Sarah Jane Pell
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Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (born 30 December, 1974) is an Australian engaged in practice-as-research-in-performance. Her works combine the traditions of body art, extreme performance art and human factors with underwater habitat and professional diving technologies.
As an artist, Pell uses her own body to research human performance behaviours and limits in extreme environments - usually underwater. She designs scenarios and constructs prototype life support systems and innovative underwater laboratories which she calls performance habitats.[1] Exposition of Pell's performance habitats explore the aesthetics of care and provide live and mediated data feeds to illuminate the behaviours of the human body when it is facing various stressors.
'Although she draws on the poetic and performative potential suggested by aquatic environments, her body of work is best described as an aestheticisation of life support systems. The body in water is dialectical, at once in communion with and conflict with water. Aquatic performance offers the possibility of an ecstatic release into the enveloping weightlessness of an azure world, yet nevertheless the body gags in the face of this fantasy, as the need for oxygen reasserts itself.' [2]
By participating in the performance habitats as both the principal investigator and research subject, Pell challenges the NHRA ethical guidelines on human research experimentation. Nevertheless, her focus on physiological and psychological adaptation [of the human body underwater] enables practical and aesthetic considerations for functional design affecting the various nuances specific to duty of care (which Foucault [1998] considered a fundamental ethical task or "technology of the self").[3].
The work of Pell has led to a new area of experimental philosophy called Aquabatics. Pell founded the Aquabatics Research Team, Australia in 2002 and completed a PhD proposing Aquabatics as new works of Live Art to Edith Cowan University. [4] Performance philosopher Shannon Bell explains that Pell proposes a new kind of aqueous philosophy situating the neohuman body in a state of critical care as a body of water, in water. [5] While her works 'draw on an uncertain technological future, and all the tension, paranoia and anxiety that goes with this.' [6] she also contributes valuable human factors insight to propose innovative design solutions for use in extreme environments - from underwater to outerspace.
Pell is an Adjunct Lecturer to the University of Western Australia. She currently resides in Australia and researches innovative aqueous architectures for future use in outer space.
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[edit] Performances
The Many-To-Many World, The Great Hall National Gallery of Victoria (1997); TrainingThe National Review of Live Art, Midland (2002); Second Nature: Second Skin, National Review of Live Art, Glasgow (2003); Under Current, Hydrophilia Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2003, 2004); Hydrophilia, BEAP04 Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth (2004); LifeBoat - mobile life art laboratory collaboration with Nigel Helyer, Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr ISEA04 International Symposium of Electronic Arts, The Baltic (2004); Under Current, Bonnington Gallery, UK (2004); Petrification - collaboration with Lawrence English, ARC Biennial, Brisbane (2005); Hydrophilia, Tract -Live Art Festival, Art Surgery & Newlyn Art Gallery, UK (2006)
[edit] Exposition
Substance & Transparency, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (1998); Spectrum Project Space, Perth (2002); Walking with Water, Western Australian Maritime Museum (2005); Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (2006) Multimedia Asia Pacific, Bangkok (2005, 2006) Reykjavik Arts Festival, Iceland (2006) Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts Taiwan (2007)
[edit] About
Pell has been awarded a BA Fine Art, Victorian College of the Arts, Australia (1995); MA Human Performance, Victorian University of Technology, Australia (1998); ADAS2 Occupational Diving, The Underwater Centre, Fremantle (2002); PhD, Visual Art, Edith Cowan University, Australia (2005/6); and SSP, Space Studies International Space University, France (2006).
[edit] External links
Official Web Site Sarah Jane Pell
Research & Publication CVCommunity of Science Profile Mobile Art Life Lab LifeBoat
[edit] References
1. Birringer, Johannes H. Performance and Science. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art - PAJ 85 (Volume 29, Number 1), January 2007, pp. 21-35, The MIT Press
2. Marshall, J. The art of life support, Real Time & On Screen Vol 68, Aug/ Sep 2005, p.48 Australia: http://www.realtimearts.net/rt68/marhsall_pell.html
3. Art Surgery Archive: Sarah Jane Pell HYDROPHILIA Performed on Saturday 22 July South Pier, Wharf Road, Penzance 2006: http://www.tract-liveart.co.uk/Sarah%20Jane%20Pell/Sarah%20Jane%20Pell%20Archive.html
4. LABS Leonardo ABstracts Service, online Pomona College, Claremont, California:
5. Bell, Shannon. Subhumanism, Thinker-in-residence, Edith Cowan University for Performing Rights, PSI12, Royal College, London 2006: www.psi12.qmul.ac.uk/archive/conference/saturday.html
[edit] See also
National Review of Live Art Reviews Database hosted by AHDS Performing Arts
Live Art Archives at the University of Bristol Theatre Collection
See also the free educational resources: Live Art Archive and Digital Performance Archive hosted by AHDS Performing Arts
