Spectrum Dynamic is an exhibition that comprises a series of dye-sublimation prints that presents visual interpretations of motor stereotypies, sometimes termed stimming. Stereotypies are repetitive movements of the body such as body-rocking, head-nodding, arm and hand-flapping, finger-tapping, or pacing. These behaviors are seen in many individuals but are especially common among people with neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism. These movements provide an outlet, a means of coping, and release.
Indiana University’s Caleb Weintraub, associate professor in the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture, and Design, and Dr. Dan Kennedy, associate professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Science, collaborated with staff and students at CIP Bloomington, Indiana, to complete a series of artworks entitled Spectrum Dynamic. (CIP is an agency that assists young people on the autism spectrum.)
Weintraub used motion-capture software and 3D modeling programs to distill the movements of people who engage in stimming into essential kinematic signatures. Through this process, motion is registered as trails and particles virtually rendered into visible moving frameworks. The body of work highlights the inherent rhythms and patterns of these stereotypies to present an alternate perspective on these behaviors.
Aesthetic choices related to light, color, and material are informed by testimony given by participants who describe the function and feeling of stimming. By way of example, one individual likened her experience of turning in circles to the act of creating a barrier as if spinning a cocoon between herself and the world.
By returning to previously unused files from the original sessions with participants along with subsequent motion capture files and testimonies, the effort has expanded beyond the completion of the initial project.
The goal of art may be to ask questions and to stimulate. When these efforts are combined with an interest in people and our interactions with our world, the result is something altogether different ... it yields a space for the reframing of conversations, the acknowledgment of difference, and the exercising of respect for the variety of human experience.
Spectrum Dynamic aims to give form to the obscure, fill in gaps, and make the invisible visible.
Caleb Weintraub earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Upcoming shows include: Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art; International Museum of Art and Science in Texas. He has been an artist-in-residence at Redux Art Center in South Carolina and the Santa Fe Art Institute. Significant group shows include exhibitions at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Hyde Park Art Center, and Scion Art Space in Los Angeles. In 2019, Weintraub was a Fellow at the Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities, Indiana University. Learn more about Weintraub at calebweintraub.com.
Dr. Daniel P. Kennedy earned his Ph.D. in neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego, in 2007, and his Bachelor of Science degree in psychobiology, from SUNY Binghamton, in 2002. He was a postdoctoral scholar in neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology, 2007-2012. His research focuses on the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying human social behavior, and how these mechanisms break down in individuals with autism. Research methods include eye tracking, functional neuroimaging, and behavioral and cognitive testing, and study populations include healthy children and adults, individuals with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, and patients with localized brain lesions.
