Rooted in improvisation and movement, this project investigates how dancing with a non-human agent can heighten our awareness of being human. To do so, it casts a generative AI model in the role of a responsive dance companion – an interactive presence, invited to reflect on, interpret, and challenge human movement.

Rather than seeking seamless assistance, the work embraces friction: AI as an “other,” a digital opponent that introduces resistance, discomfort, and unpredictability. Through this embodied dialogue, the project explores how AI can read and respond to body language. What kinds of narratives emerge when our prompts unfold through movement? Can this tension enhance self-expression, spark creativity, and push us beyond habitual patterns? Ultimately, the work sits with uncertainty – questioning whether dancing with AI feels right, and probing what that interaction can reveal about our relationship with technology.

This website is a documentation space for these exchanges. Inspired by autoethnography, it collects recordings of these embodied dialogues and snippets of reflection in order to invite others in.

Technology

PatternBreaker is a desktop application developed by Thomas Boland that provides real-time AI-powered feedback during dance sessions. It is built with SvelteKit and Tauri, combining a web frontend with a native desktop runtime.

When a recording starts, the app captures frames from the webcam at regular intervals and sends them to one of several supported AI vision models for analysis. What gets analyzed is determined by configurable prompts. These instructions direct the AI's attention toward specific aspects of the performance, such as body position, movement quality, or emotional expression. A second prompt then processes that interpretation and turns it into spoken feedback, delivered in real time via ElevenLabs Text-to-Speech, allowing the session to continue uninterrupted.

Both prompts can be written, tested against live webcam footage, and adjusted between sessions. This provides room for experimentation, as each session can be approached with a different focus or analytical lens.

Context


This research derives from 25 years of experience in participatory experiments, both online and offline, and working across disciplines. With the former studio Moniker, and Roel Wouters as a long-time companion, Luna was active at the intersection of design, technology, art, and performance. Now, she decided to experiment with integrating the body and dance into digital technologies, to create new hybrid environments.

Today, often without even noticing, obstacles are continuously smoothed out in the pursuit of ever-greater efficiency and productivity. One risk is that humans become more seamless and predictable as a result, with AI technology playing an increasingly central role. This concern was the motivation for writing the Designing Friction manifesto – a call for friction in our digital culture. Building on this work, Dance Out Of Pattern seeks to create meaningful encounters with technology – shifting beyond screens and VR headsets, and back into our bodies. This is Luna’s version of a techno-optimist perspective.

Ultimately, Luna wants to bring dance back to the table – not just as a performance, but as a practice for everyone. Not being a professional dancer, she operates outside the space of traditional dance performances, one that might speak to a different audience. She hopes to be an example for others, especially non-dancers, showing that the body can – and perhaps should – be part of the creative process. Not as something to perfect, but as a way to tell stories, to explore, and to be present. Many people are afraid to dance because you open yourself up, you become vulnerable, you let go, and you lose control over what you express. But maybe that’s exactly what we need.

Lunamaurer.com
Designingfriction.com
Studiomoniker.com
IG: Luna__maurer
If you have questions, suggestions, or want to come for a try-out contact me:
mail@lunamaurer.com

Colophon

Technology: Thomas Boland
Design: Nick Sheeran
Typeface: Renotype by Radim Pešco
Editor: Alexandra Barancová
Mentor/coaches: Alexandra Barancová, Janine Huizinga, Gerleen Balstra

Dance Out of Pattern is part of the 2025–2026 Fellowship Programme in Digital Storytelling of the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF)

Supported by Nederlands Filmfestival, Creative Industries Fund NL