Pilot 1, Private View - 17.03.16

David will be showing his collaborative work, Mirror at the University of Brighton Gallery. This exhibition, the first in a series of research gallery productions, introduces two new professors in the College of Arts and Humanities, Professor Kelly Snook and Professor David Cotterrell, through their current work.

Location: University of Brighton Gallery, 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton BN2 0JY

Private View: 17th March, 5pm - 8pm - all welcome.

Exhibition Dates: 18th March -  8th April 2016 : Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10am – 6pm, Sat 10am-4pm (closed Easter weekend, 25-28th March)

Events: 

David Cotterrell in dialogue:
Thursday 24 March, 12.30-1.30pm

Kelly Snook in dialogue and with demonstration of mi.mu gloves:
Thursday 31 March 12.30-1.30pm

Curator's Introduction and Additional Information:

Pilot is a series of exhibitions and events planned to showcase work in progress. The aim is to initiate a public dialogue around the intellectual and creative enquiry of researchers from the University and wider community. The work selected to be part of this series is presented in a resolved state but is part of an ongoing and open enquiry. The invitation to audiences and fellow researchers is to engage with the work as a discreet exhibition, installation, event or exposition of ideas at the same time as speculating where the research could lead.

The exhibition and related events programme provides an opportunity to engage with the research of two exciting new members of the University and the creative community of the city. The work has been selected as a significant and discreet output from two established figures in their respective fields as well as being part of ongoing research enquiry. Both works are the result of interdisciplinary collaboration.

The exhibition includes contributions from David Cotterrell and Kelly Snook. Professor of Fine Art David Cotterrell is an installation artist, and digital media specialist working across varied media including video, audio interactive media, artificial intelligence, device control and hybrid technology. Kelly Snook is a music producer, music technologist, and data sonification researcher working at the intersection of the arts, science, and technology. She has backgrounds in both aerospace engineering and planetary science and was Lunar Program Scientist in the Planetary Systems Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

Exhibited works:

Mirror

As a the discrete episodic precursor, to a more ambitious developing research project, David Cotterrell and the Sri-Lankan screen-writer, Ruwanthie de Chickera have begun working on the collaborative installation, Mirror.

Mirror is conceptualized as a series of two-screen works considering polarised perspectives, drawing alternatively on assumption and objectivity; this project is designed to explore the common human characteristics that could provide a stronger empathetic bridge between strangers than their contexts, roles and attire might suggest. Portraits of individuals are constructed in a manner that they transcend or challenge place, prejudice, projection, assumption and fear of the other – while at the same time providing insight into nuanced internal negotiations and narratives.

Mirror I – Hierarchy was devised to explore the anxieties and thought-processes of two protagonists in surgery – the patient and the surgeon. The installation considered the concerns and devices by which an impending operation is philosophically contextualised and the way the mind might wander under the catalytic pressure of approaching professional and/or personal risk.

A series of rhetorical monologues, projected on screen, are absorbed as polarised dialogue. It is ambiguous as to whether the two talking heads are speaking to one another or to themselves; or if indeed, these are two characters at all. As the dialogue develops, several complex and nuanced assumptions of roles and prejudices shift from one video portrait to the other.

Recorded in isolation from context, without revealing the categorising uniforms of scrubs or gown, the conversation offers an introverted and existential portrait of the both the surgeon and the patient as they prepare for surgery. The outwardly simple video projection offers a snapshot of these complex internal negotiations of vulnerability and bravado.

The installation was produced in collaboration with the actor Simon Kunz and with the support of the Association of Medical Humanities.

David Cotterrell will be 'in dialogue' in the gallery for Q&A: Thursday 24 March, 12.30-1.30pm

The mi.mu gloves

Wireless gestural control: liberating musicians and artists from their computers and technology.

The mi.mu gloves are a powerful and flexible new gestural interface, allowing musicians to control music through movement. Existing ways of interacting with computers restrict the boundaries of human creativity. While computers provide enormous creative possibilities, our interfaces (buttons, faders, keyboards) create artificial limits to the things we create, especially in the world of music. Mi.mu’s aim is to help build a future where we will compose and perform electronic music in new ways - through the complex movement of the human body. With advanced, customisable gesture detection and mapping software, musicians can create their own sound-gesture relationships. The mi.mu gloves also have great potential outside of this domain as a general tool for human computer interaction.

Starting in 2011, a team of engineers, artists and designers worked with musician Imogen Heap to develop the first version of the mi.mu gloves. After their debut at a performance in Heap’s garden, the gloves began to gain widespread attention and demand. By late 2013, the first batch of gloves were in the hands of seventeen early Collaborators, including musicians, film composers, mixing engineers and a music and disability charity. By 2015, the mi.mu gloves made their way into mainstream popular music when Ariana Grande featured them in her Honeymoon World Tour arena show.

Professor Kelly Snook is a co-founder and co-developer at mi.mu. Her current role centres on the development of creative content and playability of the gloves, as well as the development of a robust DIY design and culture around mi.mu’s technology, which aims to be open sourced in the near future.

Kelly Snook will be 'in dialogue' at the gallery with Q&A and with demonstration of mi.mu gloves: Thursday 31 March 12.30-1.30pm [limited capacity 25 people, please reserve a place through A.Boldon@brighton.ac.uk]