- Devon, United Kingdom
- Fine Art, Software Development, Musical Composition, Creative processes in contemporary dance, Social Sciences, Ecology and Arts, and 40 moreLiterature and the Natural World, Soundscape, Art Theory, Arts Education, Arts and Ecology, Installation Art, Phenomenology, Phenomenology of Space and Place, Phenomenology of the body, Scholarly Publishing, Digital Curation, Community Arts, Society of the Spectacle, Online, Higher Education Policy, Ecoliteracy, Sound Art, Philosophy of Art, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Place and Identity, Space and Place, Embodiment, Extended Mind, Consciousness, Interactive and Digital Media, Publishing, Poetics, Interactive Arts, Performing Arts, Ecocriticism, Site-Specific Art, Anthropology of the Senses, Community Engagement & Participation, Environmental Sustainability, Acoustic Ecology, Psychogeography, Practice-Based Research, Spatial Ecology, and Situationist Internationaledit
- I'm an independent artist, consultant and researcher. I have taught in a wide array of institutions in the UK and US,... moreI'm an independent artist, consultant and researcher. I have taught in a wide array of institutions in the UK and US, and was co-director of half/angel (1996-2006) and of Aune Head Arts (1999-2013). I am immersed in the natural world and in sonic experience. I am the founding Director of art.earth (artdotearth.org) and a Director/Trustee at Centre for Contemporary Artedit
Explores the journey of creating a digital mapping of the city of Cork during their year as City of Culture in 2015. The Knitting Map was a major commission ultimately involving hundreds of knitters from around the world knitting from a... more
Explores the journey of creating a digital mapping of the city of Cork during their year as City of Culture in 2015. The Knitting Map was a major commission ultimately involving hundreds of knitters from around the world knitting from a pattern created by the movement of the city and the weather during this important year for the city.
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Soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no... more
Soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.' 1 It's the smell I first notice. It's March, and the urge to grow-something, anything at all however futile-has become overwhelming as the darkness begins palpably to lift and the soul begins to feel just a little lighter. It's an absurd time to be planting seeds, even on a warming mat that gently raises the temperature of the soil to the point of germination. It's absurd because although artifice may be able to provide heat, the light available at this time of year is simply not sufficient to nurture and embrace and grow these artificially-birthed seedlings. English springs are cruel indeed, offering promise and promise and colour and delight, but never the warmth to bring the soil to its happy place.
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IN OTHER TONGUES OTHER KINGDOMS I have sat back without comment as the onslaught of 'eco-art' has burgeoned, all of it well-intentioned but much of it ill-informed and based on poor (or non-existent) science. So much of this work has no... more
IN OTHER TONGUES OTHER KINGDOMS I have sat back without comment as the onslaught of 'eco-art' has burgeoned, all of it well-intentioned but much of it ill-informed and based on poor (or non-existent) science. So much of this work has no nuance, no greys, and very little by way of cogent argument. In an era where 'truth' is often placed in inverted commas, because as a society we seem to have lost any sense of what the word means, factoids and opinions based on little more than gut responses or intuition abound as absolute truth.
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Although this article was written more than a decade ago during which the technologies we are working with have changed out of all recognition , the essential debate about the interface between technology and the human body seem , perhaps... more
Although this article was written more than a decade ago during which the technologies we are working with have changed out of all recognition , the essential debate about the interface between technology and the human body seem , perhaps depressingly , not to have changed at all. Apart from references to particular software , the words seems remarkably current even after this long time , so I have decided to change very little of the original wording. ========
... No. 4. Jack Ox, Ursonate, oil-painted image on mylar over xeroxed underdrawings (detail), 30 cm x 200 m, work in progress. ... No. 4. Jack Ox, Ursonate, oil-painted image on mylar over xeroxed underdrawings (detail), 30 cm x 200 m,... more
... No. 4. Jack Ox, Ursonate, oil-painted image on mylar over xeroxed underdrawings (detail), 30 cm x 200 m, work in progress. ... No. 4. Jack Ox, Ursonate, oil-painted image on mylar over xeroxed underdrawings (detail), 30 cm x 200 m, work in progress. ...
