Bodycoder: intimacies, interaction and cybernetics: Julie Wilson-Bokowiec

Abstract: 

Technology gives us access to new means and forms of expression. Coding and mapping physicality enables the live processing of sound and images. Working as a performer with the strange intimacies of on-the-body sensor technology and live processing I have developed a range of unique sensitivities and perceptions and, together with my long-term collaborator, the composer Mark Bokowiec, a very particular creative process that attests to the intertwining nature of interactive relationships. Our work with the Bodycoder System, both in performance and in our making process, speaks to broader issues surrounding the notion of cybernetics: the relational synergies of human and environment, ratios of agency, ideas of representation, identity and trans-mutation and the politics of control and mediation are literally ‘embodied’ in our practice.  

Bio: 

Julie Wilson-Bokowiec is an accomplished physical performer and musician. She has worked with such luminaries as Lindsey Kemp, the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch and Genesis P-Orridge, among others. She has created original work for opera and music theatre and has written and produced a number of award-winning stage plays. Mark Bokowiec and Julie Wilson-Bokowiec have developed a significant international reputation as innovators in the field of sonic art and live gestural interaction with the Bodycoder System. Their work is frequently programmed at international digital arts festivals and has been supported by The British Council, Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada) and the Arts Council of England. They have been commissioned by the Science Museum London, the Wellcome Trust, among others, and have created new works in residencies at Banff (Alberta, Canada), STEIM (Amsterdam), the Confederation Centre for the Arts (PEI Nova Scotia), the Traffo Theatre (Budapest), and Dartington College of Arts (UK).