Projects & Collaborations

by Bruce Gilchrist

I am an artist with a background in performance and digital live art, making works that typically play on the boundary between automation and liveness. Current projects take the form of hybrid intermedia artworks, understood as combinations of emerging technology, performance, and conceptual approaches.

In 2018, I initiated Automatic Cinema,a collaborative project that combined computational cinema, robotics and performance to re-imagine a blend of factory and warehouse, transforming arrangements of labour, capital, media and information into a new space of cultural production (supported by Arts Council England and the Centre for Digital Storymaking, LSBU). The outcome of this research, as proof of concept, led to an AHRC funded practice-based PhD project in association with the Open Data Institute (ODI), Data as Culture, London & D6-Culture in Transit, Newcastle, to research the poetics of artificial intelligence (2018–2022).

In 2020 I was invited to participate in a masterclass hosted by Thoughtworks Arts (New York) and Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven (NL), working on a creative investigation into the social impacts of AI technology. The resulting collaborative project, Smart Hans was awarded in the ‘Interaction’ category and received the Jury’s Main Prize at Lab30 Medienkunstfestival (2022). Following this I was a BeFantastic Beyond Fellow (2022-23) as lead-artist within a multidisciplinary team creating new artwork for FutureFantastic at Jaaga Festival, Bangalore (2023).

An AHRC Research Fellowship at Oxford Brookes University (2002–2005) and a London Science Museum SMAP5 commission (2005) generated materials for the project, Gustav Metzger thinks about nothing (2012). Inspired by Metzger's political and environmental activism and concerns around the void prompted interest in the theme of ‘nothing’ as a productive category, ultimately steering the project towards connecting neurophysiology, psychophysics and manufacturing technology to produce sculpture. This work has recently been exhibited in The Hague at West Den Haag as part of Gödel Escher Bach (2023), and KU Leuven as part of To The Edge of Time (2022).

I co-founded the artist group London Fieldworks in 2000, receiving various accolades including, London Short Film Festival (Best Experimental Short); Ars Electronica (Honorary Mention Hybrid Art category); Art & Artificial Life International Awards (Special Mention) issued by VIDA 10.0 Madrid. Prior to this my main activities included being a solo and collaborative artist within the digital live art arena. 

The ICA-Toshiba Art & Innovation Commission awarded first prize to myself and software programmer Jonny Bradley, for the durational, digital live art performance, Divided By Resistance curated by Lois Keiden as part of ‘Totally Wired’ at the ICA, London (1996). This commission proved to be seminal to a body of work, including Thought Conductor#2, concerned with integrating physiological interfaces as part of a database aesthetic.

An earlier period of activity included ensemble performance projects with several groups performing worldwide, including Station House Opera, Blast Theory, and People Show, amongst others.