Agiles

Agiles is an artistic research project investigating virtual reality and augmented reality applications for mobility, balance, creativity and connecting with the joy of dancing. The collaborative team in residence at Flinders University – Assemblage, will create a digital application as a performative device to be used by artists to demonstrate new frontiers in digital performance as well as an engagement tool that includes audience participation and potential rehabilitation.

DR SARAH NEVILLE (SA) + EVA SIFIS (SA) & ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR BELINDA LANGE (SA) FLINDERS UNIVERSITY – ASSEMBLAGE CENTRE FOR CREATIVE ARTS

As part of the ANAT’s program, residents create online creative research journals, these serve as unique live documents of the residency and as a cultural artefact.

This project was instigated from discussions between Sarah Neville and Eva Sifis, who has an acquired brain injury, the Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts team and A/Prof Belinda Lange who is Clinical Lead for Assistive Technologies in the Medical Device Research Institute and a researcher in the Caring Futures Institute in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University. Sarah Neville has further contracted composer Matthew Thomas, visual artist Scott Coleman and developer Alex DeGaris with assistance from a grant from Arts South Australia. The collaboration is between Sarah and Assemblage interdisciplinary research centre – supporting research in the fields of arts and health, new technologies including virtual and augmented reality, and other connections between the sciences and the creative arts.

The project – Agiles will be developed through a collaborative co-design process aimed at conceiving concepts that explore creative, participant-driven immersive digital experiences. We are interested in expanding the potential to acquire mobility and balance in immersive digital environments by connecting with the joy of dance. Research Questions will include:

How can the joy of dancing be elicited through immersive light and sound?

Why is joy or positive emotional response important to motivate movement?

How are emotions and other sensory feedback connected to body identity?

Can movement generate embodied knowledge?

Can embodied knowledge benefit brain development, healing and expansion?

Sarah Neville is a lecturer and a Research Associate at UniSA Creative/ IVE. She was awarded an Arts SA Established Artist Fellowship in 2021 to create virtual reality dance work. Sarah was awarded a dual award PhD from both Deakin University and Coventry University in dance digitisation in 2022. Recent work has been shown at ANAT SPECTRA, Siggraph Vancouver, 7th Motion and Computing Conference, MOD, The Mill – Illuminate Adelaide and ISEA.

Agiles is supported by Arts SA, the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) and the Flinders University Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts.