SENSING
Research and development of three VR works.
We’re pleased to announce that, in partnership with QUAD and Phoenix, we’re working with artists Uma Breakdown, Sebastian Buerkner and Kim Noce on SENSING, a new programme of artists’ development, commissioning and exhibition.
SENSING sets out to support artists to explore sensory, physical and empathetic qualities of immersive technology, in relation to the human senses.
During this R&D phase, as well as developing skills in VR production, the artists are developing ideas for new work, in conversation with scientists undertaking biomedical research, and engaging participants in that research.
Uma’s research continues an exploration of affect theory, and its relationship to digital environments, disability, and gender, thinking of VR in relation to the emotional vector between the external world and our emotional states, taking in Coleridge, Liberty Cap mushrooms, and folklore along the way. They are developing ideas through conversations with Rosalind McAlpine, a PhD researcher at the Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit, University College London. Rosalind also collaborates with retreat centres in Europe and South America to investigate the use of plant medicines in more naturalistic, traditional, ceremonial settings.
Taking the phantom limb phenomenon as a starting point, Kim is exploring neurodiversity through body awareness and emotion response, and the potential for VR to allow us to immerse ourself into another body, to achieve an extra emotional shift in understanding oneself and another human. She is developing her ideas through conversations with Matthew Longo, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, and Director of its Body Representation Laboratory.
Sebastian’s research continues his exploration of seeing and interest in neurological phenomena such as Blindsight. He’s considering how VR, with offers the potential to withhold and abstract information for a seeing audience, and to challenge the security of vision. He is developing his ideas through conversations with Michael J Proulx, Reader in Psychology at the University of Bath, and Visiting Researcher at Meta’s Reality Labs Research.
SENSING R&D is supported by an Arts Council England National Lottery Projects grant.
Uma Breakdown
Uma is an artist, writer, games designer, and researcher with special interests in queer horror, play, disability, and the philosophy of care. They studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art, and hold a PhD from Northumbria University. Recent projects have been commissioned by: Arebyte Gallery, London; FACT, Liverpool; Klosterruine, Berlin; Shape Arts, London; and Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge. Uma is based in Gateshead.
Sebastian Buerkner
Sebastian studied painting in Germany then moved to London to do an MA at Chelsea College of Art & Design. His work has been exhibited in several group and solo shows internationally. From 2004 his art practice shifted exclusively to animation. He has had solo exhibitions in London at the Lounge Gallery in 2006 and the Whitechapel Project Space in 2007 and The Showroom in 2008.
He teaches at the University of Westminster. His 2014 film The Chimera of M won the Tiger Award for Short Films at Rotterdam International Film Festival
Kim Noce
Kim is an Italian/Irish multimodal and mix-media maker based in the UK. Her work is grounded in empathy through aesthetics and playful participation whilst developing and fostering social awareness with mixed media and multimedia experiences.
Her work screened in more than 400 major international film festivals, Venice, Berlinale, Cannes, Annecy, Encounters, Aesthetica, LFS, EIF, RTS, LSFF, LIAF and broadcasted on CH4, BCC, MTV, ITV and MUBI, reaching two million views. She exhibited her work at the ICA (LSFF), TATE, Barbican, Biennale of Odisha, London Design Festival, and other venues worldwide. And she won more than 50 prizes worldwide.
She has a BA/MA in Fine Art at Brera (Milan) and an MA in Animation at the NFTS. She recently trained at Royal Holloway University in The National Centre for Immersive Storytelling.
