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Transact (Flesh/Skin/Bone) (Main Menu)

Project Summary

What is it?
Transact (Flesh/Skin/Bone)' was interactive video installation for a single user that used an interface based upon the tessellations found in nature. Different paths through the script created differing combinations of a video triptych featuring minimal performance actions shot from a range of perspectives. The work was accompanied by an interactive stereo sound-scape.


The installation 'Transact' (Preliminary Version 1)
shown at the Tasmanian Art Gallery (Image courtesy of TMAG)

Front cover of the printed artist book accompanying the show

The project in proof of concept form is being shown as part of 'WILD 2002', a program of new media art projects, screenings, performances, art forums, wilderness residency and webcast sessions in Hobart, Tasmania

Download Full Details of this project in pdf format (1MB)

Where?
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
as part of SOLAR Circuit 2002
International New Media Workshop and Exhibition
Convened by Antoanetta Ivanova on Behalf of the Solar Circuit Network

Dates/Times + Related Web Pages
2nd-17th February 2002
The Bond Store, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery
Opening Hours: 10 AM – 5 PM daily

Synopsis
The artists' aim was to create what director Keith Armstrong calls a "poetics of bodily fragility established via processes of dynamic ecological exchange". This was achieved by drawing parallels between a body's internal 'weather' environment and the ever-changing atmospheric conditions that both support that body and yet symbiotically depend upon it. Hence research drew strongly upon principles of ecological and human movement sciences in order to create works that could be both deeply visceral and ultimately, moving.


Excerpt from the printed artist book accompanying the show

Download Full Details of this project in pdf format (1MB)

Transact (Flesh/Skin/Bone) was also strongly influenced by principles drawn from the Japanese 'Suzuki' actor method of training that builds its concepts of performance through seeking dynamic balances between 'Skin' (a performer's outward appearances), 'Flesh' (that which results from a breadth of disciplined training) and 'Bone'(a performer's inherited bodily characteristics). It is also informed by the practices of the Japanese performance form 'Body weather', pioneered in Australia by Tess de Quincey, breeds from dynamic interactions that emerge between performers and site-specific, atmospheric conditions.

Transact (Skin/Flesh/Bone) interactive scripting methodology was inspired by the tessellated, interlocking honeycomb structures prevalent throughout many ecological forms. This allows the work's dynamic, performative imagery to be arranged into 'cells', which are later allowed to recombine and juxtapose in real time as a means for creating varying sensations of balance and exchange.


The installation 'Transact' (preliminary version 1)
shown at the Tasmanian Art Gallery (image courtesy of TMAG)

This is accompanied by an evocative nonlinear sound work that builds an architectural spaciousness, characterised by deepening sensations of uncertainty.

The work shown here at TMAG hence represents the first stage in the development of such larger works that will ultimately be distributed across several physical venue nodes and multiple on-line sites. In such later versions interactors will participate in an experience of exchange and transfer that incorporates their bodies within the very heart of the work's processes of exchange and transfer.


The installation 'Transact' (preliminary version 1)
shown at the Tasmanian Art Gallery (image courtesy of TMAG)

For "Wild' the work has been configured as a elegant two screen installation work with sound and imagery which the user can indirectly control through a deceptively simple interface which allows them to set the parameters for bodily flesh, skin and bone characteristics that ultimately drive the whole work. In future versions these parameters will be drawn from sophisticated sensors that will read physiological changes within each interactor's body.

Key Artistic Team
Transact (Flesh/Skin/Bone) is hence an important trans-disciplinary collaboration for the Brisbane-based 'Transmute Collective', directed by new media artist Keith Armstrong, working in active collaboration with Lisa O'Neill (Choreographer/Performer), Gavin Sade (interface designer) and Guy Webster (Sound Designer). The collective has been assisted by Dr, Elizabeth Baker (Sustainability Scientist and Dr. Graham Kerr (Human Movement Scientist) who acted as key consultants for this process.

Sponsors

Communication Design	New Media Arts	Solar Circuit New Media Network
Centre for the Live Arts	Site Gallery	Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, its arts funding and advisory body, the BRISBANE POWERHOUSE CENTRE FOR THE LIVE ARTS through the live art incubator residency program, SITE GALLERY, Sheffield UK and QUT COMMUNICATION DESIGN through the Creative Industries Faculty, Solar Circuit New Media Network and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

Other Media Available

Doug Leonard