Roundtable Statement

The Sustainability of Future Bodies roundtable brings together artists working with digital technologies in movement and dance, to discuss ways in which electronic art can extend the physical body through choreography and performance. Hosted by Critical Path, a choreographic research centre based in Sydney (criticalpath.org.au), and chaired by interactive media artist Garth Paine, this discussion will ask: How might the body be transformed through an interface with machine? What systems, strategies and practices are being invented/employed? Where might the performer’s agency be located when engaging with interactive technologies? What kinds of future bodies are being performed? Presenting artists will include Myriam Gourfink (FR) and Kasper Toeplitz (FR/PL), whose Breathing Monster features in the performance program of ISEA2013, and Paul Gazzola (AU) and Paul Granjon (FR/UK) talking about their Experimental Body Extension Manufacturing Unit (ebemu.com). This roundtable runs alongside a workshop series facilitated by the artists, presented by Critical Path and ISEA2013 in partnership with Performance Space. With: Myriam Gourfink, Kasper Toeplitz, Paul Gazzola, Paul Granjon, Carol Brown & Anne Niemitz.

• Garth Paine is an Associate Professor at the School of Art Media and Engineering and the School of Music at Arizona State University.  He is internationally regarded as an innovator in the field of interactivity in experimental music and media arts. His work has been shown throughout Australia, Europe, Japan, USA, Hong Kong, Korea and New Zealand.  activatedspace.com
• Margie Medlin is currently the Director of Critical Path. She is an internationally recognised leading artist in the field of dance and the moving image. For 20 years she has produced combinations of film and video works, multi screen works, lighting designs, set designs, projection designs and new media art works.