my contribution
I contributed to the artworks interaction design concepts, as well as conceptualised, designed and created the original 3D artwork and 3D animations that defines the visual language of Intimate Transactions: the creatures and avatars that audiences inhabited and interacted with. My imagery formed the living core of the work, the biomorphic forms that mediated between participant bodies and the distributed network. I also co-authored a published chapter on the work's creature and environment design.
recognition
Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention - Interactive Art, 2005
Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria. Awarded for the work's creature-mediated participant interaction and ecological framing.
about the work
Intimate Transactions was a spatially distributed, two-person, interactive artwork connecting participants in different locations through touch-sensitive platforms, haptic feedback chairs, and a shared virtual environment populated by my 3D creatures. Participants could not see or hear each other directly - their only connection was through the biomorphic forms and environments I designed, which responded to the pressure of both bodies simultaneously.
The work explored distributed embodiment, ecological thinking, and the ethics of care - using the interplay of the living creatures as the mediating language between two people separated in space. The visual and conceptual stakes of the work were inseparable from the creatures themselves: their behaviour, their forms, their apparent aliveness.
Developed with the Transmute Collective at Queensland University of Technology, the work toured internationally for four years across 22+ venues on four continents. It entered the permanent collection of ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe - one of the world's foremost media art institutions.
credits
3D artwork
Stuart Lawson
artistic direction
Keith Armstrong (Transmute Collective)
sound direction
Guy Webster
performance
Lisa O'Neill
furniture & interface design
Zeljko Markov
software development
Marcos Caceres, Cameron Owen
exhibition history
2008
BIOS, Athens
International tour conclusion
2007
Media Art China, Beijing
International new media arts exhibition
2006
ICA London & Ars Electronica, Linz
Major European double showing
2005
Ars Electronica, Linz
Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention - Interactive Art
2004
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane
World premiere
ongoing
ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe
Permanent collection
critical reception
Affect and Care in Intimate Transactions
Academic analysis of Intimate Transactions in a major humanities journal. Directly engages my creature imagery as the affective and ecological medium of the work.
Intimate Transactions - critical essay
Essay by the Australian design theorist Tony Fry, engaging the philosophical and ecological stakes of the work and the creatures' role in mediating its meaning.
Animating the Interactive Spin
Feature review in Australia's premier new media arts publication, covering the creature-based interaction model and the visual world I created.