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Ghislaine Boddington

Ghislaine Boddington
Creative Director and CoFounder of body>data>space
Reader in Digital Immersion at the University of Greenwich

Ghislaine is a global pioneer in body responsive technologies, recognised internationally since the mid nineties as a thought leader for placing the living body at the centre of digital technologies. Her work advocates the use of the body as a digital interaction canvas and she examines the evolution of the future self through the mediated representation of our physical selves and our identities in virtual and mediated environments.

With a background in dance and performing arts she specialising in the future human, body responsive technologies and immersive experiences and has had a long-term focus on the blending of our virtual and physical bodies. Her practice as research work, her presentations and broadcasts engage in highly topical and future digital issues for our living bodies, including personal data usage, and sees a future in which we connect ourselves into a networked “multi-self,” an “Internet of Bodies” enabled by hyper-enhancement of the senses and tele-intuition.

Standing at the forefront of the convergence between telepresence, motion capture, sense/gesture tech, social medias and virtual worlds, she directs the co-creation of collaborative share spaces with top level teams of creative digital experts worldwide. She is passionate about future "hyper-enhancement " potentials for our human senses through the digital transmission/reception of body data, such as touch, motion, biofeedback and gesture. Ghislaine has created live interactive links between thousands of participants / audiences across the world for educational, performing arts and creative industries usage since the mid-nineties.

A co-founder of digital performance collective shinkansen (1989-2004) she is a long term member of body>data>space, an interactive design collective emerging from shinkansen with 30 plus members Europe-wide. She has directed Cellbytes, Future Physical and skintouchfeel across late 90s/early 2000s and in early 90s led multiple dance-tech workshops worldwide forcusing on telepresence and interactive body tech.

Ghislaine’s dramaturgical work includes the unique mini-metaverse (virtual/physical full bodies immersive) installation ‘me and my shadow’ (2012 National Theatre London with Joseph Hyde, the lead direction of the touring programme ‘Robots and Avatars - the future world of work and play’ (EU Culture - Nesta) and the direction of the large scale interactive installation Collective Reality for Nesta's Futurefest 2016 and SAT Dome Montreal 2017.

In the same year Ghislaine was awarded the IX Immersion Experience Visionary Pioneer Award by Society for Arts and Technology. The award is in recognition of her role as a global thought leader, and major driving force in immersive experiences and body responsive technology.

Ghislaine has been invited to present keynotes on her future selves research in over 30 countries worldwide, talking to a diverse range of audiences about the future of virtual physical body interfaces, women in technology, intercultural connectivity and co-creation methodologies.

With a background in dance and performing arts and a long-term focus on the blending of our virtual and physical bodies, she engages in highly topical and future digital issues for our living bodies, including personal data usage, and sees a future in which we connect ourselves into a networked “multi-self,” an “Internet of Bodies” enabled by hyper-enhancement of the senses and tele-intuition.

Ghislaine co-presented bi-weekly for 6 years for Digital Planet (BBC World Service) and works onwards with BBC on projects. Her research explores “The Internet of Bodies”, the evolution of our future multi-selves through gesture and sense interfaces, augmented realities, immersive experiences and embedded digital body connectivity, pointing to the rapid blending of the virtual and the physical body.

As an advocate for diversity and equality in tech she is a co-founder of Women Shift Digital, a Trustee for the Stemette Futures and in 2018 was invited to be the Spokesperson for the Deutsche Bank “Women Entrepreneurs in Social Tech” Accelerator.

She sits on the editorial board of the Springer journal AI and Society, is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA) and is a member of theCollege of Experts for the DCMS. In 2019/20/21/22 she was named as one of the top Women In Tech in the Computer Weekly Long List and was an Inventor of the Year Finalist in the Tech Inclusive Alliance Awards.

www.bodydataspace.net
www.ghislaineboddington.com
www.internetofbodies.net
@GBoddington

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Papers by Ghislaine Boddington

Virtual Creativity

This article explores how communication and interaction design were used in the augmented reality... more This article explores how communication and interaction design were used in the augmented reality experience, Donate Yourself. It aims to demystify some of the ethical and personal concerns around the donation of organs, tissue and body data for scientific and medical research. The research finds different modes of provoking thought around a central question: can augmented reality be used to open debates on who has access to our biological and digital traces beyond death? Taking into account how COVID-19 has made the public deeply reconsider their biological and data bodies, the paper documents and contextualizes the making of Donate Yourself, which was created in collaboration with interactive design collective body>data>space and scientists from the Human Cell Atlas project (HCA). In doing so, it explores the contested histories of human tissue in research and contemporizes these relations by looking at the way HCA members use and care for human tissue and data in their work...

Virtual Creativity - Extended Senses: Embodying Technology, Mar 20, 2023

This Special Issue is a series of articles generated from the Extended Senses Symposium 2022, hel... more This Special Issue is a series of articles generated from the Extended Senses Symposium 2022, held at University of Greenwich, 8–9 September 2022, including an exhibition (8–10 September in the Stephen Lawrence Gallery). The main theme of the symposium was to explore ways to extend and expand the body through new and emerging modalities and technologies. Focusing primarily on the body as a site of knowledge production within this field, it highlighted immersion, haptic engagement and evolving body led interfaces to understand and enable the bridge between the analogue and the digital realms. Participants were encouraged to present socially responsible work engaged with issues such as: the climate crisis and environmental sustainability, data ethics, personal data ownership, surveillance and privacy, women’s health and equality and other urgent issues that affect the body. Talks and artwork traversed between the physical and the virtual, including but not limited to, electronic or sm...

AI & SOCIETY, 2021

Ghislaine Boddington - This paper is going to discuss, what will be called, 'The Internet of Bodi... more Ghislaine Boddington - This paper is going to discuss, what will be called, 'The Internet of Bodies'. Our physical and virtual worlds are blending and shifting our understanding of three key areas: (1) our identities are diversifying, as they become hyper-enhanced and multi-sensory; (2) our collaborations are co-created, immersive and connected; (3) our innovations are diverse and inclusive. It is proposed that our bodies have finally become the interface.

Die Welt als virtuelles Environment - The World as Virtual Environment, 2007

Extended essay by Ghislaine Boddington (2007) with multiple selected and curated quotes from inte... more Extended essay by Ghislaine Boddington (2007) with multiple selected and curated quotes from international artists. The essay explores their experiences of creating and working in telepresence into virtual space from 1990s to present .....an extensive overview of the pioneers of perfomative telematics, examining key subjects such as identity, expression of self and other, spirit and essence and extended worlds as Boddington engages in a future view of what she calls "virtual physical blending" within "virtual physcial hybrid events" - a clear view of the future of work, social and educational modes.

‘Identity, Performance and Technology‘ , 2013

The most topical development in communication methods between humans is through video data and on... more The most topical development in communication methods between humans is through video data and online worlds, environments that take place in virtuality, environments that ask us to communicate with others at a distance, others whom we may never have met, others who may be represented (like ourselves) as animated avatars or pixilated film.

‘excited atoms‘ an exploration of virtual mobility in the contemporary performing arts, Apr 2010

Ghislaine Boddington - 2000 - This essay explores my work with the body and telepresnece from 198... more Ghislaine Boddington - 2000 - This essay explores my work with the body and telepresnece from 1989 to 2000

"Today communication connectivity for work and social use between humans is enhanced through speedy data flow, enabling live video transmission between people at a distance, even from within one’s own home.

The opportunity to transmit as well as receive video data has been taken up en masse in social networking through the use of webcams and chat room-style video feeds. Video conferencing for business, live satellite uplinks for TV/entertainment industry, mobile phone live feeds and the evolution of real time meet ups in virtual worlds see many millions worldwide in instant connection. The use of online two way video streams for educational, professional development and medicinal purposes is extending by the day. Consequently the use of hybrid virtual / physical events are emerging in many sectors to supplement or even replace the physical gathering or conference event.

