Quipucamayoc: Origins of Human Life and Death
About the Project:
QUIPUCAMAYOC is an interactive art and technology project lead by professor David McIntosh from the Digital Futures Program in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences/School of Interdisciplinary Studies at OCADU.
This project brings together digital visuals, motion sensors, gaming technologies, music, dance performances, and wearable design to create a transmedia translocal communication network.
It features 12 different passages of the Huarochiri Manuscript, a 16th century written compilation of pre-colombian Andean religious rites, which joined artists, technologists and performers in Canada, Peru and Argentina.
The passage Origins of Human Life and Death is a story which depicts the birth of men from the quinoa plants, and their subsequent death becoming flies. For this story, backgrounds and avatars were designed to recreate the narrative.
The quinoa humans I designed were: a woman, her husband, the husband who comes back from the dead and the fly in which he becomes on his second death.
Creating an interactive experience
The avatars and backgrounds I designed were subsequently developed into Unity for Kinect interactivity and were part of the final performance of the Quipucamayoc project in December 2016. Professional dancers in Cuzco and Buenos Aires brought the images to life during a unique dance performance.
The final performance of this one and the other narratives that conformed the Quipucamayoc project were compiled in a 55 min. long documentary. The documentary showed the live performances of the 12 narratives which took place in late 2016 in Peru and Argentina.
The Quipucamayoc Documentary & Comic Book
Additionally, I compiled a printed comic book version of the narratives. To view the full book please click here.