5 Movements

2022, New York - USA

5 Movements is a 10 minute immersive audiovisual experience, exploring the relationship of human body movements with space and time, using five different types of motion chiseled by five performers. By capturing fleeing phases of performers’ movements in succeeding phases of motion, the emotion and essence of each motion is incorporated in three dimensions. The experience itself connects the dots between traces of movements, a phenomena that human senses are most often unable to perceive in real time.

I designed and animated one part of the experience and also led the techical aspect of this whole challenging project from the start to end from creating working templates to delivering the gigantic video files to media servers.

Inspired by several different types of dance from traditional tribal dances and ballet to street style, hip-hop and contemporary performances,  five movements of music unify various beats of the world, including African, Contemporary Classic, Electronica, Instrumental Hip-hop and Asian. All this diversity from different parts and times of the world becomes one in an immersive motion choreography, through the kinetic displacement of bodies in space with time.

Role: Technical Content Direction, Art Direction, Motion Design
Type: Immersive Exhibition
Duration: 10' 00"
Location: Hall des Lumières, New York
Commissioned by: Culturespaces Digital

Premiere: Hall des Lumières | New York, USA [2022, Sept 14 - 2023, Jul 16]
Exhibitions: Phoenix des Lumières | Dortmund, GERMANY [2024, Jan - 2025, Jan]

CREDITS
Direction: Nohlab
Production: Culturespaces Digital
Visual Artists: Nohlab, Balkan Karışman, Çağatay Güçlü, Berkay Türk, Fehmican Gözüm, Taha Celal Yıldırım, Yasin Sinik
Music direction, Sound Design & Original Music: Gökalp Kanatsız
Technical Content Direction: Fehmican Gözüm

NOHLAB Team
Creative Directors: Candaş Şişman, Deniz Kader
Producer: Yasemen Birhekimoğlu
Motion Designer: Begüm Tunçer

Performance & Live Video Production: CPMistanbul - Cem Görk
Performance Choreographer: Volkan Ersoy
Performers: Kaya Godfrey, Mine İzgi, Deniz Keskin, Büşra AyFILMING CREW
Director: Cem Terbiyeli
Director of Photography: Ferhat Uzundağ
Costume: Tuğçe Ülkümen
Makeup Artist: Tuğba Çolakoğlu
Compositing: Mustafa Koç

Performance Footage Editor: Teoman Küçükeren
PHotography: Andrew Kelly [Reuters], Massimo Vendola, Özde Karadağ
Video Documentation: Noel Y. Calingasan, Özde Karadağ

Located in the historic Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank building at 49 Chambers Street, the Hall des Lumières in New York City is a groundbreaking digital art space. This venue, with its Beaux-Arts architecture featuring marble columns, stained glass windows, and coved ceilings, has been reimagined as a permanent immersive art destination. The venue showcases large-scale projections that seamlessly integrate with its historic interior, featuring 10m tall visuals mapped precisely to its unique architecture.

As Technical Content Director for a 5-minute-long project presented in this space, I oversaw the creation of advanced content workflows to match the venue's complex requirements. The project utilized a custom-designed 3D simulation template, allowing the creative team to visualize and refine content in real-time. This tool was pivotal in managing the Hall des Lumières’ vast projection area, enabling us to leverage the venue’s full potential as a continuous canvas for certain scenes.

Each segment of the piece was crafted with distinct setups and spectator experiences in mind, requiring sophisticated content direction and a detailed understanding of the venue's immersive capabilities. The combination of the venue's architectural history and cutting-edge technology posed unique challenges, which we met with innovative approaches to both technical design and artistic execution.

3D Simulation Video >>

Technical breakdown timelapse  >>

For my contribution to 5 Movements,  I created the section inspired by instrumental hip-hop. My approach was to reinterpret the vibrant visual energy of late 80s–90s hip-hop culture through a contemporary lens, highlighting rhythm and movement as the central driving forces.

I explored the idea of “slicing time” by deconstructing dance footage into grids, where individual body parts and gestures could be isolated, distorted, and recomposed along the natural flow of the choreography. This technique allowed the movements themselves to generate the visuals, creating a direct dialogue between dance and digital form.

To contrast and complement the other segments of the piece, I embraced bold, saturated colors and vivid textures, amplifying the architectural space with a dynamic, full-bodied atmosphere. The result was a playful yet immersive visual landscape that celebrated rhythm, color, and motion as a unified experience.

We had 5 different dance concepts to createa 5 minute long piece and every part made by a different motion designer. My part was the insturmental Hiphop part. My approach was to createa contemporary look for 80s-90s hiphop colors and also put forward the rythmic dance moves by slicing time and different parts of body and illustrate them by the dance movements themselves. I managed to put the dance video footage in grid systems and time distord the grid pieces while they follow the splines of the movement.