Grad Prog talk: Mary Oliver - "Crossing the Virtual Divide" (1 May)

Wed 1 May, Rm 2.20 MediaCityUK, 3.10-4pm. All Welcome

Internal Session: Professor Mary Oliver (University of Salford; Performance Directorate)

Please take my hand and talk to me: crossing the virtual divide with acts of empathy and kindness

Touching as an act of empathy and kindness has become demonized, perverse in our physically disconnected technologically dependent lifestyles. Our hands are the tools with which we communicate remotely, altering hand eye co-ordination capability, which in turn impacts on our cognitive functions.  We have adapted ourselves to these machines and in doing so have become trapped in a communication system that is alien to us as a warm, tactile, intuitive species. This paper is part an exploration of why it is so difficult to change the HCI and part performance research as I strive to create a new work using both physical touch and sensing technologies.

Mary Oliver is Reader in Digital Performance and head of the Performance Research Centre in the School of Arts and Media. She has been a professional performer, writer and video maker for over twenty years, performing internationally across the fields of contemporary music, theatre, and dance. For the last decade she has focused on bringing impossible performers to the live stage,primarily using her own badly behaved Digital Double.  She is leader of the ‘As Yet Impossible: in human performance’ research project, which is examining the development of new performance paradigms.