Telematics – a full bodied, online, gestural interface, extends our physical world, utilising the virtual to connect the local to the local, enabling a diverse range of opportunities. It can be used:
- as a tool for intercultural understanding, knowledge exchange, skills bartering and trust building
- as a shared creative environment for community/public use through public realm interventions and crowdsourcing
- as an excellent way to build quality debate and common understandings, through pre-event and post-event knowledge transfer to evolve expression of self and others in co-creation processes
- to re-examine identity and ‘live’ presence, expanding the senses and tele-intuition
as a positive shift towards active (rather than passive) interaction, in opposition to the health/computer cautions i.e. for physical gaming, allowing a free flow of body movement no longer restricted by wires
- as a positive, user led interaction with cameras (in opposition to the questioned ethics of surveillance cameras)
- as instant real-time connectivity in our fullest form allowing us the right, as humans, to receive and transmit data representing ones full body (and that of others with agreed permission)
- as a distance bridger, dissolving boundaries, enabling less use of flights and a cleaner eco-footprint

Ends
So what happens when your avatar makes its own avatar, when your robot has a relationship with your avatar? Those are the next questions……………"

ResCen, Centre for Creation Processes in the Performing Arts, Middlesex University, London, 2000

Written whilst a Research Fellow at ResCen, Centre for Creation Processes in the Performing Arts,... more Written whilst a Research Fellow at ResCen, Centre for Creation Processes in the Performing Arts, Middlesex University, London, Autumn 2000

This paper was written 10 years into my work on virtual presence, just after directing 2 workshops focusing on the performative use of telematics (CellBytes00 at Arizona State University and Corpos Online at Lugar Commun in Portugal). The following paragraph sets the context of the debate. Ghislaine Boddington April 2020

What is live? What is natural? What does it mean to be embodied? How many identities can one have? What is the essence of presence? This was a period of investigation for the performing arts, which have traditions deeply integrated with live presence through their special performer-to-spectator connection. My work as a director of performing arts has immersed me to work in to the dramaturgies and process design of virtual physical events.

Across the last thity years I have engaged with telepresence - led live event processes and have worked with many combinations of body technologies. I have been experimenting in the interface demands of the digitalised body alongside the live physical body.

This has for me brought up many questions which are highly topical in sectors well beyond the arts, as is in proof today with the COVID-19 extraordinary situation of lockdown, meaning advanced use of telepresence through video conferencing in all sectors globally. I detail some of this early work in the following text (written in 2000) and contextualise these explorations within the wider socio-cultural engagement with telephonics. This text explores some of the reasons why there is a need for far more in depth research and development of the concepts of presence (and therefore identity) that will exist in the future.

Please do look at further writings on ongoing work post 2000 by Ghislaine Boddington

This paper includes summaries of keynote presentations and short biographies of the keynote speak... more This paper includes summaries of keynote presentations and short biographies of the keynote speakers at the EVA London 2021 Conference on Electronic Visualisation and the Arts. The talks were delivered online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. EVA London broadly covers the digital arts and humanities, attracting a wide set of interdisciplinary participants. The keynote speakers, while largely affiliated with academic institutions, have wider interests as well.

Merel van Helsdingen Nxt Museum, Netherlands
The Rise of the NFT Market

Terrence Masson School of Visual Arts, USA
Preservation of Digital Culture

Camille Baker University for the Creative Arts, UK
S+T+ARTS:EU DG-CNT Arts & Technology Innovation Initiative: 2012–present

Ghislaine Boddington University of Greenwich, UK
The Internet of Bodies: The virtual physical blending of our bodies and our senses

Ernest Edmonds De Montfort University, UK
AI, IA and Art

The five EVA London 2021 keynote talks were delivered online on each day of the conference from Monday to Friday, 5–9 July 2021. EVA London takes place annually, originally starting in 1990 (Bowen 2020; Hemsley 2013). As for the previous year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, EVA London 2021 is a completely online conference. The conference is broadly based on digital culture (Giannini & Bowen 2019b; Bowen & Giannini 2021) with a special emphasis on digital art (Bowen 2013). The conference also includes a symposium panel with three invited panellists presenting position statements (Bowen et al. 2021).

All our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Intern... more All our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, unless it says otherwise. We hope you find it useful. Nesta's newest challenge to find common metrics for social and natural capital is set to standardise how we think about sustainability Blog 12.02.

