YMYI (2007)

João Martinho Moura (2007)

YMYI – Interactive digital art installation
João Martinho Moura, 2007

visual screen, computer,
camera sensor, sound,
software.

YMYI is an interactive installation, created in 2007, related to embodiment, signal, gestures, shadows, flow, and time, mixing the body in movement, its connected or disconnected shadow, in a virtual representation.

Was presented in various countries, galleries and festivals, in the latest twelve years, such as the Chemins Numériques Festival at the Center Culturel Saints Exupéry in France (2009), the OFFF Festival in Lisbon (2008), Vila Flor Cultural Center in Guimarães (2009), the Destelheide DHArts Belgium (2009), the first edition of the Semibreve Festival (2011), Rooster Gallery in New York (2014), and in the city of Prague in the Vektroskop Festival (2019).

This work was developed at the Department of Information Systems (DSI) and Centro de Computação Gráfica (CCG), University of Minho, in 2007. The work was included in the curated Processing exhibition, in 2008. It was created by João Martinho Moura, with academic contributions from Jorge Sousa, Adérito Marcos, Pedro Branco, Leonel Valbom and Nelson Zagalo.

YMYI (João Martinho Moura, 2007) Exhibition in the City of Prague in 2019

pictures: YMYI (João Martinho Moura, 2007). Exhibition in Prague, in 2019, with experience improvisation from Jan Jakubal.

Conception:

Reflecting on the concept present in YMYI, we realized that the user expectations on our installation were twofold – narrative and image. Underlying these concepts, that relate to us as Humans, and our perception of ourselves and the surrounding environment, we truly believe that the following definitions presented by the scientist António Damásio constituted a resourceful enlightenment. According to Damásio, on the one hand, “the images (mental patterns) may be conscious or unconscious (…) The unconscious images are never directly accessible. The images access is to be provided in a single first-person perspective ( my images, everyone´s images). On the other hand, the neural patterns are to be provided in a third person perspective. If I considered the possibility of observing my own neural patterns resorting to advanced technology, I would be always doing it in the third person perspective.” ( DAMÁSIO, 2000:362). We have the pleasure of leaving you an excerpt of his book “The Feeling of What Happens”, which sums up the idealized proposal to the users of the YMYI artifact:

“It narrates a story, the story of a living organism unexpectedly astonished by performing its own change status while representing an object. However, what strikes the most is the fact that the knowing entity responsible for the act of astonishing is only created throughout the astonishment narration process.”

(Damásio: 2000: 202.)
(1) DAMÁSIO, ANTÓNIO R. (2000).
The Feeling of What Happens. Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness.
A Harvest Book
Harcourt Inc.

You Move You Interact: a full-body dance in-between reality and virtuality. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Digital Arts – ARTECH 2008, Porto, Portugal, November 2008. João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa; Pedro Branco & Adérito Fernandes Marcos.

YMYI (2007, João Martinho Moura). Exhibition in Belgium

Pictures: YMYI exhibition at Centre Culturel Saints Exupery, France, 2008. Fotos: Melanie Mrakovcic

Video: an exhibition in New York, USA in 2014, at Rooster Gallery

Video: exhibition at Centre Culturel Saint-Exupéry, Reims, France, 2010

Video: recordings at Forum da Maia, exhibition.
João Martinho Moura, 2007.

Video: YMYI exhibition at Semibreve Festival, Theatro Circo, Braga, 2011

Video: YMYI exhibition at Rooster Gallery, New York, 2014

Publications:

João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa. University of Minho. CAE – Computational Aesthetics ’08: Arts Programme. Curated Exhibition. The Eurographics Association 2008. June 2008. Pag. 144. ISBN 978-3-905674-08-8

João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa; Pedro Branco & Adérito Fernandes Marcos. You Move You Interact: a full-body dance in-between reality and virtuality. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Digital Arts – ARTECH 2008, Porto, Portugal, November 2008. Pages 49-54. ISBN 978-989-95776-3-3

João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa; Nelson Zagalo. YMYI: Compreender os novos paradigmas de apreensão estética através de jogos digitais interactivos incorporando estádios cognitivos de aprendizagem. Actas da ZON Digital Games, Porto, Portugal, November 2008. ISBN 978-989-95500-2-5

João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa; Pedro Branco & Adérito Fernandes Marcos. You Move You Interact – Developing a dancing performance system for full body interaction. Actas da 3ª Conferência Nacional em Interacção Pessoa-Máquina, Évora, Portugal, October 2008. Pag. 41-44. ISBN 972-98464-9-9

João Martinho Moura; Jorge Sousa. YMYI – You move you interact: uma dança virtual de corpos em metamorfose artística num ciberespaço. Actas do II Simpósio Nacional da ABCIBER (Comissão de Arte Digital), S. Paulo, Brasil, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). November 2008.