Mellifera

Andrew Burrell, a PhD graduate of Sydney College of the Arts and Trish Adams have been selected by the Australia Council for the Arts as recipients of its $30,000 collaborative massive multi-user virtual environment (MMUVE) arts project, MMUVE IT! Burrell and Adams will collaborate to develop an inter-disciplinary artwork, mellifera, exploring cognitive processes and body movement and its relationship to virtual environments.

Burrell, a visual artist and writer and Adams, an arts/science practitioner and researcher, will develop a human/computer interface system that explores the artistic possibilities of neuroscience studies. The artists will explore cognitive and navigational systems and reinterpret them in real-time interactive installations and virtual worlds. They anticipate developing systems that will allow viewers to interact with artificial life created in virtual worlds through sensor readings of bodily functions such as physical gestures, breath, heartbeat and other nervous system activity.

Burrell and Adams will collaborate with Professor Mandyam Srinivasan, head of visual and sensory neuroscience at the Queensland Brain Institute, the University of Queensland, where Adams is currently an artist in residence. Professor Srinivasan was the recipient of the 2007 Premier of Queensland Smart State Fellowship Award for his leading research into cognition and navigation systems in small brains such as the honey-bee.