fraser, a television presenter who has drummed in various bands, is shown kickboxing.
Letch as a 3D character using motion capture using and answering his mobile phone. Pic © Simon McKeown
Participants with conditions such as Spina Bifida, Cerebral Palsy and brittle bones also take part in the films, playing out across five monitors in separate, ten-minute performances in the atrium of the gallery.
They have the fluidity of animated feature films, created with motion capture technology to show the figures jutting around a white background, with anonymous 3D shapes serving as props.
Simon McKeown discusses the design with Letch. Pic © Simon McKeown
“I used this technology to capture for now and the future the motions of ‘difference’, in order to ask questions,” explains McKeown. “Do we value difference? How do disabled people’s bodies fit into current notions of normality? And is physical diversity about to become virtual?”
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