Drawing, Cognition and the Human Biped - Collaboration with University of Birmingham

In 2011-12 I approached the University Of Birmingham Schools of Bioscience and Psychology for opportunity to research and engage my drawing practice with their respective disciplines of study. I was pleased at the enthusiasm and response from Dr Susannah K Thorpe – Senior Lecturer Biosciences and Professor Alan Wing -Professor of Human Movement and Director of SyMoN. I was also assisted by Psychology Postgraduate student Evangelia Fringi. What ensued was a collaborative art-science project with my research and development supported by the Arts Council of England and support in kind from the University of Birmingham respective Schools. ‘‘…Our feet are very different, adapted to behave as a simple lever, yet drawing/painting with the feet shows that they are also capable of fine motor coordination and behaviour that should have been selected against millions of years ago! It would be very useful for us if you could use drawing with alternative limbs/body parts as a medium to help us convey and demonstrate this message’. Dr Susannah K Thorpe, Senior Lecturer in Locomotor Ecology and Biomechanics For me this project was a follow on from previous research 2008-10 (see ‘Thisability’ page). Since 1997 I discovered a compulsion and ability to draw accurately with both of my hands, feet and elbows. As an architect and dancer I believed this compulsion to be a combination of emotional motivation and physical skill. After gaining an ‘Arts-in-health’ qualification I conducted art workshops in hospitals and day-centres with people suffering from brain injury or disorder and presented my first exhibition ‘Thisability’ in 2010 which explored proprioception, drawing as a ‘sense of being’. During the engagement with University of Birmingham I observed student lectures; presented in joint seminars for Bioscience students; participated as subject on quantitative experiments devised by Psychology graduate / postgraduate students and, finally, performed live drawing events for student, staff and public to engage. This resulted in a number of new foot drawing art works including scorpion and king crab,from Bioscience collections, and finally the Foyer space of the Psychology School (Hills Building) Bioscience students studying muscle plasticity and adaptation gave extremely positive feedback, they found the art-science joint seminars (Dr S K Thorpe and Saranjit Birdi) elucidated their theory lectures, deepened their understanding and were enjoyable. Psychology students, led by Evangelina Fringi, worked on a more intimate scale observing the artist and other subjects, designing innovative research experiments with motion capture equipment in order to gather and analyse data to study proprioception, cognition and other psychological states. Experiments involved, for example, drawing simple forms on a piece of paper whilst gazing in different directions and using peripheral vision or blind-folding, comparing a artist's response to a 'non-artist' One very enjoyable event for me was the student-led ‘L.E.S.I.S more’ cross-faculty presentations at which I created foot drawings of a primate skull whilst Dr Nick Hawes and Dr Jackie Chappell gave a presentation on artificial intelligence, robotics and cognition. As my art practice is cross-discipline I found this environment particularly exciting. What I also enjoyed on the project was the University's desire that I should equally gain knowledge from the collaboration and am looking forward to building on l the above experience for future art-science collaborations and within my own practice.