Professional Role

Photos

Flickr Photostream

Videos

TEDxSydney - Sarah Jane Pell - Aquabat Explores Extreme Environments. Global Hydrotherapy.

Sarah Jane is an artist-researcher inspired by the creative potentials of extreme environments, making use of undersea conditions to carry out human performance and behaviour studies and poetic events. She uses various interdisciplinary tools and protocols, from dance and performance technology to live art and commercial diving, to further our understanding of humans in these spaces. She explores connections between the "neoaquatic" human endeavours and the emergence of the 21st century "lunarsapien". Dr. Pell is an official aquanaut/artist/researcher crew member of "The League of New Worlds' ATLANTICA 1 Expedition". ------------------- TEDxSydney 2010 was organised by General Thinking and took place on Saturday 22 May 2010 at CarriageWorks. Almost 2,000 people enjoyed the day live, over 700 in the theatre and the rest via big screen simulcast in The Forum. Thousands more watched the lives webstream. It was a grand day. About TEDx, x = independently organised event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organised events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organised events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organised TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organised.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

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Hydrophilia -love that diving feeling!

Sarah Jane Pell, performance art underwater at Biennale of Electronic Arts Perth BEAP04 Perth Institute of Contemporary Art 2004

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SubSpace- from underwater to outerspace

Sarah Jane Pell artist-as-astronaut in training....

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Revolution

Sarah Jane Pell and her water-wheel antics!

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Lifeboat biotech arts mobile performance lab - Catts, Helyer, Hodgetts, Pell, Zurr

Undertaking its maiden voyage across the Baltic for ISEA 2004, the LifeBoat project was a collaborative trans-disciplinary work by Dr. Nigel Helyer (Sonic Objects) Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (ARTi), Oron Catts and Dr. Ionat Zurr (SymbioticA) and Dr. Stuart Hodgetts (UWA). "LifeBoat" is a prosaic title indicating both the physical reality (the project is contained within a fully weatherproofed ship's lifeboat) and somewhat more conceptually, as the lifeboat has become home to a Biotechnology and performance lab; a home to the processes of life itself. On a metaphorical level, this project is designed to deal with concepts of sustainability, survival and notions of biological, cultural and ideological re-generation, and naturally its obverse, the degradation of life and all its manifestations. Visit the LifeBoat at http://www.life-boat.org/

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Projects

LifeBoat
? – present
LifeBoat Mission: Our mission is to foster and promote cultural research with the aim of improving the well-being of all creatures, great and small. LifeBoat Aim 1: Knowledge base To advance knowledge and understanding in the creative arts and their impact on life-forms - past, present and future. LifeBoat Aim 2: Resources To contribute to a long-term and vibrant cultural environment. LifeBoat Aim 3: Translation To advance the translation of LifeBoat projects into cultural benefits. LifeBoat Aim 4: Ecological engagement To engage with a broad spectrum of life-forms through informed dialogue. LifeBoat Objectives: Our four aims identify the priorities on which we concentrate. Each aim is underpinned by a series of objectives which establish the practical measures we will take to achieve our aims and, ultimately, our mission. A key feature of the LifeBoat approach is that our activities will have an impact and 'make a difference'. Lifeboat proposes multimedia performance as a complex living system. The performative stratosphere includes a fully operational biological laboratory and psychological profiling station (contained within an off-shore platform lifeboat), visa and passport processing terminus, web presence and audiovisual broadcast. The Lifeboat Crew employed protocols both for, and as of a point of departure to “culture” living, semi-living, non-living and the partially living on board the vessel. They devised multi-layered systems as ubiquitous ‘processing operations’, guiding visitors through the real and transformative terms of participation and consequence. The production re-contextualizes existing bodies of knowledge of living systems to perform tactical manoeuvres between modes of data, operation and discourse. The complex network of artistic, biological, technological, bureaucratic and political productions discussing the interrelatedness of life on an unprecedented level. The audience examination traces the accumulative Meta culture of socio-biomaterial sustained by Lifeboat to critique the un-locatable and complex nature of ideas and presences of performance across all living systems. The performance utilizes biological, ecological, societal and technological strategies to cultivate a LifeBoat State. Crew issue health warnings about DVT: Deep Vein Thinking and the effects of Cell Disassociation as audiences line up to be ‘processed’. Without question, visitors ‘give’ their name, address, signature, data-of-birth, occupation, passport photo, and fingerprint, complete a 73 part psychological profiling questionnaire and donate DNA samples in full view of a quad-video surveillance system. The unique ‘profile’ they generate affect a life form assigned to them. Crew assure audiences that they ‘are with them every step of the way’ and their ‘privacy is important’. Post performance, visitors ponder their level of engagement – is it symbolic? Is it metaphoric, virtual or worse, an actual system? Lifeboat proposes a new type of live(d) art terrain for all of us.
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Biography

Artist-researcher and natural adventurer, I became a fully qualified commercial diver and founded the Aquabatics Research Team in 2002 to explore commercial diving and creative practices together in a unique union. Originally focused on making underwater performances, my work now spans aqueous live art, digital media, installation, prototype pneumatic technologies, philosophies and experiments with advanced life support and living systems. I often collaborate with artists, scientists and architects to create a new experimental space to invent, design and explore imagined futures with the intent to re-engage with the fundamental creativity of humans working at the extremes. A question that keeps reoccurring in my work is: If I were to imagine the architecture of the future to be adaptive to the bio rhythms of the human species, how would we account for the specific bio rhythms of people living and working together underwater and in extreme environments on Earth as an analogue to outer space? Furthermore, what countermeasures or embraceable panaceas would be appropriate for quality of life? My journey has just begun...!

Fun facts

Favorite meal:
Fresh barramundi or kangaroo served with a white wine and sage butter; on a bed of pepper-berry beetroot, sweet potato, a mix of crisp & wilted greens covered with delicate wattle seed...served under the stars and by the beach of course! In the mornings, an elegantly strong coffee with a toasted croissant dripping with warmed fresh berries, completely melts me. Or, just a good apple. And I am so very happy.

A funny story about me:
I once won a pineapple in French class. My favorite childhood preoccupations were hammering and climbing. I built my cat a many number of houses and chased it up every tree. A great admiring of my grand-father a.k.a Pop, also keen hammer and climber, I also became preoccupied with the art of how he did things. I followed him around endlessly asking, "what you doing Pop?" to which his standard reply was, "riding a bike". To him the question was futile since I was learning by watching but if I were to ask a stupid question, he would reply with a stupid answer. By the time I was 3 years of age, Pop and I had build a tricycle together - even nailing shag-pile carpet to the wooden seat for comfort, so that I really could ride a bike (and stop annoying Pop). I remember a particularly special day of bike riding when I heard the sounds of hammering from way up high. Without hesitation, I climbed the ladder, scaled the roof top of the house, and leaped from one apex to another, as quiet as a mouse to watch Pop at work. A great deal of time passed, and I completely mesmerized, forgot my manners and said those forbidden words... "What you doing Pop?" to which he nearly fell off the roof! My family have never let me live it down!