VAI common Room - Digital Practice

in

VAIVisual Artists Ireland (VAI) and Digital Arts Studios (DAS) are partnering to offer a day long event focusing on digital arts practice. I will be among five other artists presenting on my practice in the 'Show and Tell' session. The event also features presentations from Barry Cullen and Robin Price, and an afternoon workshop with Barry Cullen on ‘Audacity’ a free and open source audio software application. The event will take place at the Black Box (11am-2pm presentations) and DAS (3pm-5pm workshop), in Belfast on 5 June 2014.

State Of Play

in
state_of_playThe exhibition State of Play is opening this Thursday 5th June 6-9pm at Pollen Studios, featuring new work by Helen Lavery, Johanna Leech, Jacqueline Wylie, Andrew Molloy, Sean Campbell, Jiann Hughes.
You can see the debut of my new work Disrupted portrait.
From 5th to 13th June from 11am to 5pm.
Pollen Studios, 37-39 Queen Street, 1st Floor, Belfast BT1 6EA

Translating Improvisation

in

Translating improvisation I was delighted to have been invited to join the Translating Improvisation Research Group at Queen's University Belfast where researchers from many disciples are investigating how improvisational practices, discourses and pedagogies from the musical realm may be translated across disciplines.   

Translating Improvisation project is lead by Dr. Sara Ramshaw and Dr. Paul Stapleton. It engages with improvisation as a social practice through an exploration of the possibility of translating improvisational practices, discourses and pedagogies from the musical realm to other disciplines in the humanities. One of the key tenets of this research is the belief in improvisation’s emancipatory promise. Instead of being purely spontaneous, improvisation self-consciously engages with tradition, enabling resistance to oppression and injustice and opening up possibilities for new ways of conceiving community, both locally and at the global level.

TICKER TAPED PARADE

in

PROJECT PROPOSAL

This non-contact, bio-sensing work reveals the magic of a world where our vital signs are secretly measured. When a face is detected the participant’s pulse is read, heart rhythm amplified and manipulated video footage of them displayed. The work considers how exposing this rhythm of life, affects the subject, their heart, and their social interactions.

TICKER TAPED PARADE exposes the increasingly permeable boundaries of the body due to developments in biometric data mining. As an intervention it questions our bodily and social agency, the privacy of our data, and the purpose for which our data is being analysed juxtaposing this concerns with the allure of social connection.

Denzien at Belfast Exposed

in

DenizenCome to the Denizen show, upstairs at the Exchange Gallery at Belfast Exposed, to see my new video work Sizzling Babes and to experience some wonderful works by Sean Campbell, Olivia Devlin and Conan McIvor. Sizzling Babes is a video work that introduces two very special young females from a perspective that challenges common expectations about their sentient capacities, to considers the exploitation and commodification of the female reproductive system.

Exhibition opens 6th March from 7 - 9 pm. Exhibition runs from 6th - 14th March. Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 4pm.

Heartfelt Shadowplay at Outburst

in

The Heartfelt Shadowplay is a biosensing kissing booth which has been created for the Outburst Arts Festival 2013 at the Black Box, Belfast. Participants are invited into the booth where a small pulse sensor is attached to their ear. It wireless transmits changes in their heart behaviour to a laptop which triggers a heart beat sample mimicking their heartbeat and a video feed manipulated to create a shadowy version of their smooching. HEARTFELT SHADOW PLAY

FABRIC exhibition, Platform Arts

in

Fabric show Fabric brings together work by six artists, all currently resident at the Digital Arts Studios, Belfast. Presenting a range of media and approaches, Fabric considers how the structures of and in our cities affect our perspectives and how technology mediates or sifts our experiences of place, environment and history. Presenting new work from Stephen Bleakney, Janine Davidson, Grace Kim, Julie McGowan, Katrina Sheena Smyth and a new work by me (see image below).

Platform Arts, 1 Queen Street, Belfast 3 – 10 October 2013

8th October from 5.30pm // Artists’ Talks

Hosted by Platform Arts // Curated by Digital Arts Studios

membrane at fabric

 

Culture Night Belfast

in

cnb13I've been asked to show some of my biosensing interactive installations at this year's Culture Night Belfast. I'm going to be showing a new work, a large scale outdoor projection called OZ, at Chapel Lane from 9 - 11 pm. As the brochure says: Come hear the city pulse to your beat. This bio-sensing interactive installation transforms the rhythm of your heart into sound and video.

