I R I N I  K A L A I T Z I D I

Occupied with Traffic

20min performance
sequel to Feeding Birds
ATLAS x ImpulsTanz 2024
Vienna, Austria

Slow-motion extract from performance, ATLAS HAPPENINGS with Angélique Willkie, ImpulsTanz 2024

Occupied with Traffic is a solo performance constructed around the action of riding a bike that invites the audience to engage in a game of labelling this very same action. If one had trained machinic eyes that can detect and classify moving bodies, what would they make out of this performance? Would they output one single label pinned on the detected body? Would this label be fixed? Or would it change as the viewer got more and more exposed to the action and as the environment containing the body changed?

In this work-in-progress, Irini continues her research around Human Action Recognition (HAR) machine learning models, but in a purely analogue way. Following Feeding Birds, where she collected 52 actions and trained a HAR on them, here she selects just one action and asks the audience to witness it repeatedly and be the ones who get to decide how it is labelled, and by extension, what it is.

Occupied with Traffic got developed and shared during Irini’s research time in ImpulsTanz ATLAS.

5 weeks of riding a bike in Vienna manifested through a crash.

Performer wearing a bicycle helmet crashing her head on a red bouncing ball, Still from performance, Occupied with Traffic, Irini Kalaitzidi, 2024

Still from performance, ATLAS HAPPENINGS with Angélique Willkie, ImpulsTanz 2024

C R E D I T S

Concept | Choreography | Performance: Irini Kalaitzidi

Mentor: Angélique Willkie

ATLAS fellows and external eyes: Jade Albasini, Tis Aly, Katie Bear Schetlick, Zoë Bastin, Koraljka Begovic, Leon Börgens, Chanis (aka Hannes) Andreas, In Hye Choi, Lucy Dillon, Alex Dobson, Carly Eckert, Polina Fenko, Mercedes Ferrari, Emily Gualtieri, Natasha Kohler, Anu Laiho, Véronique Langlott, Irene Martínes Olivares, Olivia McGregor, Siobhan McKenna, Nathaniel Moore, Emilia Clara Pujadas Desperes, Sylvie Robinson, Ana Szopa, Simone Gisela Weber

Special thanks to Sophia Rodríguez and her workshop Without Filter which acted as a key trigger for this work.

Irini’s participation in ImpulsTanz ATLAS was supported by Onassis Stegi Outward Turn Program and OnassisAiR.

Performer wearing a bicycle helmet and reading from a book while standing on a stool within a crowded room, Still from research, Occupied with Traffic, Irini Kalaitzidi, 2024

Still from the workshop Without Filter by Sophia Rodríguez, ImpulsTanz 2024