🕹️Biometrics & Cartoons workshops continue until June📽️
This past March and April we have welcomed justice-impacted LGBTQ+ folks & women FREE WORKSHOPS on animation and motion capture basics. The participants will be continuing to working with biometric data through May and June and will receive a certificate at completion.
GOOD NEWS! Registration is still open for the remaining online and in-person (NYC-based) workshops. To express your interest, visit https://tinyurl.com/bdzyrnys. Email bird@dukodestudio.com for more info.
🎞️ Animating truth live from Toronto: UNSAFE SPACE and MOCAP 🎙️
On April 2, Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology hosted a thought-provoking and hands-on series of events centered around storytelling, research, and creative technology.
During the UNSAFE SPACE roundtable, the evening featured a powerful discussion from researchers Bryné Hadnott and Ar Ducao, who have been gathering stories of academic trauma and institutional betrayal within STEAM fields. The oral history project, UNSAFE SPACE: Come In, Get Out, sheds light on often-overlooked personal experiences in academia.
Supported by the Connected Minds Equity, Diversity and Inclusion program, the session included early clips and insights from the project, sparking an open and reflective dialogue. The conversation was joined by Interim Sensorium Director Anne Sullivan, Myrtle Sodhi, and other contributors, creating a space for critical engagement around equity, institutional culture, and lived experience in research environments.
Building on the themes of UNSAFE SPACE, Bryné Hadnott and Ar Ducao also led an interactive workshop exploring motion capture (MOCAP) techniques used in their creative work with DuKode Studio. Their project connects directly to the award-winning sci-fi arthouse animated series THE GREAT TIT IS A BIRD (TGTIAB).
Participants were introduced to workflows involving optical, inertial, and depth camera systems, with demonstrations of both body and facial MOCAP tools. The session offered practical insights for artists and technologists interested in character animation. Recommended tools included Autodesk Maya, Mixamo, and Bannaflak Face Cap for iOS.
Bridging personal narratives with innovative digital practices, the events highlighted how storytelling and technology can intersect to challenge systems, amplify voices, and expand creative possibilities.
🎬 The Great Tit is a Bird (Brain) 🐦
On October 8, we gathered at the Goldfarb Gallery at York University for an evening celebrating the culmination of Ar Ducao’s Connected Minds Artist-in-Residence program.
Hosted in collaboration with Sensorium and Connected Minds, a research initiative spanning York University and Queen’s University, the event brought together art, research, and community in a shared space of exploration and exchange.
At the heart of the evening was The Great Tit is a Bird (Brain), an interactive mashup combining our Telly Award–winning sci-fi arthouse series with Multimer, our spatialized biometric technology platform. Together, these works explore the intersection of narrative, identity, and brain-computer systems, grounding speculative storytelling in real-world technologies.
We shared highlights from our Biometrics and Cartoons Workshop Series, offering insight into how biometric data can be translated into expressive animated forms. A live script reading from The Great Tit is a Bird gave attendees an intimate glimpse into the story world, while our EEG headwear display invited participants to engage directly with the creative possibilities of brainwave data.
Throughout the evening, we connected with artists, researchers, and community members over food and conversation—creating space to reflect on identity, technology, and interdisciplinary practice.
This event captured the spirit of experimentation, collaboration, and care that continues to shape our work at DuKode.
🦜Notes from the Team🌍
‘’My name is Joseph Beer and I am from Queens, New York. I am currently a law student at CUNY LAW. I previously enrolled in online courses for a data analysis coding boot camp, and I previously worked as a technical director and animation pipeline manager for The Great Tit is a Bird. The Great Tit is a Bird, is a story that is about a young girl, from a fictional world called Mayaaka based on real-world Nairobi Kenya, who basically reflects on life, her experiences as she witnessed so much wrongs in the world, and she just wants to figure out where she stands. I am the animation pipeline manager so I basically work with the data that comes in the production of this audio drama where we use regular iPhones to capture the data from actors which are then imported and used for our podcast where I basically automate the process and try to make it as seamless as possible.
I would say some of the things that I have learned from The Great Tit is a Bird–I guess the importance of storytelling as far as I know–is making sure voices are heard, everyone’s story definitely counts. I would say just on a more technical side of things, I learned to work with a 3D vector model to transfer captured data from iPhones into these fancy animation programs and created a beautiful audio drama and animation.
I like it when Renella loses her mind, like when she goes crazy with all the voices in her head, so much so many things going on. I, like her, I can definitely relate to that and how we get overwhelmed and you really have to you know, as I think like the way the story is told and where she reflects on what’s going on, that’s a very important thing that everybody needs to do a lot: reflect on life as we actively live it. I guess with the story my favorite part is that you know Rennella is just a regular person, that goes on an amazing journey and discovers so much and that is really inspiring. In the sense that it could be each and every one of us out there creating our own story and embarking on an amazing journey. My call to action would be to watch the audio drama, like our videos, and definitely follow us, because we will have a lot more interesting and exciting content.” JOSEPH BEER💕
💗 BEHIND THE SCENES: from Susan 💗
Susan Osiche is TGTIAB’s former story supervisor, as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Inua Kike, a women’s and girls’ empowerment NGO in Nairobi, Kenya.
“Many girls in our community due lack of knowledge get themselves into things that they do not understand at all. This is due to lack of poverty, child marriage and gender-based violence. When girls have access to education and life skills necessary to navigate and adapt to an ever-changing world. The education of girls not only helps them achieve their individual potential, but also helps to break intergenerational cycles of poverty and disadvantage.”
🏆 Our NEWEST Accolades 🏆
“Best Sci-Fi Film” for DEMO DAY at the Canadian Black Screen Awards
Official Selection in: Kwanzaa Film Festival, Alibag Short Film Festival, Athens ANIMFEST, and more.
