STOCOS & IDEASMOS

MOCO'16 is the 3^rd International Symposium on Movement and Computing hosted at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall (M2) on 5-6^th July in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is organized by MINES ParisTech (France) in co-operation with Paris 8 University (France), University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki (Greece) and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Following on from the two previous International Workshops on Movement and Computing MOCO'14 at IRCAM (Paris, France) and MOCO'15 at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada).
The vision of MOCO'16 is to gather academics, practitioners and the large public, interested in the phenomenon of the symbiosis between the human and the creative process, e.g. dancer-digital medias, musician-instrument, craftsman-object etc. This symbiosis takes the form of an interactional and gravitational relationship, where the human is both a trigger and transmitter connecting the perception (mind/environment interaction and cognition), the knowledge (theoretical understanding of a process) and the gesture (semantic motor skills).
The aim of MOCO'16 is through the complementary experiences of the organizing institutions on the key elements of perception, knowledge and gesture, to elucidate the intersection between «art, cognition and technology» by «unlocking» hidden components of the human creativity.
The invited keynote speakers are Prof. Catherine (Kate) Stevens, from MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development at Western Sydney University and Prof. Frederic Fol Leymarie, Goldsmiths, from the University of London. 
The Plenary Sessions of MOCO’16 cover the following topics:

• Movement in Digital and Performing Arts, which focus on the use and interaction between arts and movement in the following domains: music, dance, song, graffiti, painting etc..
• Technical and Craftsmanship Gestures, highlighting the importance of gestures in the professional context, whether technical or cultural.
• Interaction, Communication and Design of User Experience, which put the emphasis on gestures and movement as interfaces between humans and machines.
• Analysis and Modelling, centred on the use of mathematical, statistical or methodological tools for a better understanding of gestures and movement.

On Wednesday, 6^th July the organizing committee of MOCO'16 would like to invite you at 6.30pm to the performances of STOCOS and IDEASMOS as well as the Artistic Installations and Demonstrations at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall.
STOCOS: This is the third part of a trilogy focused on the analysis and development of the interaction between sonic gesture and dance gesture inside three dimensional sound spaces. In this new piece Muriel Romero and Pablo Palacio collaborate with media artist and artificial intelligence researcher Daniel Bisig. STOCOS is a trans-disciplinary project that combines stochastic processes and artificial intelligence based simulations in order to create behavioral dependencies and aesthetic relationships between dancers, simulated entities, music, visuals and light. As a result, the stage becomes a responsive environment whose visual and acoustic properties emerge from the mutual interactions between the dancers, stochastic sound synthesis and swarm simulations.
IDEASMOS premiering in MOCO'16: The concept of this musical piece is lying between two worlds. The real world, the one we see, feel, touch and the one which is intangible, the world of ideas that we cannot fully understand and which exists beyond the phenomena. The interaction between the two worlds of acoustic and « intangible » musical instruments is obvious and can be felt. Simultaneously, they hide special relationships based on knowledge and intellect which can only be perceived by someone who can ‘see and read between the lines’. IDEASMOS comprises of a string quartet, intangible musical instruments and a percussion performance. Intangible musical instruments are based on interactive machine learning and musical embodiment. IDEASMOS is composed by Vasiliki Tsekouropoulou and it is based on technological prototypes that have been developed for the i-Treasures EU funded project under FP7.
MOCO'16 will have the pleasure to exhibit the work of guest-artist Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos "Fifteen Pairs of Mouths" who has re-created this piece of art for the symposium and will be exhibited during 6^th and 7^th July.
The WholoDancE Workshop “Dancing with technologies: interact to learn, analyse to create” is a satellite of MOCO’16 and is organized by the WholoDancE EU funded project under Horizon 2020. It will focus on how whole-body interaction technologies can enhance the process of dance learning and can support creativity.
Registration is required for the Plenary Sessions and the Proceedings of MOCO’16. There is free admission to the Artistic Installations and Demonstrations, Performances and the WholoDancE Workshop.
For more information about the program and registrations please visit our website at moco16.movementcomputing.org
 
MOCO'16 Organizing Committee
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Sotiris Manitsaris, General Conference Chair, MINES ParisTech, Paris, France
Leontios Hadjileontiadis, General Scientific Chair, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Jean-François Jégo, General Artistic Chair, Paris 8 University, France
Vincent Meyrueis, General Demo Chair, Paris 8 University, France
Athanasios Manitsaris, Local Committee Chair, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
 
Contact email: moco16@uom.edu.gr & registration.moco16@uom.edu.gr