Presence is a collection of mesmerising video pieces created as an exploration of the anthropomorphous, tangible, technical and beautiful qualities of contemporary technologies. The works are the result of a collaboration between Universal Everything, choreographer Benjamin Millepied and his LA Dance Project who worked together to produce an artificial form, which embodies a delicate balance between abstraction and the figurative and whose movement feels free and not formulaic.

Using motion-track technology, the movements of dancers were captured as they performed choreographed routines based on a rhythmic pulse. The resulting footage was manipulated and abstracted into animated sculptural forms that only hint at their origins. The work fills the screen with an immersive, rhythmic, mutating audiovisual performance with primal expressions of gestural drawing and choreography. Colour schemes and advancing abstractions follow rules such as ‘faster movement equals stronger colours, smaller movements cause colours to recede’ that create a beautiful balance of human form and the hi-tech.

Presence was originally conceived as a large-scale video installation consisting of 24 films created from six separate dance sequences, each with four variations. The work was presented as part of the the solo exhibition Universal Everything and You at the Media Space at the Science Museum, London in 2013/14. From the project, Universal Everything have created unique digital editions exclusively for Sedition.