…an undoubted highlight of this year’s program….unexpectedly affecting in its therapeutic, closely guided dislocations of sense and self as well as its emotive engagement…the progress of Somatic Drifts will be keenly monitored by this writer.

Breakdown and Repair, Ben Brooker, Realtime 122

Audience responses

…transporting and curious….that was like nothing else I’ve done…the yearning or the desire for it [the touch] is palpable.

Julieanne Campbell, Urban Theatre Projects

Wow. That was wow, amazing. Very intimate. My leg’s become a branch, wrapped around the muscle or the bone, you know, that’s the branch….

I felt happy being a plant. Happy.

Steve Bull, pvi collective

It was loving and caring and fragile. It was a super beautiful experience.

Jackie Johnston, Arts House, Melbourne

I felt like I had become half plant. It was like my fantasy.

Mike

Really beautiful. Stunning. It felt like I was time travelling. Oh I don’t want to go…

Fee Plumley, Really Big Road Trip

 

Adhocracy 2014,  5-9th June Vitalstatistix, Port Adelaide

Download the full program at the Vitalstatistix website.

Somatic Drifts, a new work by Cat Jones, is an immersive experience for one person at a time. It investigates the potential for a participant to experience the body of another entity through physical re-association facilitated by touch and visual feedback. In Somatic Drifts, Cat combines sensory experience with deep visualisation to explore difference, trans-human and trans-species empathy and identity transgression. How far can we drift outside of the sense of self? What can this drift enable us to change?

Currently in its first stage of research and development, Somatic Drifts v1.0 is an extension of Cat’s previous work The Plantarum: Empathic Limb Clinic, which combines horticulture and neuroscience in a unique live art work where sensory illusion is used to graft a plant in place of the participant’s hand. Empathic Limb Clinic explores ideas of inter-species communication and empathy, alongside a radical applied therapy. In an aromatic environment, scent embeds the sensation as a new memory and the moment moves from a novelty experiment and conversational exchange to an experience that is profound.

During Adhocracy, Cat, with collaborating sound artist Melissa Hunt, begins this new exploration by extending the botanic graft of Empathic Limb Clinic and progressing into a human graft as a full body experience through sensory tests, audio environments, interviews and conceptual discussion with Adhocracy audiences.

Creative team:Cat Jones & Melissa Hunt

 Your chance to see:

• One-on-one experiences, Saturday at 3pm, 4pm & 6pm.
• Artist talk, Saturday at 8pm.
• One-on-one experiences, Sunday at 3pm, 4pm & 8pm.
• Conversation 2: Right Here, Right Now, Sunday at 5pm (see below).
• One-on-one experiences, Monday at 3pm, 4pm, 6pm & 8pm.

Conversation 2 (Sunday): Right here, right now

How are artists using mediated communication strategies to make meaningful live experiences? With Cat Jones (Somatic Drifts), Heidi Angove (Testing Boundaries), Kelli McCluskey (black market), Nathan Harrison (Telemetry) and Emily O’Connor (Heat).

For best effect listen to the video below with headphones.

Somatic Drifts v1.0 from Cat Jones on Vimeo.

 

Research and development towards Somatic Drifts has been supported by the federal government through the Australia Council, it’s arts funding and advisory body; Waverley Council through a Bondi Artist’s Residency, Vitalstatistix, and the Creative Practice Lab at University of New South Wales.