It is argued that the shift towards generative AI represents a problematic colonialist-capitalist exploitation of data, stripping it of its connection to embodied practice and artistic process. In response, it proposes a “return” (not nostalgic, but cyclical) foregrounding practice – the relational, social, and embodied processes of dance and creative coding. It advocates for reconceiving dance data not as a passive resource, but as a continuum containing a “virtual potential”. This potential is activated not through statistical inference, but instead through dynamic, deep connection within social, creative, and embodied practice (“data becoming dance”).
Ultimately, it is a call for digital autonomy achieved through critical engagement with technology’s inherent political economy and a divestment from extractive platforms. This requires establishing networks of care and practice and adopting a fundamental ontological opposition to the limited and problematic epistemological foundations embedded in contemporary dominant digital technologies. Dance practice, in this view, offers a vital model for resisting and countering today’s prevalent data extractivism.
Short Bio:
Anton Koch (M.) works as a senior research software engineer and research assistant at Mainz University of Applied Sciences. Since 2017, he has been responsible for software development and technological strategy within Motion Bank, an interdisciplinary research group exploring digital practice in contemporary dance, as well as the capture and transmission of dance knowledge. Since 2022, he has also been responsible for platform and infrastructure development within the KITeGG project, which aims to incorporate emerging machine learning technology into the design curriculum. His research focuses on the triadic relationship between engineering, politics of labour and social practices, reflecting on his domain through art, history, and critical thinking.
Before moving into the research field, he worked as a software developer in small companies and advertising, co-founding his first start-up for digital music distribution, Loopnet.de, in 1998. Since then, he has been involved in numerous other projects and companies, developing application prototypes and finding ways to make emergent technologies accessible in commercial contexts. Furthermore, he has produced experimental electronic music, several music videos, exhibited media installations as side-projects to his professional work and supported various cultural projects with technological consultancy and development.
Personal Website:
https://hyper.fail
Motion Bank / HS Mainz:
https://www.hs-mainz.de
https://motionbank.org

The author draws on his prior experience in dance and technology to pursue a dual objective:

1. To produce a research paper in journal format, documenting the investigative process; Link to paper
   
2. To search for the most effective and minimal (2D) visual representation—or avatar—of the body in VR that enables dancers/users to explore new modes of movement. This involves a playful and ongoing process of iteration, where each version of the avatar tests new ways of sensing, moving, and being in VR—gradually approaching a form that feels intuitively right for expanded bodily exploration—experiences that feel distinctly different from those of the regular human body.
   

Virtual Reality is employed as a medium for fostering introspective experiences and expanding the potential of somatic and movement-based practices toward transhuman dimensions. By exploring the synergy between body and machine, the research interrogates rigid systems from an ontological perspective grounded in praxis, revealing the latent co-creative potential of the medium within its shifting, ever-changing milieu—what might be understood as a process of technical co-individuation: a mutual transformation between body and machine, where neither body nor machine remains the same—each entangled in a reciprocal process of becoming, sensing, and transforming together.