With Ping Body and Parasite, the body was moving to Internet and search engine data. It was as if an external nervous system was optically stimulating and electrically actuating the body.

So in these scenarios and performances, the internet is experienced as not merely a medium for the transmission of information and images but as a means by which bodies spatially separated but electronically connected can physically interact. Or that biological bodies can be augmented by an external electronic nervous system.

With the new Movatar project, what is being explored is the possibility that an intelligent, autonomous and operational avatar might be able to perform in the real world by accessing a physical body. The Movatar possesses the body and the body becomes the medium of its expression. The body itself then becomes a prosthesis for the avatar to manifest its motions and emotions in the world…

Most of your work seems to be conceptual, and yet the stills, sounds and images are often extremely powerful or confronting – as an artist what importance do you place on the visual representation of your work?

Ideas are only interesting if they become actual. I’ve always said that ideas are authenticated by actions. What’s interesting is the experience of alternate interfaces with technology that construct new possibilities and thereby generate further ideas. The performances should be characterized more by their physicality, than by their conceptual raison d’etre….

So what are you up to now, and what are some of your plans for the future – and when do we get to see you back home?

I’m presently performing with the Exoskeleton walking machine in Europe till July (Germany, the Czech Republic and Italy). This was recently completed as part of my Hamburg residency. The robot is a 6-legged pneumatically actuated machine whose leg movements are controlled by my arm gestures. The bipedal human gait is translated into insect-like locomotion. As part of the exoskeleton, a 9 degree of freedom manipulator extends my right arm. It has individual finger motions, thumb and wrist rotation and each finger opens and closes to become individual grippers.

The pneumatic sounds, valve relay switch clicks, mechanical motions and the electrical signals from the manipulator are acoustically amplified. Its a sound machine as well as a locomotor. I compose the sounds by choreographing the movements.

Should be back in Australia in August for a month and a half….