COMPUTER-ENHANCED FOOTWEAR
DEMAKING THE HIGH HEELED SHOE: THE LIBERATION OF THE FEET FOR THEATRICAL AUDIO VISUAL EXPRESSION, 2007-2017
ALEXANDRA MURRAY-LESLIE (AU)
Alex’s practice-based research in fashionable sounding shoe and foot-based appendages made between 2007 and 2017. The research attempts to demake the physical high-heeled shoe through the iterative design and fabrication of new foot-based musical instruments. This process of demaking also changes the usual purpose of shoes and associated stereotypes of high-heeled shoe wear. Through turning high-heeled shoes into wearable musical instruments for theatrical audio visual expressivity, she questions why so many musical instruments are made for the hands, and not the feet. With this creative work, Alex explores ways to redress the imbalance and consider what a genuinely ‘foot-based’ expressivity could be.
BIO
Alex is co-founder of art band Chicks on Speed. She has been a Research Fellow at: Pier 9, Autodesk, San Francisco; the Music Technology Group, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona; and Critical Curatorial Cybermedia, Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD). She publishes academically and teaches in Interface Cultures and Fashion & Technology at the University of Art and Design, Linz.
Alex has exhibited and performed internationally at cultural institutes and festivals, including MoMA; Whitney Biennial, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia; 57th Venice Biennale; Centre Pompidiou, Paris; Centre for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe; and Ars Electronica, Linz.
She is currently undertaking a PhD in sounding footwear for performance art at the Creativity and Cognition Studios, Department of Engineering and IT, the University of Technology, Sydney.