Painting with Movement

Maria Rita Nogueira

Year
2020
Keywords

augmented reality, machine learning, dance, body tracking, interaction design

Publications

  • Nogueira, Maria Rita, Paulo Menezes, and Bruno Patrao. "Understanding Art through Augmented Reality: Exploring Mobile Tools for Everyone's Use." 2021 9th International Conference on Information and Education Technology (ICIET). IEEE, 2021.
  • Nogueira, Maria Rita, Paulo Menezes, and Bruno Patrao. "Painting with movement." The 17th International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry. 2019.
Painting with Movement — augmented reality sequence revealing spatial traces of movement
First tests conducted to explore augmented reality interactions..
Painting with Movement usability test 2
The visual results of a body’s performance in three-dimensional space.
Painting with Movement usability test 1
Drawing on a grid through body movement — sequence 2
Drawing on a grid, through body movement.

"Painting with Movement" is a transdisciplinary artwork at the intersection of dance, augmented reality, and interaction design. It frames movement as a pictorial act in space, where choreography becomes visible as a living three-dimensional composition.

The project enables a dual perspective: one body performs while another observes through a mobile interface, where motion is translated into spatial traces in real time. This relation between performer, observer, and image creates an expanded field of perception in which dance can be read from multiple viewpoints.

Visual language emerges from simple elements such as line, stroke, and point, generated through body tracking and temporal accumulation. Shape and visual effect respond to movement qualities including speed, amplitude, and intention, allowing each action to form a distinct spatial inscription.

Conceived as an interaction design artwork, the system records trajectories through a smartphone camera and composes them as a dynamic spatial memory. What appears on screen is not a representation of dance after the fact, but a simultaneous visual event in which gesture, duration, and space are co-authored.

The work also reflects on accessibility and inclusion: movement is treated as an expressive continuum rather than a fixed technical standard. By valuing diverse physical vocabularies, the installation opens choreographic authorship to wider publics and invites participants to encounter their own bodies as creative agents.

Positioned between performance, research, and public interaction, "Painting with Movement" proposes a curatorial format where choreography can be viewed, revisited, and interpreted as visual composition. Its continuity across exhibition, education, and artistic practice underscores movement as both material and method.