Aquabatics literally translates ‘Walking with water’ and it is the term I use to describe the research nexus between commercial diving, aqueous philosophy and contemporary performance practice. Aquabatics explores the psychological states, physical conditions and ideas that have grown out of an experimental process of inhabiting an aqueous environment – literally and metaphorically. Such a practice enables discussions of being, life and the critical climate in the way that it inspires correlations between/across various systems of our Universe. Aquabatics as new works of Live art research is a unique, unconventional and innovative practice that draws on many histories and newly combined disciplines.
Critical positioning, influences and references
Water-based acrobatic acts were popularised by the glamerous underwater performance pioneers Annette Kellerman (AU) [The Original Million Dollar Mermaid] and Esther Williams (US) [the film-equivalent heir apparent beauty]. This tradition continues today with international syncronised swimming, the permanent underwater shows in bourlesque theatres in Vagas, the Moulin Rouge and roaming underwater vaudeville arts such as David Huang (a.k.a. Water Boy) False Gods Inc., (US), Laclique and Gyulnarakarveara (BE).
Aquabatics also references the successes and failings of underwater record-setting stunts and spectico including the escapist feats of Ehrich Weisz (a.k.a Harry Houdini) and more recently Stephano & Stephania (IT) and David Blaine (UK). This is contrast by commercial diving studies and the World Apnoea Federation research into human performance, limits and behaviours in underwater environments. I examine the principals for body modification, meditation, training and life-style by freedivers Sebastian Burat (AU), Umberto Pelizzari (IT), Tania Streeton, Jacques Mayol (IT) and the practices of Enzo Majorca (IT), and Audrey Mestre (US).
I have a deep respect and interest in the work of early subspace pioneers such as Dr. Sylvia Earle (US) and Jacques Cousteau (FR).
I continue to reference scientists/ naturalists/ explorers, such as Haldane, Viktor Schauberger & sons, Jean-Michael Cousteau, David Suzuki and Rachel Carson, the MAB Man and Biosphere projects and various projects exploring analogue and simulation states and conditions for habitation at polar and desert regions. I have a particular interest in the first generation underwater habitats 'Conshelf', 'Aquarius', 'Tektite I' and the modern NOAA NEEMO sub sea habitat laboratories; research and development of Fabien Cousteau’s great white bio-tech AUV shark and Earle's & associates continued research into the one atmosphere suit and automated underwater vehicles.
In terms of a contemporary live art practice, Aquabatics considers the human condition, the physical and psychological limits of the body and aesthetics of care operations and life support. This practice is inextricably aligned with live artist from the Asia Pacific including Lee Wen, Zhu Ming, Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba, Zhang Huan; and Western Live Art traditions including Marina Abramovic, Bill Viola, Kira O'Reilly, Ho Soi Kee; the bio-techno performances and apparatus of Stelarc, Phillip Warnell and Hyungkoo Lee and underwater and art artists Claus Jurgen, .
This research has lead to a profound theoretical and practical interest in the ethics and design in/of/for habitat in extreme environments and how this may be critiqued, celebrated and discussed through art. To this end, I am influenced by the explorations of sci/art and bio/tech projects by Stelarc, Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr; contemporary philosophers including Giorgio Agamben, Bruno Latour, Susan Merrill Squire, Susan Broadhurst, Arthur Kroker, Alan Read and I sometimes counter-reference the works of Martin Heidegger, Paul Virilio, Nietzsche, Luce Irigaray and her discussions with Julia Kristeva.
Inspirational Footage of Esther Williams c. 1970
Future Weightless Environment Training (WET) performance.
I am currently designing subspace habitat performance laboratories to test innovative countermeasures and hybridised life support architectures for potential use in outer space applications. My interest lies in the exploration of the aesthetic possibilities, and economies, of biotelemetries; communications systems; cognitive adaptation; spatial navigation; adaptive systems; actual and virtual presences; the limits and behaviours of human performance in extreme environments; and the creative intelligence potentials of extreme environments sustaining life. This research may lead to significant new thought paradigms, strategies and technologies for future human habitation away from the earth.
I intend to contribute a distinctly human voice to further the sci-techno-medico and sporting terrains of subspace research by asking 'what are the futures we imagine, and how do we begin constructing them?' One day I would like to be involved in enriching programs for space research and space analogues on earth, and in related spaces such as VR and remote stellar outstations. I am also deeply interested in the poetics, ethics, aesthetics and politics of these spatial intersections.
Comparing human performance behavior in subspace and outerspace.
I am curious about what performance strategies are liquid enough to slip between; to become irreducible in form and understanding and, are also able, to return to signpost qualities and attributes of otherness beyond that which the body ‘members. How else can humanity charter new terrains and understand spaces of habitation? I also admire the works of contemporaries exploring the arts in altered gravity conditions including Kitsu Dubois (FR), aerialist/zero G dancer Morag Whiteman (UK), aquachi practitioner Sonia (UK) and underwater photographer Emma Chrichley (UK).
