[Intro Music]
[Applause]
How do we know that our planet is surrounded by an atmosphere,
and we are held on here by the forces of gravity? Well, nature gives us a few clues.
Even those of us with physical challenges learn to recognise the difference when an
elevator falls, for instance, or our breath becomes laboured at altitude.
Take a moment now, to bring your awareness to your own breath, and after Mr. Per... Percival,
it could be rather, fren... frenetic.
But bring your awareness to your breath, and feel the weight of your body,
as you are seated or standing where you are, right now.
Look down and imagine, that your legs are now extended
by one third, and it requires considerable effort
to straighten them. Your arms, instead of falling by their sides,
are rising up to your midline. Even looking down to witness
these phenomena, you notice that your neck,
your neck is extended beyond its natural reach and if you were to, to raise it to where it
felt natural, you would in fact find that your gaze would be case upwards,
your spine lengthened, and your jaw dropped.
Imagine now, that your limbs are compressed, your lungs
are compressed, and with each respiration,
with each inhalation and exhalation, you rise and fall.
Now visually, this would reference all sorts of things
that we see in nature, but audibly, it sounds like something
from a distant galaxy, far, far away. I'm talking about
the Darth Vader syndrome. [breaths in and out audibly]
Yes, in your mind's eye, you have become a diver,
and underwater explorer and an avatar of the sea.
Take a moment now to imagine what it would be like,
what would it feel like, how you would move, what you would do and what you would explore,
how you would communicate and express yourself. Imagine the sights and sounds, the colours,
the sensations against your body. Ask yourself what
would you do, and who would you become?
I'm in the business of creating new media underwater.
I dive four, maybe five times a week to a depth
of twelve meters for up to 150 minutes with each dive.
I do bounce diving, which means I can ascend and descend
up to 19 times in any one dive. I work in ver... zero visibility,
in a harbour, an ocean harbour, with water that is naturally
stained by the tannins of the tea tree and button grass
indigenous to a world h... cultural.... a world heritage,
cultural area in Tasmania. Yes, Michael,
I am one of those from the wilderness. It is here in that place,
it's with that unique perspective, that I can say what
the world needs now is to develop an aquatic consciousness,
to return to the life cycles, and the natural rhythms
of this planet, so that the world itself, can undergo some serious hydrotherapy.
Now, with the background as a performance artist,
one could say that I live and breathe a liquid reality,
but it is an interesting perspective, the disciplines of diving,
and the body consciousness and the environment
consciousness combined, creates some really interesting
creative possibilities, and a unique perspective,
on the state of our oceans and waterways, also,
the audience and human response to those aspects.
I have a wish, that is, to develop virtual and real studio
technologies and choreographies, for artists to lead advanced
human exploration underwater, as one part of a survival strategy,
for our species. It's a bold statement,
and this is something that began with my research into the field of aquabatics as a PhD student.
Aquabatics is at the nexus of contemporary performance
and commercial diving. Now, contemporary performance
is not like theatre, it's not like circus arts or film.
We are not strictly entertainers, we do not play the role
of someone else. We are ourselves, raw and vulnerable
bef... and essential before an audience.
In all honesty, I am completely immersed in my own practice.
I know what it means to be saturated,
and it is literally breathtaking. Aquabatics creates
the possibility for us to understand the aquatic realm
and our efforts within it. At the outset, aquabatics explores
the potentials and freedom for expanding ourselves beyond
our land based dimensions. But like all human pretentions,
I've learned a great deal from my... from facing failure
in attempting these kinds of feats. Understanding the aquatic
realm is as much about navigating through the technology,
and the environment, as it is about connecting with yourself
as a body, in and of and for water, learning to picture yourself
and understand where you are placed in and uh, how you behave,
within the aquatic realm. It is also about articulating
the concept of the inner experience, that which is internalised,
and that which can be externalised to an audience.
Part of the work has also included this aestheticisation of care, and of operation and protocol between
the crews
and the people who can make this happen. In a sense,
aquabatics creates and image of a neoaquatic human,
and with all of the delicate life balances that are required
to sustain that type of life, or living essence.
