Intimate Transactions

Up next is Keith Armstrong, presenting on his interactive installation Intimate Transactions. This project has developed over the last four years; it is a dual-site installation by the Transmute collective with a number of additional interdisciplinary collaborators, using image, sound, and tactile elements. It was shown in various stages over the last few years in a variety of venues in Brisbane, Sydney, Glasgow and Doncaster. Now it's going to be dual-sited between Brisbane and ACMI in Melbourne before heading overseas again.

Keith has a number of videos to demonstrate the project in action; it is controlled using a mixture of gestural interfaces and control through body movements. Users of the system in various locations lean back against an angled surface as well as standing on a movable plate, and through the movement of their bodies against these elements as well as their hand gestures they can interact and influence their own bodily, aural and visual experience - hence, Intimate Transactions.

He points out the importance of connection ideas, theory and praxis (noting work done by Liz Baker on connecting the self to the human and nonhuman other in social and ecological systems). The project involved people with backgrounds in sustainability studies, furniture making, and interaction design, too, so transdisciplinary engagement was also important. In many ways the work continues to exist in a continuous beta stage as it evolved further, also using feedback from interviews with audience members as they experience the work. Ultimately, the work is about interaction with somebody without seeing or hearing them directly - instead sensing their presence only through other means.

Keith points out an interesting development in the history of the project - as it evolved, it led to the gradual removal of Transmute choreographer Lisa O'Neil's body from the work itself, while retaining her choreography. Instead the work became a welcoming space for the bodies of its audience, which raised issues around their representation (whether there should be avatars for participants or not, for example). In the current version, back and foot movements in the system control different avatars now.