Lifecasting
Lifecasting is the process of creating a three-dimensional copy of a living human body, through the use of molding and casting techniques. In rare cases lifecasting is also practiced on living animals. The most common lifecasts are of torsoes, pregnant bellies, hands, faces, and gentalia and it is possible for an experienced lifecasting practitioner to copy any part of the body. Lifecasting is usually limited to a section of the body at a time, but full-body lifecasts are achievable too. Compared with other three-dimensional representations of humans, the standout feature of lifecasts is their high level of realism and detail. Lifecasts can replicate details as small as fingerprints and pores.
Process
There are a variety of lifecasting techniques which differ to some degree; the following steps illustrate a general and simplified outline of the process:
Lifecasting (video stream)
Lifecasting is a continual broadcast of events in a person's life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted through the medium of the Internet and can involve wearable technology. Lifecasting reverses the concept of surveillance, giving rise to sousveillance through portability, personal experience capture, daily routines and interactive communication with viewers.
Originally being called LifeLog or lifestreaming, during the summer of 2007, Justin Kan's term lifecasting escalated into general usage and became the accepted label of the movement. Other labels for lifecasting and related have occasionally surfaced, including cyborglog, glog, lifeblog, lifeglob, livecasting and wearcam.
Precursors
Author William Gibson featured "God's Little Toy," a lifecasting mini-blimp, that followed subjects around—for their lives—in his 1999 novel All Tomorrow's Parties.
Jean-Luc Godard said, "Cinema is not a dream or a fantasy. It is life." In the pre-history of the lifecasting movement, the introduction of lightweight, portable cameras during the early 1960s, as used in the Cinéma vérité and Direct cinema movements, changed the nature of documentary filmmaking. Technological improvements in audio and the invention of smaller, less intrusive cameras brought about more naturalistic situations in documentary films by Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, the Maysles Brothers and others. While filmmakers such as Michel Auder, Jonas Mekas and Ed Pincus created cinematic diaries, the sculptor Claes Oldenburg, in the early 1960s, had theatrical showings of his home movies. Andy Warhol, who once said, "I like boring things," introduced the notion that life could be captured simply by aiming a fixed camera at subjects usually regarded as "boring" and later projecting the unedited footage. The documentary filmmaker Emile de Antonio observed that “with any cut at all, objectivity fades away.”
Lifecasting (ballet)
Lifecasting is a ballet choreographed by Douglas Lee for the New York City Ballet to the third movement of Ryoji Ikeda's Opus 1 (2000–2001) and Steve Reich's Triple Quartet (1998). The premiere took place on Thursday, 22 January 2009 at the David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center. Lee has previously made dances for City Ballet’s New York City Ballet#Choreographic Institute. Costumes were designed by Ines Alda and lighting by Mark Stanley.
Casts
original
NYCB revivals
2009 Spring
Footnotes
External links
Podcasts:
