People

Bundanon Workshop, from left: Lian Loke, Jonathan Duckworth, George Khut, Somaya Langley, Maggie Slatery, Biz Hayman, Lizzie Muller, Catherine Truman (absent: Garth Paine)

Each member of the Thinking Through The Body – ArtLab’08 ensemble brings to the project a unique combination of inter-disciplinary skills and experiences relating to the three core strands of this proposal: interactive art, design research and somatic bodywork. The following introduction outlines the depth and breadth of knowledge within the ensemble – the process of collaboration will be one of weaving experience and understanding across the various research concentrations outlined here:

George Khut (NSW) makes body-focussed interactive artworks that invite audiences to sense and reflect on links between nervous system activity (heart rate patterning) and mental/emotional focus using visuals and sounds that respond to moment changes in the subjects physiology. George has collaborated with Lizzie Muller (NSW/UK) on the development of experience-centred approaches to the design and exhibition of interactive artworks, using ethnographic evaluation methods from human-centred design research to help articulate their vision for what and how interactive art can be.

Lizzie Muller is pioneering audience-centred approaches to the exhibition, documentation and critical evaluation of interactive art practices. Her “Mirror States” exhibition (co-curated with Kathy Cleland) at the Campbelltown Arts Centre (NSW) will provide the ensemble with an opportunity to explore and evaluate audience-research methods in depth, and to consider how this research can inform our practices.

Garth Paine (NSW) and Somaya Langley (ACT) both work in the area of interactive sound, Garth as a senior research heading the innovative VIPRe Studio at MARCS Laboratory, UWS, and Somaya as an ‘emerging’ artist and arts writer, and director of the 2009 Electrofringe media arts and skills development festival in Newcastle, Australia . Both are researching movement and gesture based interfaces that transform data collected via hand gestures and body movements into dynamic electronic soundscapes.

Lian Loke (NSW) engages a similar set of concerns, but from a design perspective, as a researcher at the UTS Interaction Design and Human Practice group (IDHuP), where she has been researching vocabularies and methods for designing with movement and gestural interaction, inspired by approaches such as Laban notation, Body Weather and Ashtanga Yoga. Lian’s research practice involves a close study of experience-in-interaction as a tool for designing and evaluating interactions between people and machines, as exemplified by her work on Ross Gibson and Kate Richards’ ‘Bystander’ project.

Catherine Truman (SA) is a highly acclaimed object maker and certified Feldenkrais practitioner who has recently expanded her practice into the areas of wearable interactive art and physical theatre through collaborations with Jonathan Duckworth, and the mixed-ability performance group Restless Dance Company. Catherine and Jonathan met through the ANAT ‘ReSkin’ workshop, where they collaborated on a number of prototype wearable interactive art objects.

Jonathan Duckworth (VIC) is an artist and architectural designer operating in the field of interaction design and new media arts practice. Jonathan has collaborated extensively in a number of large-scale projects working at the Virtual Reality Centre, RMIT University, where he is currently engaged as an ARC-supported PhD researcher collaborating on the development of an augmented-reality movement rehabilitation system for people with Traumatic Brain Injury.

Together with acclaimed Feldenkrais practitioner Maggie Slattery (SA), Catherine and Jonathan have been involved in an ongoing discussion on the role of touch, proprioception and neuropsychology in interactive art, performance and physiotherapy.

Experience in interaction can be difficult to describe – just like a powerful art experience, the personal insights and transformations facilitated through a Feldenkrais bodywork ‘lesson’ often elude description. A more articulate understanding of experience in interaction would enable us to better advocate the value and significance of these hard-to-pin-down practices. The experience-centred research methods being used by Lizzie Muller and Lian Loke have much to offer in this regard.