︎

JESS TUCKER
body of noise
immersive multimedia performance, 2024




This performance unravels the human craving for certainty by confronting deterministic technology with the unruliness of noise. The artist’s face and body are live-translated through AR overlays, analog video feedback, and AI reinterpretations: digital distortions bloom over her face, arm movements conjure fluid projections of shifting identities, and photorealistic human avatars—puppeted by the artist and a life-sized dummy—are transformed by bespoke AI models into conglomerations of her face. Through song and spoken word, the work probes the politics of facial recognition, the manipulation of identity in digital spaces, and the paradoxical role of noise—as both a threat and a necessity—in predictive logic and human experience.

 


This piece incorporates the following software and tools: Touch Designer, Custom Stable Diffusion Machine Learning Models, Meta Spark AR, Unreal Engine, Optitrack Motion Capture with Motive. A custom-made suit and life-sized ragdoll were prepared with markers to enable live motion capture. Avatars were prepared using Meta Human Creator. The music is performed with a live electronic setup of hardware synthesizers, a sequencer, looping and effects pedals.
Photos by Søren Olsen and Nimrod Astarhan

This project was developed at the University of Iowa, Department of Theatre Arts, with support through the Grant Wood Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Performance.