The mother’s arm is moving upwards: how are we able to see in her gesture the tender sweetness leading her to caress the cheek of her sleeping child or the inner violence preparing to hit the soldier’s cheek? How can we foresee in the heavy murderer’s hand movement a slight faltering revealing his fragile uncertainty in finishing his task, how can we measure the hesitation of the woman’s arms closing to protect her crying, in resonant dialogue with the bodies moving around her?”

As my ItsMe2 experience surely proves, I like a grandiose megaproject as much as the next man. I am glad therefore to discoverEn-TIme-Ment, which is a Horizon 2020 funded project in Italy whose investigators are not at all humble:

EnTimeMent aims at a radical change in scientific research and enabling technologies for human movement qualitative analysis, entrainment and prediction, based on a novel neuro-cognitive approach of the multiple, mutually interactive time scales characterizing human behaviour. Our approach will afford the development of computational models for the automated detection, measurement, and prediction of movement qualities from behavioural signals, based on multi-layer parallel processes at non-linearly stratified temporal dimensions, and will radically transform technology for human movement analysis. EnTimeMent new innovative scientifically-grounded and time-adaptive technologies operate at multiple time scales in a multi-layered approach: motion capture and movement analysis systems will be endowed with a completely n

ovel functionality, achieving a novel generation of time-aware multisensory motion perception and prediction systems. The proposed model and technologies will be iteratively tested and refined, by designing and performing controlled and ecological experiments, ranging from action prediction in a controlled laboratory setting, to prediction in dyadic and small group interaction. EnTimeMent scenarios include health (healing and support of everyday life of persons with chronic pain and disability), performing arts (e.g. dance), sports, and entertainment group activities, with and without living architectures. EnTimeMent will create and support community-building and exploitation with concrete initiatives, including a community of users and stakeholders, innovation hubs and SME incubators, as premises for the consolidation beyond the end of the project in a broader range of market areas.

This fuller page is even more entertainingly dramatic:

The mother’s arm is moving upwards: how are we able to see in her gesture the tender sweetness leading her to caress the cheek of her sleeping child or the inner violence preparing to hit the soldier’s cheek? How can we foresee in the heavy murderer’s hand movement a slight faltering revealing his fragile uncertainty in finishing his task, how can we measure the hesitation of the woman’s arms closing to protect her crying, in resonant dialogue with the bodies moving around her?

Of course, I am plotting a way to get on board this particular train.