Come on down!

TOKEN exhibition, PS2 gallery

in

B-B got your beat Token is an exhibition of new work by the current artists in residence at the Digital Arts Studios.

My work B-B got your beat gets it's first outing along with great new work by Sinéad Bhreathnach-Cashell and Sam Ruscica; tokens of memory, expression and foreboding.

The exhibition will run from the 28th of May to the 1st of June 2013 at Ps2 Project Space, 18 Donegall Street, Belfast. There will be a mid-exhibition reception on Thursday the 30th May from 6-8pm. All are welcome.

Eulerian video magnification magic

in

The clever fellows over at MIT have used Matlab eulerian video magnification coding to create a no contact pulse measurement system AND they've posted the code... something I'm working on for an upcoming artwork. The concept is nicely explained below.

Holophonic fun

in

I've been experimenting with binaural recordings - a way of convincingly reproducing the spatial dimensions of recorded sound - and have come across this excellent illustration of this technology by the Arkamy's team.* listen with headphones to achieve the desired effect Arkamys: Holophonic Ball Experiment

Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interface Conference 2013

in

I just got back from beautiful Barcelona where I presented a paper at the the seventh Tangible Embedded and Embodied Interface conference. I took part of the Graduate student Consortium stream where twelve of us presented our work to Tom Moher, Yvonne Rogers, Mike Horn and Leah Buechley. We spent the day below ground in the I presented some preliminary findings from the prototype of the artwork Inspiroscope when it was exhibited in Dublin, Ireland and Brighton, England. Inspiroscope: Understanding Participant Experience.pdf

Hearing about the work of other researchers together with their responses to my work provoked more questions in me than were answered, the sign of a successful day.

GSC at TEI

The Narcisystem

in

The Narcisystem is an ambitious art project by Eric Gradman that uses a heart-rate monitor, an ECG sensor, a Breathanalyzer, a compass and an accelerometer to affect his environment. He admits the performance documented below was less than a success. I'm mostly interested in the title of the work. I've heard accusations of biosensing artworks fueling narcissistic tendencies. I wonder what it is about these ways of realising our internal bodily data that conjures up allegations of excessive and unhealthy self preoccupation. Interestingly these sorts of commentaries on self obsessive tendencies appear to be less common in relation to interactive artworks driven by gesture, movement or haptic technology.

Inspiroscope at Brighton Maker Faire

in

Inspiroscope Inspiroscope visited Brighton's second ever Maker Faire last week. From underneath the giant paper mache seagull's watchful eye many stopped for a breath or two and much conversation ensued about the sounds that were created, the lights that sparkled and how the way you breath can change the way you feel. I learnt lots about people's relationship with their breath, from the professional singer to the ICU nurse pictured in the slideshow below. Unsurprisingly children provided the most insightful ways of changing breathing behaviour while in the belt, from tickling to dancing, to hyperventilating and breath holding.

Inspiroscope at Dublin Maker Faire

in

Last week I headed off to the Science Gallery at Trinity college for Dublin's inaugural Maker Faire. It was a busy busy day, a great success with over 5,000 attendees.I showed the artwork Inspiroscope, a breath responsive belt that feedbacks changes in breathing behaviour using light and sound. The Maker Faire offered a social space to get a sense of each participant's experience of wearing the corset.

RECOVERY

in

Shannon Yee's sonic installation, Recovery, sold out at this year's Pick and Mix festival at the MAC Belfast. Part radio-drama, part visceral trip, ‘performed’ for a single audience member at a time, via headphones. In 2008, Shannon nearly died from a rare brain infection. The 12-minute segment of Recovery begins her journey of ‘being disassembled and put back together, slightly askew’. Using sonic arts technology, drama, movement and sound, Recovery creates a new genre of performance to communicate a personal story of brain trauma.My role was that of nurse, setting participants up for the experience on the hospital bed, where I interviewed them about their experience of brain injuries, initiated the experience and captured their reactions at the end of the 'procedure'. All were highly affected by what they had experienced.