Patterns of Protest
2022–2023
Motion Capture, Spatial Analysis
Description
Patterns of Protest studies collective motion during demonstrations, treating protest as a choreographic and spatial phenomenon. Rather than focusing on political messaging, the work examines how groups move, form density, disperse, and reclaim urban space through embodied presence.
Using motion-capture mapping, aerial footage, and diagrammatic tracing, the project reveals protest as a dynamic system—oscillating between individual gestures and mass coordination.
Concept
The inquiry began with a simple tension: each protestor acts independently, yet protests behave like a single organism. The project visualizes this tension through patterns of contraction, flow, rupture, and circulation. These patterns expose how bodies negotiate power, vulnerability, collective agency, and control within public space.
The work positions protest as a performative form of spatial authorship: movements become lines, clusters become temporary architecture, and ephemeral formations become evidence of shared intention.
System
- Motion capture and aerial footage analysis
- Vector-based tracing of crowd flow and density
- Spatial-temporal diagrams mapping rhythm, direction, and collective momentum
- Research into crowd psychology and embodied political action
The system does not attempt to predict behavior. Instead, it captures the fleeting geometries produced when many bodies form a temporary collective mass.
Video
Audio
This soundtrack is composed of field recordings captured across two years of protests. The audio served as background sound during the creation of the video work, affecting various parameters in the generative visuals.
Images
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Patterns of Protest originated alongside Anthropomass. While Anthropomass searched for long-term traces and cumulative mass, this project looked for short-lived formations—moments where collective presence reconfigures the city. Together, they form a dual study of human-scale systems: one geological, one temporal.
Next Steps
Future work explores real-time visualization of demonstrations and the possibility of transforming live protest movement into sound or spatial feedback.
Credits
Concept and research: Olga Stadnuk
Footage and materials: documentation from public demonstrations