About the
Conversation Contraption
Collaborator
Bios | The League & Pip Swift | Credits
The Conversation
Contraption is a micro-festival of circuitous communication, featuring the
League’s artists and collaborators as they rewire and reinterpret
conversation. Based on the work
they developed while in residency at the Casula Powerhouse, the League of
Imaginary Scientists and Tasmanian intercommunications artist Pip Stafford - Professor Swift, in collaboration with
local and remote interlocutors, present The Conversation Contraption. Presented in
Australia at the Casula Powerhouse in New South Whales and 6A ARI in Hobart,
Tasmania, viewers could interact with remote artists Saoirse Higgins, Kelly Andres, and Steve Shoffner (the alter-ego of the
League’s Dr. Schleidan) and local artists Susan Hawkins, Cat Jones, Melissa Ramos and Rhys Turner. In Tasmaia,
newly local Hobart artist Nancy Mauro-Flude joined Stafford and the League in
enacting the contraption. Their
interactivities offer a smorgasbord of inventions and communication artifacts.
The contraption entails tin cups on
strings with tonal responses, secrets told through megaphones, and mechanized
interactions. Automatic response
systems, the waveforms of speech, forgotten statements and recorded dialogue add
to local and long distance exchange. Viewers and artists operate the
contraption by engaging in impromptu dialogue, telematic communication and
redirected data streams.
At Casula Powerhouse (October 24 and 25,
2008)
Research
coordinator, Dr. Gomez, and the League’s head of unnecessary inventions,
Professor Jojo Johansen, along with Tasmanian artist Pip Stafford (Professor Swift), were artists
in residence at Casula Powerhouse in October, where they collaborated with
local and international creative communications sleuths for the development and
initial presentation of The Conversation Contraption.
Casula
Powerhouse,
an international centre for cultural diversity in the arts, is currently
exploring the theme Intersections with cultural exchanges and residencies that
examine the way in which we talk to each other. Casula Powerhouse's
residency program offers Australian and international artists the opportunity
to live on-site to generate locally informed work. The project by
multi-national artists-in-residence The League of Imaginary Scientists brings
together global and local artists with viewers through live interaction and
participatory art. The Conversation Contraption reflected the aims for
the residency to engage with the local community. In tandem with the
micro-festival, Casula Powerhouse presented conversations with local residents
in Local Portraits, created by composer Andrew Ford in collaboration with
photographer Jim Rolon and journalist Anni Heino. In alignment with Casula Powerhouse’s theme of intersection
and intercultural communication, the 2-day festival on communication involved
several local and international collaborators working with interactive
technologies and conversation in their art.
At SIX_A ARI (October 31, 2008)
SIX_A
Artist Run Initiative is an artist run space that consists of studios and a gallery
space. 6A supports the creation of
new art forms, fosters collaborations, and celebrates hybrid art and
untraditional exhibitions. 6A
welcomes a broad range of artists and provides opportunities for all forms of
expression, from sound art to installation to performance. The space was founded by a collective
who set out to fill a gap in what they saw within the spectrum of available
exhibition space in Hobart. Formed
only 18 months ago, the newly established space has quickly become a staple art
venue in Hobart and was featured in the 2008 Next Wave Festival.
www.myspace.com/six_a
Arts Tasmania
Pip Stafford and the League of Imaginary
Scientists are the recipients of the first Cultural Collaborations grant
offered by Arts Tasmania. The
grant supports the development and exhibition of their collaboration by funding
the artists’ travel and their joint work.
Electrofringe
Electrofringe hosted the League of
Imaginary Scientists for their festival and facilitated the group’s residency
at Casula Powerhouse, enabling the development of their new work.
The Recovery Shop
Hobart’s waste management centre and tip shop,
The Recovery Shop, generously supported the exhibition by providing used items
for the League and Stafford to reinvent as integral communications components
in their contraption. Recovery Pty
Ltd’s Brad Mashman has a history of supporting the creation of art works out of
discarded items as part. The
Conversation Contraption fits into The Recovery Shop’s mission to first eliminate,
then reduce, re-use, recycle and lastly dispose.
The League
of Imaginary Scientists concocts interdisciplinary research projects in
collaboration with artists, scientists, and technologists. Based in no
one field and relying on the generative energy of art and science, the League
draws upon plurality to produce creative experiments that are complex in
approach and layered in their relevance. Each imaginary science experiment brings together a new group of
creative researchers, rallied by interactive internist Dr. L. Hernandez
Gomez. League contributors range
from neurologists to genomic scientists, and include an idea therapist and an
imaginary Norwegian boy. League
projects provide opportunities for the exchange of knowledge among
collaborators, present and implement a methodology of “art as experiment,” and
transform the process of intellectual inquiry into an interactive medium. Experiments in Imaginary Science have exhibited widely,
including at Colombia’s World Year of Physics, MAS in Barcelona, and
Electrofringe in Australia, with collaborative networked interactions at El
Festival de la Imagen, Mapping Festival at BAC in Geneva, MAAC in Brussels, and
(re)Actor in London. The League has held residencies with eMobiLArt,
CESTA in the Czech Republic, Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Norway, CalArts in
Los Angeles, and the Gunnery Studios in Sydney.
