About the artist

Alexandra Murray-Leslie

Agency of Technology

Website / Social Media: www.chicksonspeed.com

“HOW IS YOUR COSTUME AGENTIVE?”

Expressions of shoes in pop music performance, mediated through humanistic abstractions of technology.

BIOGRAPHY

Prof. Dr. Alexandra Murray-Leslie is a performer, poly-artist and co-founder of the international artist team Chicks on Speed. Her artistic research explores designing, sustainably fabricating & performing computer enhanced footwear for a new theatrical, audio-visual expressivity of the feet on land, air and in water. Her work has been shown in major biennales, festivals and art institutes such as; Ars Electronica, ZKM Centre for Art and Media, 56th & 57 Venice Biennale, MoMA NY, Centre Pompidou, Museum of Modern Art Australia, Turner Prize Tate Britain, ArtScience Gallery Dublin & Singapore. Alex is a Professor at Trondheim Academy of Fine Art and a member of ARTEC (Art and Technology Task Force) Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

TITLE: Computer Enhanced Footwear

An artistic research project presents a rich body of literature supporting the concept that through costuming the foot, shoes have the potential to deliver a psychological autonomy as well as a political status in performance (also illustrating that footwear can also transmit deeper more serious political ideas within a seemingly fun medium of the pop culture music video). Following a compact survey of literature, Computer Enhanced Footwear is presented and performed, demonstrating how through applications of technology a shoe takes on agency, to become a ‘speaking’ foot costume with its very own feminist language in pop performance. The shoe instruments described successfully leave an indelible mark on the whole performance, whether in artistic swimming in water, whilst fabricating the shoes in a 3D printer as stage or in aerial mode whilst pole dancing. Integrating a theatrical fashion approach as a way to costume the foot for performance, the work is made ‘bidirectional’ (Kac 2009) as it has come though transdisciplinary means and exists in several mediums all of which seek to circulate new modes of communication using the foot devices as lead protagonist with an ‘affective value’.

IMAGE CAPTIONS & CREDITS

01
Alexandra Murray-Leslie, Computer Enhanced Footwear 3, in Noise Bodies, installation by Chicks on Speed, ‘Up to and Including Limits, after Carolee Schneeman, curated by Carolee Schneeman’, 2020, Museum Susch. Costume by Dinu Boddiciu
Foto: Wolf-Dieter Grabner.

02
Alexandra Murray-Leslie, performing High Heeled Shoe Guitar by Chicks on Speed, Noise Bodies, re-performance by Chicks on Speed, ‘Up to and Including Limits, after Carolee Schneeman’, curated by Sabine Breitweiser, 2020, Museum Susch. Costume by Dinu Boddiciu
Foto: Wolf-Dieter Grabner.

03
Alexandra Murray-Leslie, Computer Enhanced Footwear prototype 3, 2020, Arduino fio circuit, sensors, lithium battery, 3D print, gaffa and high vis tapes.
Foto: Alexandra Murray-Leslie.

04
Arctic Rabbit music video, Music by Chicks on Speed, Video and visualisations by Tina Frank, artistic direction and computer enhanced footwear prototype 3 by Alexandra Murray-Leslie. Camera Wolf-Dieter Grabner. 2019.

05
Alexandra Murray-Leslie, performing Computer Enhanced Footwear 2, with Melissa E. Logan and Kroot Juurak, Noise Bodies, re-performance by Chicks on Speed, ‘Up to and Including Limits, after Carolee Schneeman’, curated by Sabine Breitweiser, 2020, Museum Susch. Costume by Dinu Boddiciu
Foto: Wolf-Dieter Grabner.

06
Alexandra Murray-Leslie, Dive, 2019, video. Camera by Wolf-Dieter Grabner.

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