he/him

A white man with a serious demeanor is wearing a sheer black mesh bodysuit and white tennis shoes appears to be playfully dancing. A variety of biosensors are attached to each of his limbs. A laptop sits on the floor near his feet. — Christopher Knowlton | Photo © William Frederking

Christopher Knowlton is a queer transdisciplinary movement artist and research scientist who uses emerging technologies to create augmented performance work. His artistic practice centers on how movement technologies like motion capture, wearable devices and biosensors can give insights to one’s self, each other, and the surrounding world.

Past research has manifested as an interactive motion capture exhibit that gives embodied insight into quantum mechanics. Another recent project featured dancers with wearable muscle sensors driving an immersive landscape to explore echolocation and non-verbal accessibility of dance for people who are blind or low-vision. Drawing on Christopher’s background as a biomechanics researcher, these experiments utilize the scientific process to give visibility to the intrinsic information held in the body through movement.

In making these human-centered interactive technology-based artworks, Christopher seeks to understand what moves people to move, how to mediate kinesthetic empathy, and how to improve accessibility and autonomy in dance for both performers and audience.

Artist Christopher Knowlton is wearing a white cape and sits with his back to the camera. AI-generated images are projected onto his back as well as the walls of an industrial studio space. — Open Lab: Christopher Knowlton I Deus Ex Machina Doctrina | Photo credit: Joshua Wold

The Fellowship Project

In Christopher’s Fellowship year with HCL, he will focus on the continuation of Deus Ex Machina Doctrina, a solo interactive performance installation exploring the deification of new technologies, the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for dance, and the extractive forces underpinning generative AI.

The work explores what generative AI may look like for dance and movement generation while satirizing techno-worship. It explodes the empty promises of technology into a farcical religious interactive performance experience. Building on the rich elements developed during the 2024 HCL Artist in Residency, he will work towards a full premiere. This will entail reworking the movement and performance aspects, developing the prop, costume, and set designs, refining the interactive elements, expanding the projection work, and increasing the accessibility of the performance.

The Fellowship will also support the ongoing ensemble work Echo Network. This project attempts to reimagine our digital social networks as a naturalistic and embodied nexus for connection. The work pulls biomimetic inspiration from mammals like dolphins, bats, wolves, elephants and whales who use echolocation, calls and songs to navigate low-visibility environments and strengthen social bonds.

Excerpt of video work from 2024 HCL Open Lab for ‘Deus Ex Machina Doctrina’

Extended Play, 2021 | Photo credit: Kristie Kahns

The Initial Project

As a 2024 HCL Artist in Residence, Christopher explored the deification of new technologies, the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for dance, and the distinction between generative and extractive AI.

*Extended Play* (2022) in Elevate Chicago Dance 2022, produced by Chicago Dancemakers Forum | Photo credit: Ricardo E Adame

Through an open and self-critical practice, Christopher questioned if the advent of “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” imply the evolution of computer cultures and techno-religions. This project, titled ‘Deus ex Machina Doctrina’ (Latin for ‘God out of Machine Learning’) looked at parallels between religion and technology, including their contributions to colonization and imperialism. The piece, presented as an Open Lab, featured AI-generated video, text, music, choreography, and immersive interactive projections.

This was Christopher’s first time working directly with coding instead of pre-made AI tools. This process of collaging new and existing coding mirrors the process of building a new movement vocabulary. This offered Christopher the prompt to reflect on his own curiosities and biases around dance, digital augmentation and the function of religion on a personal and societal level.

Excerpt from Echo Network, 2023

An excerpt of a screen recording of a smartphone app prototype for Extended Play, an augmented reality dance performance for the surface of a playing vinyl record.

About the Artist

Christopher Knowlton is a queer transdisciplinary movement artist and research scientist who uses emerging technologies to create augmented performance work. Having trained in contemporary dance and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Chris moved to Chicago to complete his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Inspired by science, nature, play, improvisation and human-centered approaches to design, he has produced many solo and collaborative dance works featured locally and internationally, spanning dance, film, new media, puppetry and storytelling. Chris was a Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2020 Lab Artist, a 2020 Chicago DCASE grant recipient, a 2022 Ragdale in Schools Fellow, a 2023 Chicago Cultural Center Dance Studio Resident Artist, a Winter 2023 Banff Centre Dance Artist in Residence, a 2024 Supported Residency at WOWArtSci in Taos, NM, and a 2024 Artist in Residence at High Concept Labs in Chicago. Chris is also a biomechanical research scientist and manages the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center.

For more information, visit chrisknowltondance.com