Collaboration with Paul Granjon (UK)
Originally commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre, NSW as part of – Oh I Wanna Dance with Somebody, October 2012
IMAGE – AARDVARK. Concept and fabrication: Christian Atkins, Paul Gazzola & Paul Granjon.
EBEMU is a project where ideas about physical body extensions are explored and prototypes of Wearable Hybrid Body Augmentations made from discarded and bought materials are constructed by a team of leading artists working in close contact with voluntary workers recruited from the local community. The artists provide a temporary manufacturing unit/ worksite and a selection of ready-assembled prototypes. The workers contribute ideas for new products and take part in their construction and presentation.
EBEMU operates as an information transfer space that investigates the notion of body and machine in an ever increasingly technologically mediated society. Where the arts centre, participants and visitors become a kind of DIY Cybernetic Factory System, focusing on the fabrication of hi and low-fi technological extensions for the human body.
For more project information go to the website www.ebemu.com/
Gallery/shop/demonstration space – A product demonstration featuring the complete range of works will take place at the end of the unit’s activation. Seeing these hybrid body augmentations forming a quasi-fashion collection, demonstrated and modelled by those that have made them as well as being open to the use, experimentation and purchase by the audience. Re-proposing the notion that our current contemporary bodies are in a state of flux and technological evolution with the possibility to buy into this unfolding at an affordable price.
EBEMU continues with Gazzola and Granjon’s shared focus on ideas development and hands-on design-construction to generate a dynamic and accessible ground for experimentation, debate and play through public engagement.
Versions
CTOWN, Campbelltown Arts Centre, October 2012, NSW
ISEA13, COFA, Sydney, June 2013, NSW
Fairfield Gallery, Nov – Feb 2015, NSW
Supported by The Australia Council for the Arts, Campbelltown Arts Centre, ANAT, ISEA 2013, Arts Council of Wales and Wales International, Destination NSW and COFA.
Gazzola and Granjon both maintain international interdisciplinary practices; Gazzola’s spans art, architecture, curation, performance, installation, scenographic design, video and theory, presenting his work in Australia and internationally, whilst Granjon works across robotics, film, installation and performance, giving original performance lectures demonstrating home-made robotic contraptions, accompanied by songs and illustrated reflections in order to comment on the current state of cybernetic technology.
