PARADISO – senses + spaces
Immersive and interactive Dance Films

From the start, cinema entailed  the recording of movement. The word "cinematography" derives from Greek: kinema -κίνημα "movement" and graphein - γράφειν "to record".
 
PARADISO is a series of two interactive dance films. Its two levels, "senses" and "spaces," address sensory awareness and kinesthetic learning. Dancer and choreographer Bertha Bermudez (Amsterdam), her filmmaker Maite Bermudez (Barcelona) and media artist and director Chris Ziegler expand cinematic experience into physicality and deliver an artistic review on the present hype surrounding 3D cinema. The film was shot in the eternal ice of the Arctic and Antarctic, in the deserts of Africa and in other inhospitable parts of the world.
 
In the first level of PARADISO - "senses" - the viewer is "touched" by the dancer’s movement. Force feedback sensors with electroactive polymers and a custom-built 4D chair give tactile feedback on the skin of the viewer. Image, sound, wind and evaporated perfumes activate almost all the senses: sight, hearing, touch and smell.
 
PARADISO’s second level - "spaces" - connects the viewer’s kinesphere to the camera of the film. Watching the dancer’s movements in the film leads the viewer into the movement of the camera’s viewing angle. In an expansion of Vertov's mental montage in early 20th century filmmaking, the viewer of PARADISO generates an interactive physical montage.