Petra Gemeinboeck. Juried Artist
Superordinary
Superordinary
Artist Statement
Machine Movement Lab: Alloyed Bodies [BNE-4-3-1] is an improvisational performance installation that weaves together creative robotics, dance performance, and more-than-human dramaturgy. The Machine Movement Lab demystifies and, at the same time, reenchants machinelike things by troubling our relationships with robots. It seeks to create a more horizontal playground for human-machine encounters by challenging the dominant politics that shape our socio-technical visions and confine both bodies and things to mimicry and servitude.
Premiering at ISEA 2024, Alloyed Bodies [BNE-4-3-1] is an extension of our earlier work, Dancing with the Nonhuman, and involves four dance performers, three cube costumes, and one cube robot performer. Alloyed Bodies explores the potential of being more-than-human, how we resonate with the world, how everything is entangled, and how things are different only in relation. The performance tells a story of an encounter with a strange and whimsical cube world. On this emerging playground, dancers and cube artefacts mingle, jumble, and create more-than-human alliances. Bodies and things transform in response, becoming hybrid and tentacular. An evolving soundscape acts as a further nonhuman performer, enveloping and being shaped by these emerging dynamics. The final stage invites audiences to participate, to mingle with the human and nonhuman performers, and to explore this playful tangle from within.
This project has been partially supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [AR 545] and the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council (ARC) [FT190100567 and DP160104706].
About the artists
Petra Gemeinboeck is a Melbourne-based artist, researcher, whose creative practice seeks to trouble and expand our relationships with machines. Her works have been shown at prestigious venues worldwide and in 2012 she was shortlisted for the National Art Award in New Media at GOMA, Brisbane. She is an ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor at Swinburne University and recently led the FWF arts-based research project ‘Dancing with the Nonhuman’ at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Petra initiated the Machine Movement Lab project in 2015 in collaboration with Rob Saunders.
Rob Saunders is a computer scientist and co-founder of the Machine Movement Lab project. He develops computational models of curiosity and creativity using techniques from machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics, and collaborates with artists and designers to develop intelligent systems, interactive installations, and robotic artworks. He was shortlisted for the 2012 National Art Award in New Media in collaboration with Petra Gemeinboeck. He is Associate Professor at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science, Leiden University.
Adam Nash is a composer and multi-disciplinary digital artist from Melbourne, whose works, rooted in post-convergence, use the web, game engines, virtual environments, generative programming, AI, and live performance. He was shortlisted for the 2009 National Art Award in New Media and his works have been showcased in prestigious venues and festivals worldwide. Adam co-founded Wild System and, until 2021, was Associate Professor at RMIT.
Steph Hutchison, a Brisbane-based choreographer, performer, and artist-researcher, creates and performs dance works that often dialogue with digital technologies and systems. She is a dance academic at Queensland University of Technology and in 2022 received the ANAT Synapse Residency for her Cobotic Improvisations project with Jonathan Roberts, co-hosted by the ARM Hub and the Australian Cobotics Centre.
Audrey Rochette, an interdisciplinary choreographer, performer, and movement analyst, explores artificial ecosystems and the dialogue between the body and technology. Her works have been shown in Montreal, Toronto, and Belgium. She has collaborated with several artists and companies and is involved in various academic and research-creation projects. Audrey has a Master’s degree from UQÀM, Montreal.
Arabella Frahn-Starkie, a dance artist and researcher, is passionate about the versatility of dancing skills and choreographic thinking. With a BFA and Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts, she has worked with various choreographers, visual artists, and researchers. Her practice focuses on archiving dance’s ephemera and using the body in her work.
Siobhan McKenna, a Melbourne-based dancer and choreographer, studied dance at VCA and graduated in 2016. Since then, she has performed in other artists’ works and choreographed her own work, which has been presented with companies and venues such as Dancehouse, Temperance Hall, The Substation, Lucy Guerin Inc., and Darebin Arts Speakeasy.
Felix Palmerson, a contemporary dance performer, teacher, and choreographer, explores installation art, multidisciplinary practice, and bio-art. She has performed and choreographed for Australian and international festivals, including ELEKTRA (CA) and Ars Electronica (AT). Felix holds a BFA in Dance Performance from QUT and is passionate about research and the arts.
Credits: Lead artists: Petra Gemeinboeck and Rob Saunders; composer: Adam Nash, choreographic consultant: Steph Hutchison; dance performers and co-choreographers: Audrey Rochette, Arabella Frahn-Starkie, Siobhan McKenna, and Felix Palmerson