Let’s begin with a definition of terms: Barad’s ideas regarding entanglement and what they mean for how we approach history and memory has been really important to my work on digital editions, archives, and collections In this piece (which was a presentation) I’m going to do something a little bit strange and perform a fairly critical reading of a digital book project that I directed and helped to create: Performing Archives: […]
performance
Directing a New Nexus Lab Experiment
When I first arrived at ASU, I spent a bit of time in the Nexus Lab – talking with Michael Simeone, working with a few students who were doing some encoding, and giving a few presentations. One of those presentations as part of the Research Advancement series, was where I met my current collaborator, Jessica Rajko. From that first meeting we’ve developed our #VibrantLives work and have gone on to show […]
Coming Soon: Size Does Matter
This is a placeholder post – one that I’m using to remind me of some thinking, writing, and making that I’d like to do in the near future. In a recent HSCollab Possibility Lunch we spent time talking about the many many different kinds of information coded in human performance/life. We were thinking through uptake of the dress-wearing of Young Thug and Jayden Smith (below) and how we might understand these […]
DataPLAY Debuts
FemTechNet’s signal/noise conference, held in Ann Arbor (MI) this weekend, hosted the debut of Vibrant Lives’ DataPLAY. Below is our playbill, which evokes early American playbills that were used to advertise formal theatrical events as well as technological experiences and new medical practices, like those at the World’s Fair or in smaller traveling techno-operas and shows. In many ways the bill and the notion of a debut suggests a polished performance […]
The data playground we sort of knew we were making
A quick overview Last weekend Vibrant Lives premiered three new sculptures commissioned by the Mesa Arts Center. The sculptures, created in collaboration with local artist Bobby Zokaites, were designed to give people a larger-scale experience of real time data shed than we had done in previous events. We consciously chose materials and shapes that would invite bodies to lay, stand, sit, and stretch across the pieces, allowing people to locate […]
Handmade Amplified – A Vibrant Lives Event in Amsterdam
May 21st and 22nd, 2016 Vibrant Lives will be presenting in “Handmade Amplified” in Amsterdam (more precisely, my amazing collaborators Jessica Rajko and Eileen Standley will be presenting their work). This iteration of our research will be realized as a durational performance/installation; a play with potent points of technological and analog dialogue through and of the body. Presented in the 4Bid Gallery as performance and installation of sculpture, photos, and a web […]
Help create a living network piece
I’ve been working lately with the Vibrant Lives team on performative, haptic approaches to understanding data. This first took the form of our Vibrant Lives performance this fall at ASU’s Fall Forward showcase. Since then, we’ve been playing around with lots of different modalities for engaging with data and we’ve been talking a lot – mostly amongst ourselves, but also with folks who have been attending HSCollab’s “Critical Conversations” lunchtime […]
Vibrant Lives at Spark! Festival
Vibrant Lives will be premiering three unique, interactive sculptures at the Spark! Mesa Festival of Creativity, in Mesa, AZ March 18 – 19, 2016 (12pm – 10pm). Our sculptures were constructed in partnership with local sculptor, Bobby Zokaites, and are designed to give festival-goers a sense of their real-time “data shed.” We will also be holding improvisatory performances both nights of the festival. The sculptures use festival-goers’ mobile phone data to produce touch-based […]
DataPLAY
As part of the FemTechNet signal/noise conference this April in Ann Arbor, MI the Vibrant Lives team will be presenting DataPlay. Participants in the DataPLAY will engage with a set of interactive sculptures that we are currently developing that will offer a range of haptic engagements with data. Included in this will be the Vibrant app, which uses participant’s mobile phone data to produce touch-based (haptic) feedback. Infrasonic subwoofers placed within the […]