www.imaginaryscience.org
Pip
Stafford
Born and currently based in Hobart,
Tasmania, Pip Stafford is a new media artist whose practice includes video
installation, performance, web projects, printed media and illustration. She is
primarily interested in personal rituals, private lives and exploring notions
of isolation and group communication. A graduate of the University of Tasmania, School of Art (BFA), she is
currently a resident of the Rat Palace, an artist run studio space in
Hobart. In 2007 Stafford was
awarded the Next Wave Festival’s Kickstart grant towards her development of the
project, iwishicouldshowyou.com. I
Wish I Could Show You is a database of
user-generated videos sent from mobile phones. Stafford has exhibited at Platform Artists Group in
Melbourne and Inflight Gallery in Hobart. In February 2007, Pip co-founded and organised the ONO Project with the
support of CAST Gallery. ONO Project is a collective focused on using disused
urban space for unique art events. Stafford has collaborated with numerous artists and groups, organised
art and music events and played in bands in both Hobart and Melbourne. She also
creates zines and objects and was recently featured in the print anthology Laughing
Skulls and is the curator of the DVD anthology Run! You Beasts! In 2008 Stafford was an Artist in
Residence at CESTA in Tabor, Czech Republic and has recently been awarded an
Arts Tasmania Cultural Collaborations Grant to develop The Conversation
Contraption with The League of Imaginary Scientists (USA) at Casula Powerhouse
Arts Centre in NSW and Six_A ARI, Tasmania.
iwishicouldshowyou.com
Collaborators on
the Conversation Contraption
The
Conversation Contraption includes work by Kelly Andres (Canada), Saoirse Higgins
(Ireland) and Steve Shoffner (USA), along with Australian artists Susan Hawkins, Cat
Jones, Melissa Ramos and Rhys Turner with Erica Englert. With the League and Stafford, they
presented a series of experiments, inventions and experiences using mechanized
communication tools and personal interaction.
Kelly Andres (Canada)
Kelly
Andres is a multidisciplinary artist who uses the immediate environment as an
active stage for investigation. With equal parts delight and insight,
Andres employs the technological apparatus of technology, portability, and
location, from bicycles to communications devices, to convey highly subjective
theories through humor, absurdity and fiction. In 2008 Andres’ work was a
feature of M:ST Performance Art Festival, ISEA in Singapore, and CONFLUX in New
York. Andres has had residences at eMobiLArt (with Kelly Andres and the League’s
Dr. Gomez), at ISEA 2008, Studio XX, The Banff Centre, and Subtle Technologies.
www.kellyandres.com
Susan Hawkin (Australia)
Susan Hawkins is a composer and sound artist currently
based in Australia who has worked in the sonic regions of contemporary dance, animation
and live performance, and as one half of the sound art performance duo
imaginationandmymother (iamm) with Olivia Pisani. With iamm and as a solo artist, Hawkins goes on sonic
adventures with ambient, image-provoking sound, and has been seen and heard
around the world, including at the Tate Britain (UK), the Copenhagen festival
(KØBENHAVN - RAMT AF BYEN, Denmark), the Torino Contemporeana (Italy), and the
San Fransisco Asian Art Museum (USA). susanhawkins.net
Saoirse
Higgins (N. Ireland)
Saoirse Higgins is obsessed with natural disasters, conducts lengthy
conversations over a megaphone, and candidly predicts doom: “the end is
nigh.” Her mechanized interactive installations examine and measure the
dismal. Yet her work is remarkably upbeat and mobile, with an emphasis on
action and the auditory. Higgins is a coordinator of ISEA 2009, an
official artist representative for Ireland, and a lecturer on digital media at
the Institute for Art, Design and Technology in Dublin. She was featured
in the 2008 404 festival, the 2007 DEAF festival, and the 2006 Space Shuttle
Project. Higgins has held residences with eMobiLArt (with Kelly Andres
and the League’s Dr. Gomez), at Disonancias in Spain, Location1 gallery in New
York, the Centre for Digital Art in Dublin, and the Banff Centre for the Arts.
http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~saoirse
Cat
Jones (Australia)
Cat
Jones is a performer, writer, media maker, sometime animator, curator, producer
and all round creatrix. With a
performance practice that spans 18 years, Jones specializes in text, vocals and
live interactions. She is
interested in the structured audience psychology of immersive, interactive and
participatory works. She is the
creator of catgURL a live interactive performance event that deconstructs
definitive sexuality through subcultural identities in a virtual world. She has performed [in the flesh] for
PVI Collective, One Extra Dance, The Party Line, Performance Space, Playworks,
That Elusive Thrill, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and many more. Jones is also an active curator of new
media arts and was co-director of Electrofringe in 2006 and 2007.
Steve
Shoffner (US)
Steve
Shoffner is a new media performance artist whose performances are concealed
within the technology of his art. Shoffner is a mediated performer who instigates interactions with
viewers through his on-screen and often concealed presence. As a result, Shoffner performs
simultaneously on video and within his installations. In addition to his interactive persona, Shoffner is a
researcher and media artist with the League of Imaginary Scientists, with which
– as Dr. Stephan Schleidan – he likewise pushes the boundaries of
interactive media through playful interaction and instigation. Shoffner is currently developing a
public art project for the Los Angeles airport and has participated in on-line performances
at MAAC in Brussels and BAC in Geneva. His work with the League has exhibited widely, including at Manifesta7,
the Armory Center for the Arts and the Torrance Art Museum in California.
steveshoffner.com