Combining a 10-minute live performance and a 3-minute dual-channel installation, Performing the Search draws from an internal archive of early AI-generated moving images from Google Veo 1. Through movement, sound, repetition, and shifting temporalities, the work explores bodily agency and the possibilities of a living archive between computational materials and lived experience.

How can an archive continue to live, grow, and transform through the body? How might a body continue to search, remember, and reshape its traces? What new performance systems might emerge?

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Description of the event:​

A showcase of three artists transforming an archive from early generative Veo experiments into new works spanning textile, performance, and media art. Featuring textile artist Hayley Mortin (Montréal), media artist Karyn Nakamura (NYC), and performance artist Zelia ZZ Tan (LA), the exhibition presents three distinct interpretations of early AI’s strange, unstable, and unexpected outputs. With support from Google, the artists were invited to draw from an extensive archive of videos produced during the testing of early Veo models. As generative video becomes increasingly polished, Post Generation looks back at the archived artifacts left behind and asks what new meanings artists might uncover within them.

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Zelia's thoughts:

What fascinated me most wasn't just the images on screen, but the encounters between imaginations, and people in the room.

The performance unfolded through my responses to selected videos from the early Google Veo archive, improvising with what I saw, sensed, and encountered in the space. While the movements could change each time, the intentions and overall choreographic score were carefully developed and rehearsed. I worked my voice and breath, using chordal to translate them into pulses within the performance, sound by @11ai.link. 

For this work, I designed a real-time system from scratch using TouchDesigner and LiDAR motion capture, driving avatars entirely through live movement. The computational bodies were entirely driven by my live movements. When I stepped outside the capture area, the avatar froze in its last position—a small interruption that became part of the choreography. 

Together with @jj_disaster, I mapped out the signal paths, using simple logic and graphics to turn ideas into a responsive performance system. Each node became part of a composed channel I could understand, adjust, and perform with. In our first and only working session, we also talked about everyday creative practices. It was lovely to let the ideas grow organically.

How might an archive become something we can respond to, embody, and transform together?

Performing twice that day, I especially loved seeing audience members step onstage and create their own movements. Each encounter brought unexpected discoveries.

Grateful to everyone who moved, watched, and shared conversations. ♡ @wwwtinazone @tiat.place

Physical Body as a Living Archive continues evolving, from little sketches to live encounters. I'm excited to share this research with the National University of Singapore this Thursday and hopefully host an open online session later this month.

More movement, more questions, more ways to enter an archive.