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... to, and pays for; that there are power centers within the art world that create and break the careers of artists at the flourish of a Mont Blanc fountain pen ... Our art infrastructure--the museum system, the education system, is just... more
... to, and pays for; that there are power centers within the art world that create and break the careers of artists at the flourish of a Mont Blanc fountain pen ... Our art infrastructure--the museum system, the education system, is just not able to handle the con-tents of Pandora's black box ...
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Record of an artist residency
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This is no ordinary manifesto. For a start, its provenance might raise an eyebrow or two. Why would a long-established leading professional standards body such as CIWEM, with a royal charter to boot, launch a cry from the rooftops in this... more
This is no ordinary manifesto. For a start, its provenance might raise an eyebrow or two. Why would a long-established leading professional standards body such as CIWEM, with a royal charter to boot, launch a cry from the rooftops in this way?
As the only such body with an integrated approach to environmental, social and cultural issues, CIWEM in 2007 created an Arts & Environment Network (AEN) to foster new levels of resourcefulness by linking skills, insights and approaches across different disciplines, including the arts. The basic vision was to see ‘more creativity at the heart of environmental policy and action’.
Creative and aesthetic responses to the environment often reveal deeper truths of form, function and universal interconnectedness. This takes us beyond mere knowledge of facts to new understandings of the forces, connections and constraints that operate, giving a fuller appreciation of whether we are working with the grain of the realities of nature or not, and whether we are in tune with its limits to tolerance of change or not; in other words, environmental sustainability.
Policy making for sustainability partly concerns the mechanics of the self-renewing capacity of natural systems, but it also involves a choice of societal attitudes to things like levels of risk and urgency, tradeoffs, the moral obligation we owe to future generations, the spatial scale on which we perceive our place in the world, beliefs about matters beyond personal experience, and perceptions of shared values. Practical management strategies depend as much on this cultural context as they do on water chemistry or population dynamics.
In fact, a whole range of intangible, non-measurable, non-linear, unpredictable and process-centred factors play a part in public decision- making, but our ever more technocratic, dollar- and data-driven systems tend not to acknowledge this, and we generally have an underdeveloped language for talking about it. Often the deepest truths are expressible only by poetry or metaphor, or by the Court Fool who alone can ‘tell it like it is’.
As the only such body with an integrated approach to environmental, social and cultural issues, CIWEM in 2007 created an Arts & Environment Network (AEN) to foster new levels of resourcefulness by linking skills, insights and approaches across different disciplines, including the arts. The basic vision was to see ‘more creativity at the heart of environmental policy and action’.
Creative and aesthetic responses to the environment often reveal deeper truths of form, function and universal interconnectedness. This takes us beyond mere knowledge of facts to new understandings of the forces, connections and constraints that operate, giving a fuller appreciation of whether we are working with the grain of the realities of nature or not, and whether we are in tune with its limits to tolerance of change or not; in other words, environmental sustainability.
Policy making for sustainability partly concerns the mechanics of the self-renewing capacity of natural systems, but it also involves a choice of societal attitudes to things like levels of risk and urgency, tradeoffs, the moral obligation we owe to future generations, the spatial scale on which we perceive our place in the world, beliefs about matters beyond personal experience, and perceptions of shared values. Practical management strategies depend as much on this cultural context as they do on water chemistry or population dynamics.
In fact, a whole range of intangible, non-measurable, non-linear, unpredictable and process-centred factors play a part in public decision- making, but our ever more technocratic, dollar- and data-driven systems tend not to acknowledge this, and we generally have an underdeveloped language for talking about it. Often the deepest truths are expressible only by poetry or metaphor, or by the Court Fool who alone can ‘tell it like it is’.
