Presentation of Hacking the Body research

1. Camille Baker & Kate Sicchio
Graphic by Dave Palmer 201

2. Previous Work
Kate Sicchio
Dance and Choreography
Background
PhD in Real-time video systems;
Choreotopology
Code and choreography; hacking
choreography

3. Previous Work
Kate Sicchio

4. Camille’s Background
online portfolio http://www.swampgirl67.net/

5. Baker’s Previous work: research assistant on
early wearable art/performance work whispers
the whispers project – lead
by Prof. Thecla Schiphorst
and Dr. Susan Kozel,
Vancouver Canada.
Explored wearable devices
and biofeedback embedded
in fashion and installation
contexts, 2003-2006.
whisper at Siggraph 2005
http://whisper.iat.sfu.ca/

6. Baker’s Previous work - Masters Project:
the Dream Pod Project

7. SMARTlab PhD media art research 2006-2011:
MINDtouch mobile performance
–to uncover any new understandings of the
sensations of ‘liveness’ and ‘presence’ that may
emerge when using mobile technologies and
wearable devices in performance contexts–
still from MINDtouch 2010
Baker’s Previous work

8. Baker’s Previous work - PHD Project: MINDtouch
Images © 2009 C. Baker – beta garment with embedded electronics by Tara Baoth Mooney with Rachel Lesebikan
(completed
August 2009)
smart garment prototype 2009

9. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Reconsidering Hacking
Hacking is a much-misused term
(Jordan, 2008)
Cracking vs Hacking
“a material practice that
produces differences in
computer, network and
communications technologies”
(Coleman, 2013:98)

10. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Repurposes but recognises the
original
Low level or DIY
Collaborative/Open-source/Sharing
Post-disciplinary/Anti-disciplinary
Reconsidering Hacking

11. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Repurposes but
Recognises the original
“As part of this practical capacity,
the very nature of hacking – turning
a system against itself – is the
processing of using existing code,
comments, and technology for more
than what the original authors
intended” (Coleman, 2013:99)

12. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
“Hacking is in a dialogic form, not in
dialetic opposition. Not to operate
with its object as an opponent or foe,
but as a field of gravity. Not regarding
a system of belief as opium, but as a
path of liberation, using it as a
trampoline, as a line of flight and a
force of gravity” (von Busch and
Palmås, 2006:59).
Repurposes but
Recognises the original

13. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
“As I see them they are operating at a low level, using
existing infrastructure and power of a system to tinker,
twist and modulate it after their own will. Building on
the existing system with local patches and
modifications. Adding small operational programs to
the toolbox and presenting them with a journey of the
same stream. Bending flows of power, but keeping the
current on” (von Busch and Palmås, 2006:28-29)
Low level or DIY

14. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
“Hacker knowledge implies, in
its practice, a politic of free
information, free learning, the
gift of the result in a peer-to-
peer network” (Wark, 2004:28)
Collaborative/Open-source/
Sharing

15. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
“Whatever the code we hack, be it programming
language, poetic language, math or music, curves or
colorings, we are the abstracters of new worlds.
Whether we come to represent ourselves as
researchers or authors, artists or biologists, chemists
or musicians, philosophers or programmers, each of
these subjectivities is but a fragment of a class still
becoming, bit by bit, aware of itself as such” (Wark,
2004:1).
Post-disciplinary/
Anti-disciplinary

16. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
“Hackers have constituted an
expansive pragmatic practice of
instrumental yet playful
experimentation and production. In
these activities the lines between play,
exploration, pedagogy and work are
rarely rigidly drawn” (Coleman,
2013:99).
Post-disciplinary/
Anti-disciplinary

17. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Anti-disciplinary
Anti-disciplinary Principles (Joi Ito, MIT Media Lab)
 Resilience over strength
 Pull over push
 Risk over safety
 Systems over objects
 Compasses over maps
 Practice over theory
 Disobedience over compliance
 Emergence over authority
 Learning over education

18. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Hacking the Body
(1) explores how internal physiological data can be gathered
and harnessed to understand the experiential states of the
body, and then
(2) how we as artists will ‘hack’ to explore new methods for
creating artworks, using sensing systems and audiovisual
technology.

19. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
A media performance research project that
explores ways to ‘Hack’ the data from the
body and create new visual and
performance feedback mechanisms for
users to engage and play with their mobile
devices

20. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Within Hacking the Body we are:
· re-purposing or subverting data, code or other
information;
· re-understanding of what is possible (particularly
within visualisation of body data);
· concerned with political and social agendas that
are associated with hacking;
· sharing, openness, collaboration;
· engaging in the hands-on imperative.

21. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
For Hacking the Body we are...
• working with open-source coding with custom
interfaces and emerging devices in performance,
focusing on revealing hidden, intimate and sensuous
'code' of the body for interaction and play;
• working with inexpensive electronics kits with easy to
learn open-source programming environments, soft
circuits and other technologies for wearable crafting;
• consider the possibilities of playful, expressive,
gestural, as well as using the DIY maker ethos in multi-
sensory participatory performances with new devices;
• developing artworks that explore a new performance
aesthetic using mobile and other ‘hacked’ devices for
performance and interactive artworks.

22. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
For Hacking the Body we will...
• adapt to new technologies, create generative visual and
sensual pieces, with custom software and mobile media
‘apps’ and sensors and gestural gaming interfaces (GPS,
Accelerometers, QR readers, AR apps, Kinect, etc.);
• develop visual methods to create ambient sensory
constructions, haptic garments, performance interactions,
as well as generative elements, incorporated into custom
interfaces for various platforms;
• learn from dancers, theatre and live artists, musicians and
others in the DIY and 'Maker' movement to create new
wearable electronics and mobile applications.

23. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Three Hacks
(1) Hack one: “inside out” - biosensing: breath,
blood volume, chemical.
(2) Hack two: “outside in” - movement
visualisation to actuation on the body.
(3) Hack three: “inside matching outside” -
mobile Artificial Reality applications, QR codes,
and projection mapping.

24. open-source making & sharing
Image at soft circuits workshop run by Kate
Sicchio & Camille Baker
Byron Bay, Australia, June 15, 2013
Image from http://www.mztek.org/programs/hacked-
human-orchestra/

25. sensors, soft circuits +
DIY electronics
Image at soft circuits workshop run by Becky Stewart from Codasign 2012

26. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012

27. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012

28. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012

29. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Future Implications – new sensing modes, tools and
performative experiences

30. Graphic by Dave Palmer 2012
Coleman, E. G., Coding Freedom: The Ethics and
Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton University Press,
Princeton and Oxford. 2013.
Dueze, M., Media Life, Cambridge, UK, Polity Press. 2012.
Jordan, T., Hacking: Digital Media and Technological
Determinism, Digital Media and Society, Polity, Cambridge,
UK, 2008.

31. Our blog:
http://hackingthebody.wordpress.com
Thank you