Diana Burgoyne
DIANA BURGOYNE RESIDENCY
Colab will welcome Diana Burgoyne to our residency program this August, where she will be presenting a workshop and performance and collaborating with New Zealand artists Raewyn Turner.
Diana’s work examines the relationship between society, technology and the environment through sound, performance and electronic installation and circuitry. Diana considers herself a folk artist and will conduct a “Get Wired with Electronics” workshop with the aim of demystifying electronics. Diana was 2009 Fleck Fellow at the Banff New Media Institute and teaches “Creative Electronics” at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver. In 2009 Diana collaborated with Raewyn Turner on “Fragrance” and “Re/sense” in 2009 - a coproduction with the Banff New Media Institute with support from the Canada Council for the Arts. Raewyn and Diana will be developing a new work during the CoLab residency. These artists share an interest in cross-sensory perception and synasthesia – the joining together of the senses which normally perceive separately, so we can hear colour and see smell. They also share an interest in emerging technologies assisting artists and scientists to further investigate synasthesia and other areas of perception at a sub-sensory level. Both employ a cross-disciplinary, mixed media approach in the expression of their investigations using performance, installation, electronic circuitry, light and smell to create multiple- sensory experiences for the “viewer”. Raewyn has also conducted research into olfaction with molecular biologist Dr Richard Newcomb from NZ Plant and Food Research. In “Crossing Wires” (2009) they distilled the smell of used socks and asked visitors to colour code them to examine the visualisation and emotion aroused by smell. She also made the short film “Lucky” where chance, performance and colour associations were made with numbers and letters of the alphabet. The performer Louise Crouch collaborated on this production.
They have been working on a new work using SKYPE to facilitate their collaboration. Flap is a collaboration that began at the Banff Centre and was fuelled by Raewyn’s research on the human plume (human scent). Fifty jars, each attached to a motor, contain the scent of New Zealanders or Canadians. A motorized lid opens and closes each jar, creating an acoustical rhythm and releasing the scent into the air.
During their residency at CoLab they will test several technologies toward developing the interface between 50 flapping jars and the viewer. The work completed during their residency will be the final element in the piece entitled Flap, which will be exhibited at MiC.
During her residency with us Diana Burgoyne will give an artist talk and performance on the 27th August, 5-6pm at the ST PAUL St Gallery and facilitate two workshops entitled CREATIVE ELECTRONICS, introducing participants to electronics as it pertains to a variety of mediums in addition to investigation of electronics as new media practices, on Saturday 21st and Saturday 28th August, WS512, 9am-4pm, in association with the LIVE. REPEAT. PLAYBACK. programme.
Diana and Raewyns collborative work will be exhibited in the new Interactive Space facilitated by CoLab, WT501 from 23rd September- 3rd September, and will later be moved into the Moving Image Gallery on K'rd, 3rd September - 9 October.