Freya Björg olafson
intermedia artist / artiste intermedia

This video was commissioned by Dancermakers and Fado Performance Art for ‘Future Dances’ a speculative choreography project with nine artists creating works for 50 years in the future.
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In this machinima video work, 3D avatars of Freya are animated using AI-generated motion capture, choreographed through text prompts with SayMotion. Freya’s avatars move through an environment composed of 3D LIDAR scans from two personal archives: the exterior of Freya’s studio/live space (2006–2023) and performance materials from Tedd Robinson’s archive—a monologue printed across pieces of canvas and bells strung along two ropes with handles.

Freya’s engagement with Tedd Robinson’s archival materials began through MULTIPLES, a collective process initiated in 2023 through Ten Gates Dancing Inc., following Tedd’s passing in 2022. Tedd Robinson (1952–2022) was a Canadian choreographer, performer, and educator, renowned for his distinctive solos alongside many collaborative works. He was an essential mentor and advisor on Freya's works AVATAR (2009), CPA [Consistent Partial Attention] (2013), and MÆ - Motion Aftereffect (2019). Tedd continually questioned the role of archives—not as static repositories, but as living entities that renew, regenerate, and connect across generations. 

This video considers the potential of moving images, 3D scans, code, motion capture, and avatars as digital archival tools that support and expand how dance and choreography are experienced, created, taught, documented, shared, archived, and remembered. The work blends virtual camera footage from Freya’s game environment with real-life video, including footage of Freya’s child, Ylfa, ringing Tedd’s bells and a cockroach in Freya’s oven. By bridging deeply personal scans and video with the artifice of AI-generated movement, the work explores the intersections of beginnings and ends, birth and legacy, presence and preservation—pondering how dance and choreography will exist 50 years from today in light of sociopolitical and technological change concurrent to environmental degradation.
 

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