[ISEA2011] Panel: Sonia Cil­lari – Per­for­ma­tive Spaces and the Body as In­ter­face

Panel Statement

Panel: VIDA: New Discourses, Tropes and Modes in Art and Artificial Life Research

My work aims to em­pha­size both the phys­i­cal and the metaphor­i­cal ways in which human be­ings re­late with each other and with their en­vi­ron­ment, mainly in­di­cat­ing the fun­da­men­tal re­la­tion­ships be­tween our in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal worlds. These are all of our ex­pe­ri­ences that de­ter­mine how things exist to us and how we make ex­pe­ri­ence of the im­mense not void that sur­rounds us, in which we are im­mersed as body and as agents of emo­tions. Over the years, my work has fused all these fun­da­men­tals into the cre­ation of sen­so­r­ial and per­cep­tual mech­a­nisms, im­mer­sive spa­tial works that are at the in­ter­sec­tion of ar­chi­tec­ture and per­for­mance art; they are what I refer to as per­for­mance-space ex­pres­sion – the cre­ation of phys­i­cal spaces, per­cep­ti­ble to the senses, each seg­ment of which con­tains po­ten­tial re­al­i­ties, some re­veal­ing nat­ural phe­nom­ena, some not. My artis­tic in­ves­ti­ga­tion ex­am­ines how pat­terns of con­scious­ness, per­cep­tion and iden­tity emerge in such set­tings. I use par­tic­i­pa­tion as a con­tin­u­ous mu­ta­tion of the ini­tial spa­tial con­di­tions, to re­in­force the ex­ter­nal-to-you as con­tin­u­ously vari­able. Over the last years I have been specif­i­cally in­ter­ested in a field of re­search re­lated to the Body as In­ter­face, there­fore in­ves­ti­gat­ing bio­elec­tric­ity and bio­mag­net­ism. My con­cern was to show that the bound­aries of the self ex­tend be­yond our skin. Specif­i­cally, I was in­ter­ested in what skin con­scious­ness is, and how pres­ence, prox­im­ity and touch can redi­rect the way we un­der­stand our­selves and oth­ers, ex­plor­ing ex­pe­ri­ences of bod­ily ex­pan­sion. A mu­tual el­e­ment in these works is an ex­per­i­men­tal prac­tice re­veal­ing a sense of in­sta­bil­ity and im­per­ma­nence. From our in­di­vid­ual sub­jec­tive po­si­tion we gain ac­cess to undis­cov­ered shared phe­nom­ena.

  • Sonia Cil­lari was awarded the first prize of VIDA 13.0: Art & Ar­ti­fi­cial Life In­ter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion (2010) for her pro­ject Sen­si­tive to Plea­sure. An Ital­ian media artist and ar­chi­tect, she lives and works in Am­s­ter­dam, The Netherlands. Her work in­volves the cre­ation of sen­so­r­ial and per­cep­tual mech­a­nisms in im­mer­sive and aug­mented en­vi­ron­ments. Her artis­tic in­ves­ti­ga­tion ex­am­ines how pat­terns of con­scious­ness, per­cep­tion and iden­tity emerge in such set­tings. Over the last years she has been specif­i­cally in­ter­ested in a field of re­search con­cern­ing the Body as In­ter­face. She was an artist in res­i­dence at V2_, In­sti­tute for the Un­sta­ble Media, Rot­ter­dam (2004), at the Rijk­sakademie van Beeldende Kun­sten, Am­s­ter­dam (2004-2005), STEIM: Stu­dio for Elec­tro-In­stru­men­tal Music, Am­s­ter­dam (2006 and 2010), Media Art In­sti­tute/NIMK (Am­s­ter­dam 2006 and 2010), [ars]nu­mer­ica Mont­be­liard, France (2009) and Clau­dio Buziol Foun­da­tion Venice, Italy ( 2010). Her in­ter­ac­tive in­stal­la­tions at the in­ter­sec­tion of ar­chi­tec­ture and per­for­mance art have been pre­sented in­ter­na­tion­ally. Be­sides re­ceiv­ing the First Prize at VIDA 13.0: Art & Ar­ti­fi­cial Life In­ter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion, she was awarded the Art Di­vi­sion Ex­cel­lence Prize at 11th Japan Media Arts Fes­ti­val, and Hon­or­able Men­tion at Prix Ars Elec­tron­ica, In­ter­ac­tive Art and VIDA 9.0: Art & Ar­ti­fi­cial Life In­ter­na­tional Com­pe­ti­tion.  She is a teach­ing ad­vi­sor at the Frank Mohr In­sti­tute, IME In­ter­ac­tive Media En­vi­ron­ment De­part­ment, Gronin­gen since 2007 and a core group mem­ber at Opto­fon­ica Lab­o­ra­tory for Im­mer­sive Art-Sci­ence, Am­s­ter­dam since 2010. soniacillari.net   Video: Sensitive to Pleasure