Research Interests:
This thesis asks whether it is possible to build a technological performance environment that has emotional awareness. Emotional awareness assumes a degree of openness, responsivity, and sensitivity to its inhabitants –– an exploration of... more
This thesis asks whether it is possible to build a technological performance environment that has emotional awareness. Emotional awareness assumes a degree of openness, responsivity, and sensitivity to its inhabitants –– an exploration of the phenomenal performing body in addition to, or in place of, the empiric performing body.
The thesis is divided into two primary parts: a body of performance-based work, and a written/recorded contextual study based around that work, presented on paper and on CD-Rom. Centrally, the thesis explores whether it is possible for a computer system to work within the realm of liminal space –– is it possible for a computer to be emotionally aware? Can phenomenological information be said to be inferred or even invisible, and can it be accessed and utilised within an interactive or other performance system?
The two primary performance works are The Secret Project, and Spinstren. The Secret Project is an evening-length dance-theatre performance first performed in October 1999 at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. The work places an emphasis on the use of interactive technologies in the context of live performance. The work is a combination of choreographies, textscapes, and soundscapes, with realtime manipulation of text and other vocalised sounds utilising the realtime motion-sensing system. Spinstren, a more recent work (2002) is similar in structure, with an emphasis on the creation of live three- dimensional soundscapes.
The thesis is divided into two primary parts: a body of performance-based work, and a written/recorded contextual study based around that work, presented on paper and on CD-Rom. Centrally, the thesis explores whether it is possible for a computer system to work within the realm of liminal space –– is it possible for a computer to be emotionally aware? Can phenomenological information be said to be inferred or even invisible, and can it be accessed and utilised within an interactive or other performance system?
The two primary performance works are The Secret Project, and Spinstren. The Secret Project is an evening-length dance-theatre performance first performed in October 1999 at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. The work places an emphasis on the use of interactive technologies in the context of live performance. The work is a combination of choreographies, textscapes, and soundscapes, with realtime manipulation of text and other vocalised sounds utilising the realtime motion-sensing system. Spinstren, a more recent work (2002) is similar in structure, with an emphasis on the creation of live three- dimensional soundscapes.
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This article uses half/angel’s art and performance practice to analyse the ways in which digital technologies have altered processes of making work. It suggests that technology’s impact might be in the poetic transformation of... more
This article uses half/angel’s art and performance practice to analyse the ways in which digital technologies have altered processes of making work. It suggests that technology’s impact might be in the poetic transformation of imagination. The article focuses in particular on half/angel’s 2002 work, Spinstren.
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Abstract: We (half/angel) have chosen to move beyond the purely mechanistic methodologies that are so often found within interactive performance systems, which typically have adopted the language and physicality of the machine – buttons... more
Abstract: We (half/angel) have chosen to move beyond the purely mechanistic methodologies that are so often found within interactive performance systems, which typically have adopted the language and physicality of the machine – buttons and triggers and virtual switches – as their basis of operation. We found that approach too limiting on the expressive content of the movement languages we were working with, generating a very poor relationship between content and performative expression. Instead, we have found ways to look inside the body, inside the intention of a movement – to work with emotional rather than purely physical space.
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The relationship between interactive environments and compositional process is too often glossed over, even though a truly interactive performance environment should, almost by definition, challenge basic compositional thinking. That... more
The relationship between interactive environments and compositional process is too often glossed over, even though a truly interactive performance environment should, almost by definition, challenge basic compositional thinking. That interactive environment, whether it is driven by dancers moving within a defined space, or by a single performer playing a more conventional device, such as a MIDI keyboard or wind controller,
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A collection of articles, essays and poems about water. How we live with it, in it, around it, and of it.
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Collection of chapters emerging from the 'In Other Tongues' conference, 2017. Broad-ranging contributions exploring the nature of language, non-human narratives and communications, and include a number of experimental written pieces.