As an artistic duo, our backgrounds blend the visual arts, neuroscience, live improvisation, human-computer interaction, creative direction, and applied storytelling. Positioned on the fringes of the arts and sciences, our research focuses on discovering inventive ways for audiences to viscerally experience data, actively engaging in the process of making and discovering.

Our foremost aim is to construct a framework where participants can themselves become artist-scientists, remaking sense of the world and sharing emerging perspectives with others. We are guided here by Reed (1996) who makes a useful distinction between secondhand experience where information has been selected, modified, packaged and presented to us by others (e.g., a teacher, scientist or artist) and first hand/primary experience where we are able to explore the world to uncover information for ourselves driven by our unique and evolving needs, characteristics and interests. He argues that Western post-industrial societies have become over-reliant on the former with implications for our overall quality of experience and associated drive to discover: “Without the opportunities to learn directly, we become less likely to think and feel for ourselves”.

Over the last decade, we have developed an artistic approach called the ‘live experiment’: dynamic and iterative cycles of interaction among researchers, practitioners, and diverse audiences. These experiments can take the form of audiovisual performances, interactive installations, and creative labs. Frequently merging biological data with virtual environments, we aim to create contexts that put the boundaries of self into question.

Echoing Dewey (1934), we believe that instead of being the fruit of abstract conception the arts and sciences should be “continuous with the very processes of living” and must be “brought against the resistance offered by actual conditions”, thriving upon the inherent uncertainty that everyday life brings.