the skin between us

BACKGROUND 'the skin between us' is a collaborative work by video artist Dominic Redfern, choreographer Siobhan Murphy, and dancers, Michaela Pegum and Jo White. The work poses the existence of corporeally dispersed human consciousness, drawing on a line of inquiry pursued in a range of disciplines that challenges Cartesian philosophy's mind/body duality. CONTRIBUTION 'the skin between us' was created by filming conversations between the dancers, with a focus across the spectrum between substantial limb-based gestures and the blinking of eyes. In collaboration the dancers, Redfern, and Murphy developed a choreography based on the small peripheral gestures and inflections of the hands, throats, lips and eyes, that reflected the video installation format of the creative research output. The installation was shaped like an exploded diagram of that which it depicts, namely the intimate kinesthesia of communication. The magnifying effect of the close video footage cracks open and displays aspects of embodied selfhood that would otherwise go unnoticed. A central tenet of the work is that these communicative gestures, these unnoticed aspects of our physical lives, betray deep emotional content. SIGNIFICANCE The work was part of 'The anatomy lesson' exhibition curated by Jenny Long which ran between September and January 2013 at the Ian Potter Museum. According to the exhibition website, 'the skin between us' was a significant contemporary contribution to the exhibition's theme of "reflection in the form of self-knowledge". In September 2013, Murphy was invited to discuss the work with a public audience at the Ian Potter Museum on behalf of the creative team.