#digital embodiment

[taramoves]

Tara Is A Real Artist, You Can Tell By All The Practice-Based Research Going On

In September of 2024, I had fifteen conversations in the span of one week about the future of my practice and working life.

At that point, I had three pillars I wanted to develop for my career, four projects I wanted to work on, and a whole lot of uncertainty over how to prioritize achieving any of these things. I included the above representative images in the document I shared during those conversations.

Art IS imagining and realizing your imagination into reality, but I felt enveloped by the intangible, unrealizable, infinite of possibility. As I was talking, everything I was imagining in my head tripped over my words into a mess of confusion and uncertainty. I enjoyed hearing from the folks I was talking to but I felt I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain as a conversation partner with any self confidence.

Some of the questions that screamed into mind during these conversations were:

Is any of this good or interesting art?

Are you believing that it is when I don't even believe it myself?

How can I help you understand the full extent of what I care about/am doing?

Or am I simply too unfocused to articulate any essential information without a hundred tangents?

It was truly an exercise in tolerating severe anxiety and maintaining outward composure.

Now, I have three projects in various stages of development. I am pursuing teaching as the foundation for my career. And I am contracted for two ongoing motion design projects. Why am I not spiraling in the black hole of uncertainty?

First, I chalked the crisis of self confidence up to skill issue and began developing the skills I was missing. I came up with new questions to answer:

How could use I research to ground my work and truly feel like I was learning something meaningful through my process?

How could I put my work out into the world more to get consistent and direct feedback rather than depending on any one conversation?

How could I reach out to folks who know more than me to learn from and collaborate with?

Practice, here meaning repetition, is the best teacher. And I've been blessed with opportunities to practice since September.

I’ve spent the better part of the year as a member of NEW INC’s Art + Code cohort (the genesis for those fifteen conversations in the first place), developing a project MOVES and the scaffolding around it with the support of my peers and mentors.

This has included exploring readings to try and understand what drew me to this project in the first place and the broader contemporary discourse around digital embodiment. It also included sharing and receiving feedback on my technical and conceptual explorations quite often.

I’ve also been a member artist of InterAccess, where instead of simply creating work and releasing it into digital space, I’ve been able to show work at scale in a gallery environment and receive direct feedback from audiences and peers alike.

Both these experiences have supplemented my lack of formal arts education / skill issue through experience and external accountability, wherein I now feel (more) equipped to take a project from development to distribution.

Through these experiences and my own explorations/reflections, I’ve also developed a clearer thesis for where I’m trying to go with my work.

I know the pillars of my curiosity are embodiment and belonging, both separately and in relation to each other, as mediated by technology, successfully or not. Everything I do ties into these curiosities and allows me to dig deeper/push further into some as yet unarticulated philosophy/manifesto. It makes everything I do part of a narrative, and it’s much easier to express cohesively. Which isn’t to say the process isn’t messy - part of my learnings have been that the art can be a question rather than an answer. And that the practice is the point! It’s all research!

This line of inquiry has directly led me to the two other projects I'm taking on:

The first, The Handprint and the Hand, is applying coding skills and conceptual research I began developing with MOVES into further practice-based research with an exceptional dancer in Toronto (Kin - see my last post). I am extending the idea of digital embodiment to focus on using computer vision as a reflection on the erasure of human effort in information technologies.

The second, MUDRA.js will continue this research with a focus on the narrative interpretation of the gestures performed in Bharatanatyam, using computer vision techniques I'm playing with during Handprint but bringing in a new dimension of the successes and failures of technology in developing and preserving cultural understanding.

While still in early stages - a preview of Handprint will be staged in June and MUDRA.js won't begin until the fall - I can clearly see the threads of continuity as I apply for grants, residencies, and in kind support for the work. And MOVES is showing at Nuit Blanche 2025 with supported events leading up to it beginning with Doors Open Toronto at the end of May. How exciting!

I'm still having lots of conversations and the work is still in progress. But I have some answers to my questions:

Is any of this good or interesting art? If I am learning things through my art making process that is good and interesting enough.

Are you believing that it is good and interesting when I don't even believe it myself? I am genuinely excited to share the things I am learning with you.

How can I help you understand the full extent of what I care about/am doing? I have a clear narrative of what I care about, what I'm doing, and how they connect.

Or am I simply too unfocused to articulate any essential information without a hundred tangents? I have a plan with both personally and externally accountable parts that I am focused on completing. The essential information is all connected and thus easy to parse and articulate in different contexts.

And now the conversations I'm having feel like they bring clarity rather than confusion! And all it took was eight months of intentional research, practice, talking, and thinking.

[aolyxe]

Flndrrrrrr….

[the-magnus-protocol]

Ceaseless Watcher if it was awesome

[citricacidprince]

Some more doodles of my Relativity Falls AU because ooooh the way I’m imagining it is so fun I just can’t stop thinking about it💥💥💥

Featuring: Manly “Boyish” Dan, Abuelita Anjelita, and some silly Mabifica because mmmmmm them in this AU makes me wanna lose my mind

[haliaiii]

The modern prometheus

[arthur-liquor]

Personal headcanon with tears being related to Time craft since it's a symbol of emotion anyways here's a Time craft Siffrin for a silly au idea I have in mind

[north-noire]

don't let appearances fool you

[roseofhybrids]

The friend that will never leave you! No matter now much you want them to

[bitem4rked]

You can’t outrun the emptiness

[evilheart12]

Catzel

[nedofrisk]

Patchouli!!!

[orionthecritter]

Did something a bit different with this redraw, gotta say, I definitely see improvement! I'm also noticing that I'm actually enjoying the process of drawing, haven't felt like that for awhile so I'm glad its back! :DD

[fatedroses]

More than just the Demon.

[shootingstarrfish]

it was funny watching people lose it yesterday on twitter over this one asmo quote HAHA i couldnt help myself

[mayordea]

the embodiment of scarlet freakin devil

[ganbaria-art]

Sisters’ tea party