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Alex Murray-Leslie

Chicks on Speed, University of Technology | Sydney, Australia

Alex Murray-Leslie

Chicks on Speed, University of Technology | Sydney, Australia

Biography

Alexandra Murray-Leslie is a PhD candidate, Creativity and Cognition Studios, The University of Technology, Sydney and co-founder of Chicks on Speed, an internationally renowned art ensemble. Alex’s current practice based research is Fashion Acoustics: wearable musical instrument design for live-art performance focussing on the development of computer enhanced footwear for arial dance practice and musical composition with possible health applications.


FOOTwerk

Chicks on Speed presents FOOTwerk, improvisations in gender, sound and space, a short film by Alexandra Murray-Leslie in collaboration with Marla Bendini, Max Kibardin and Kenneth Feinstein, featuring Melissa Logan, supported by Nanyang Technological University, Creativity and Cognition Studios, University of Technology Sydney, Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore and Australia Council for the Arts.
A film exploring the audio visual aestheticisation of the human body via body-centric data, generated from the movements of a pole dancer wearing computer enhanced foot-wearables.The film features Chicks on Speed and trans-gender activist and artist Marla Bendini, who injects an urgency into the film, from her context – that of being the only trans-gender artist in Singapore. In Marla’s words “my body is illegal in Singapore” an attitude she exerts via a new sonic-body-language, challenging notions of silence associated with “sexy” pole dancing, with a new empowered voice expressed through Marla’s arial footwork whilst wearing computer enhanced foot-wearables and their outputted data, which is transformed into a realtime aural gestural composition.

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<span style=”line-height: 1.5;”>IMAGE CREDITs :</span>

FOOTwerk, by Alexandra Murray- Leslie, featuring Melissa Logan, Alex Murray-Leslie, (Chicks on Speed). Computer enhanced footwear by Alexandra Murray-Leslie in collaboration with Max Kibardin. Make-up by Andrea Claire, artformance wear by Dinu Bodicciu. Photo by Andrea Claire. Courtesy of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore.

FOOTwerk, by Alexandra Murray- Leslie in collaboration with Marla Bendini, Computer enhanced footwear by Alexandra Murray-Leslie in collaboration with Max Kibardin. NTU CCA Residencies OPEN as part of Art Day Out, 25 July 2015. Courtesy of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore.

FOOTwerk, by Alexandra Murray- Leslie in collaboration with Marla Bendini.
Computer enhanced footwear by Alexandra Murray-Leslie in collaboration with Max Kibardin. NTU CCA Residencies OPEN as part of Art Day Out, 25 July 2015. Courtesy of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore.