Luscious Apparatus
We turn audience into participants by making their bodily experience the subject of the choreography. A choreography of rituals of intimacy and interaction, centred around the heart. The heart is conceptualised, not simply as an anatomical organ, but as instrument and threshold to a space of deep presence. Techniques from the Bodyweather performance methodology will be experimented with, to see if they can structure or sensitise the experience of the participant. We will combine costume and object-making with embedded sensing technologies, wireless data transmission and digitally generated sound to produce material for choreographing a live art scenario.
Collaborators
Tess de Quincey: Bodyweather choreographer
George Khut: New media artist
Justin Shoulder: Artist
Baki Kocaballi: Research assistant
Jos Mulder: Technical assistance
Funded by The Australia Council for the Arts 2010
Residencies at Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre and Medium, Rare Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Luscious Apparatus is interdisciplinary research into body-focused interactions, audience experience, wearable sensing technologies and Bodyweather performance methodology. The research questions are concerned with understanding and crafting audience experience of body-focused interactions in an interactive or live art context. In this particular project, the Bodyweather performance methodology is the prime method for understanding the body in its performative and experiential modes. We have been investigating the use of wearable sensors, such as the Arduino family of motion/tilt sensors and breath and pulse sensors for reading biodata.
At the second residency, we constructed a live art installation, Speechless, around the concept of a series of experiential ‘stations’, each one offering a different body experience, coloured by the use of material objects, masks/costumes, vocal instructions and digitally generated sound. The soundscape was responsive to the biodata measured from breath and pulse sensors. The idea of ritual interactions to structure the work led to the development of a script for running the live encounter. The co-presence of artists and audience within the work itself became a fundamental feature. We “tested” the work with selected participants, in order to gain insight into the audience experience and gauge the viability of the current form of the prototype environment.
The Lung Station was further developed into a new piece, The Breath Temple, for the SEAM Symposium, Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre, 17/18th September, 2011. Again the ritualistic nature of the work was emphasised through the addition of a ceremonial-like robe which was placed upon the audience participant. We invited participants to reflect upon their experience immediately after by indicating on a site map and body silhouettes where their sense of embodied imagination was located.
This work has been published in part in:
The book chapter contains the Facilitated Interaction Framework, which George Khut and I developed out of our mutual work in this area.
Tess de Quincey: Bodyweather choreographer
George Khut: New media artist
Justin Shoulder: Artist
Baki Kocaballi: Research assistant
Jos Mulder: Technical assistance
Funded by The Australia Council for the Arts 2010
Residencies at Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre and Medium, Rare Gallery, Sydney, Australia
Luscious Apparatus is interdisciplinary research into body-focused interactions, audience experience, wearable sensing technologies and Bodyweather performance methodology. The research questions are concerned with understanding and crafting audience experience of body-focused interactions in an interactive or live art context. In this particular project, the Bodyweather performance methodology is the prime method for understanding the body in its performative and experiential modes. We have been investigating the use of wearable sensors, such as the Arduino family of motion/tilt sensors and breath and pulse sensors for reading biodata.
At the second residency, we constructed a live art installation, Speechless, around the concept of a series of experiential ‘stations’, each one offering a different body experience, coloured by the use of material objects, masks/costumes, vocal instructions and digitally generated sound. The soundscape was responsive to the biodata measured from breath and pulse sensors. The idea of ritual interactions to structure the work led to the development of a script for running the live encounter. The co-presence of artists and audience within the work itself became a fundamental feature. We “tested” the work with selected participants, in order to gain insight into the audience experience and gauge the viability of the current form of the prototype environment.
The Lung Station was further developed into a new piece, The Breath Temple, for the SEAM Symposium, Critical Path Choreographic Research Centre, 17/18th September, 2011. Again the ritualistic nature of the work was emphasised through the addition of a ceremonial-like robe which was placed upon the audience participant. We invited participants to reflect upon their experience immediately after by indicating on a site map and body silhouettes where their sense of embodied imagination was located.
This work has been published in part in:
- Loke, L., Khut, G. P. and Kocaballi, A. B. (2012) Bodily Experience and Imagination: Designing Ritual Interactions for Participatory Live-Art Contexts. In Proceedings of the Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 779-788.
- Loke, L. and Khut, G.P. Intimate Aesthetics and Facilitated Interaction. In Candy, L., Ferguson, S. (Eds.) Interactive Experience in the Digital Age – Evaluating New Art Practice, Springer International Publishing, 2014.
The book chapter contains the Facilitated Interaction Framework, which George Khut and I developed out of our mutual work in this area.
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Breath Temple
Artists: Lian Loke and George Khut Credits Video by Martin Fox for SEAM Symposium 2011, Critical Path Choreographic Centre, Sydney, Australia |