The Games Europe Plays brought to the UK independent and innovative games made in Europe with a s... more The Games Europe Plays brought to the UK independent and innovative games made in Europe with a strong emphasis on design, virtual interactivity and physical engagement. A series of three shows which were curated by Creative Director, body technologist and digital expert Ghislaine Boddington, and funded and coordinated by EUNIC London were held across 6 months at The Finnish Institute, Stephen Lawrence Gallery and Nesta’s FutureFest 2016. The exhibition at the Finnish Institute in London features children’s games Gigglebug (Finland), Toca Boca (Sweden), Tine Bech (Denmark/UK), Peter Lu & Lea Schonfelder (Germany) and Amanita (Czech Republic) looking at learning through play, identity, representation and future skills. The Games Europe Plays – BODY TECH at The Stephen Lawrence Gallery focused on exploring our body from its hidden micro bacteria to its digital incarnations, taking a playful look at how digital technologies are helping us to heal but can also disturb our wellbeing. Pre...

This two year programme of performances, installations and seminars that I curated was informed b... more This two year programme of performances, installations and seminars that I curated was informed by a specific research agenda: the highly topical isssue of repositioning the body at the centre of new and emerging digital interactions and arts practices. The programme itself represents the continuation and development of a strand of investigation central to my research - i.e. it addresses the potentially dehumanising effects of technological engagements and it looks at the historical fact that a gendered digital practice has formed the dominant discourses in the field. On this basis, the programme sought to interrogate those trends 1) by specifically privileging women's voices and art works and 2) by making the work accessible to a wide range of audiences. Over 70 events were presented ranging from installations to discussions, all informed by the imperative of understanding the human presence as the centre point of new developments and debating the issues of ‘mediated' versu...

When we change the way we communicate, we change society. " [1] This panel aims to provide audien... more When we change the way we communicate, we change society. " [1] This panel aims to provide audience with a context to understand how social media technologies and the daily updating of the self is challenging our preconceptions of screen-based 'Internet' communication and influencing the development of our cultural/ personal identity(s) and sense of self. [15] It will explore the use of portable; individual; personal; non identical; devices and their impact to our current lives through the present innovative communication apps. The panel would question whether being intimate with technology, in a non-anthropocentric way could provide new critical reflections on the self and how gender stereotypes will form the Internet of Bodies and the future human / machine directions.

Abstract In the last decade, big urban screens have appeared in town squares and on building faca... more Abstract In the last decade, big urban screens have appeared in town squares and on building facades across the UK. The use of these screens brings new potentials and challenges for city regulators, artists, architects, urban designers, producers, broadcasters ...

'Technology Is Not Neutral" was a major new touring exhibition of digital works by leadi... more 'Technology Is Not Neutral" was a major new touring exhibition of digital works by leading pioneering and contemporary female digital artists. From drone choreography, sequencing of bacteria and brainwave art to hacking reality, social media activism and telepresence, this exhibition highlights the contribution of female artists in shaping what digital art is today. The title of the show refers to the challenges faced by female artists in this field where they are often under-represented and less acknowledged than their male colleagues. The exhibition features existing and newly commissioned artworks by Ghislaine Boddington (body>data>space), Susan Collins, Laura Dekker, Anna Dumitriu, Bhavani Esapathi, Julie Freeman, Kate Genevieve, Sue Gollifer, Luciana Haill, Nina Kov, and Gordana Novakovic. As part of the exhibition, Ghislaine Boddington presents pictures from skintouchfeel (shinkansen and body>data>space). A series of works, evolving and re-iterating themselves between 1999 and 2004, skintouchfeel emerged from a series of dance-tech workshops “CellBytes” and other creative gatherings directed by Ghislaine Boddington across this time period and earlier in London, Lisbon and Arizona. These images were taken from several public performances simultaneously held in 2 to 3 venues. Combining live sound, video and dance in structured improvisation, these performances explored and portrayed tele-intuition and digital intimacy to the watching public. The exhibition premiered at Phoenix Brighton as part of Brighton Digital Festival 2016 (2nd September – 25th September 2016) then toured to Watermans Arts Centre in London (November 4th 2016 to January 8th 2017) accompanied by a major symposium. The exhibition was funded by Arts Council England, The Computer Arts Society, and UCL Department of Computer Science and supported by Women Shift Digital, Phoenix Brighton and Watermans.