By the end of 2005 I had exhibited a major retrospective
of aquabatics, which included a body of seven new works,
which in some way, began to articulate this type of experience
and journey. As you can imagine, by working with underwater
operations I suddenly had this interest in looking at the parallels
with space missions. I was looking at what the aquanaut
goes through and the astronaut, and the very real parallels
between human performance in a weightless environment
and a neutral buoyancy environment. Well, some of my efforts
might have been a little more poetic than practical,
I was also able to make some significant tech... technological advances in the name of Art.
Included was a duel re-breather a prototype, that was established for use in a survival
situation
by two people, and uh, this is soon to be patented.
As fortune would have it, I am very privileged to be part
of the League of New Worlds Undersea, or First Undersea
Habitat Expedition, called Atlantica. Atlantica will see
3 aquanauts living and breathing, and working continuously,
from a custom-made facility called the Leviathan, for 90 days,
commencing on the 14th of July, 2011.
The primary aims of this project are to investigate, to knowledge build, and to test the systems
and requirements
for a new generation of people to begin as in-water custodians
of our oceanwa... uh, oceans and waterways.
Now there's a lot at stake. These aquanauts need to work
on some very simple, but long existing challenges,
and that is to deal with working towards a zero waste culture,
and trying to work out how we can navigate the issue
of carbon dioxide waste. We also need to learn some very
important lessons about confined space and remote habitat living.
So the mission has been planned. We're going to set up
environmental water monitoring stations,
and set up the protocols and data transfer options that
are going to be necessary for the vital education,
outreach and dissemination of results from this expedition.
The location has be... been decided, it's more or less uh,
a region that has been identified and approved at the moment,
called Polaris B, off the Florida Keys in the United States waters.
Construction has commenced on the uh, Leviathan habitat,
but also on the support vessels that are going to be required
for that, including a Dan Scott Taylor Submarine which will
be used in water, and various surface vessels that will
be supporting the expedition. This is a, an international crew,
and I'm very privileged to be a part of a, uh,
one of the most experienced underwater crews that has ever
been combined for, for an undersea habitat mission.
Uh, there are 8 countries that are being represented, and it's also an incredibly dynamic and interdisciplinary
team,
with uh, a focus, well a strong contingency of artistic,
um, creators, which I am very pleased to be a part of.
So in my mind I can imagine, with this kind of calibre of crew,
this type of collaboration resulting in something
like Big Brother crossed with Discovery and So You Think
You Can Dance Underwater, it's going to be beautiful.
I don't know how many people can say that they wet themselves
every day at work, but I do, and I enjoy it and love it,
and this is an incredible, incredible opportunity to make
use of this underwater studio uh, potential.
And I personally will be looking at the choreographic potentials of, of this, and working with the
crews,
through the use of, or the creative use of technology,
of entertainment, and design, sound familiar, uh,
and with a particular emphasis on conducting important
and vital communications and outreach; in fact we're sett...
setting 50% of our on-air live time to linking up with those objectives.
So much contemporary thought and critical thinking in the areas
of space science, particularly in climate science
mitigates against, our counter measures aspects of the extreme environment. But my research
faces those challenges as an adaptive strategy. We should not forget
that we are an adaptive species and our planet is always changing,
arguably at a rate far accelerated by our recent intervention.
But independence is simply an illusion, and the paradox
of interdependence is that we simultaneously constrain and empower
each other. Collaboration, whether it between, be between
art and science, between people and the environment, between one and many. We need good communication,
we need good imagination, and we need to be able to come together
to form a symbiosis, a calculated and specific performance
of the real... really primal artistry and the basic forces of nature. Adaptation begins
with understanding human behavioural changes,
physiological and psychological, and the effects on human expression.
With its foundation in philosophical investigation,
art is critical to that process. Please join with me in a breath
of solidarity, inhale, and exhale [breaths audibly],
and spread the word. Thank you.
[Applause]
Captioning services provided by Michael Lockrey