Developed by Nesta, Ghislaine Boddington worked alongside Pat Kane as Associate Curator on this s... more Developed by Nesta, Ghislaine Boddington worked alongside Pat Kane as Associate Curator on this second edition of FutureFest, a festival that gathers some of the planet’s most radical thinkers, makers and performers together to create an immersive experience of what the world might be like in decades to come. Speakers in 2015 included Edward Snowden, Dame Vivienne Westwood, George Clinton, Jon Ronson and many more. Ghislaine Boddingto co-curated the Debate Room programme and led on the Future Machines theme. Ghislaine introduced this new edition of FutureFest on Tuesday 10 March 2015 at 19.30 on BBC Click Radio, BBC World Service. As part of this weekend, Ghislaine enabled the curation of approx 40 future-thinking female innovators and experts from all backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, lawyers, artists, academics and politicians, to speak in the debate panels and present their views and opinions on the future. Ghislaine Boddington also curated and chaired two main debate panels:...

... exhibition catalogue gathered texts from Dominique Roland, Ghislaine Boddington, Yacov Sharir... more ... exhibition catalogue gathered texts from Dominique Roland, Ghislaine Boddington, Yacov Sharir, Sue Broadhurst, Maurice Benayoun, Hellen Sky, John Knell, Stephan Koplowitz, Michael Takeo Magruder, Roy Ascott, Armando Menicacci and Emmanuel Cuisinier. ...

Co-authored and compiled with Debbi Lander. As co-founder and artistic director for shinkansen, I... more Co-authored and compiled with Debbi Lander. As co-founder and artistic director for shinkansen, I have overseen and archived more than 750 hours of audio and video recordings, themselves produced under my direction, and now compiled for the British Library Sound Archive. My research enquiry, articulated in the archive itself, concerns the means to represent effectively a range of expert, mixed-mode practices. The resulting records bring together work from over a 15 year period, involving shinkansen's engagement with the emerging synergy between performance media technologies and body-based arts practices. Records of 800 events, animated by shinkansen under my guidance, represent the work of, and practitioner-perspectives specific to, more than 6000 artists. These include: 1. moderated discussions with artists such as Merce Cunningham and collaborators, Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar (for his seminal work Biped); 2. recording of seminar series from Munich Dance 2000, involving di...

I was the project's director and curator; the work addressed issues including: 1. the nature ... more I was the project's director and curator; the work addressed issues including: 1. the nature of presence, mediated and 'real', and how they might intermingle via telematics; 2. how to re-locate western theatre dance performance within heterogeneous social dance settings in real time; 3. how to render active spectatorship active and able to explore multiple perspectives. The work is part of a longer investigation including research undertaken at the Institute for Study in the Arts at Arizona State University, and the project combines and tests a range of imperatives, both research-driven and creative/artistic. The extension of telematic performance work into social dance contexts either within arts venues or in clubs, challenges concepts of spectatorship in traditional dance performance, as noted by Thomas, Dodds and Kozel amongst others. Telematics sets audience members' relationship to present performers in 'real-timespace', against virtual interactions that...

Post Me_New Id is an action research project with a focus on the future of the body. In 2007-09 a... more Post Me_New Id is an action research project with a focus on the future of the body. In 2007-09 a collaboration between body>data>space (London, UK), CIANT (Prague, Czech Republic) TMA | Trans Media Academy (Dresden, UK) and KIBLA (Maribor, Slovenia) looked to examine the complexity of 21st century European human identity – with an exploration of the evolution of cyborg culture through technologies of the body, supported by the EU Culture 2007-2013 programme. The 4 organisations worked closely together to identify and investigate the challenges this poses to contemporary creation and the emergent artistic practices. The final output from this project is a Book and DVD combo containing essays and reflections from many of the artists involved in this eighteen month project plus the keynotes and panel conversations resulting from the Post Me_New ID Forum at CYNETart_08 in Dresden. The focus was particularly engaged in Multi-Identities and Networked Creation Processes in today’s w...