Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris

Raewyn Turner
Raewyn is an interdisciplinary visual artist concerned with cross-sensory perception and the unchartered territories of the senses, creating videos, interactive installations, paintings and theatre performances She has worked with olfaction since 1999. She was the conceptual artist for Multisensory Four Senses Concerts for the Deaf 1999 and 2002, twice performed as the aroma jockey for Sencity, and was design theatre artist and lighting designer for eight years with Split Enz and ENZO. She received a Fulbright Grant for an artists residency at Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Plume 2009 in collaboration with Dr R Newcomb, Plant and Food Research, NZ, STEEP 2015 in collaboration with Maryse de la Giroday (CA), ReSense 2007 in collaboration with electronics artist Diana Burgoyne Banff Fleck Fellow (CA), Co-Production with the Banff New Media Institute.

Brian Harris
Brian trained in radio physics at the University of Auckland 1960–72 and has a science and electronics background. He has worked as a design engineer creating computer controlled and embedded devices for motion picture cameras and other special robotic projects for the local and international film industry. An independent designer for 30 years, Brian creates large scale finely tuned adaptive mechatronics and bespoke equipment. Brian’s inventions for motion control, stabilising camera mounts for aerial photography and robotic trajectories have been used in local and international TV, commercial and film productions including classic and groundbreaking New Zealand films such as: Sleeping Dogs, Goodbye Pork Pie, Vigil, An Angel At My Table and Once Were Warriors.

More recently Brian has worked shoots operating his own made equipment designed specially for specific shots in productions such as: Lord of the Rings, Mr Pip, Chronicles of Narnia, and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and a large range of local and overseas TV commercials. He is currently building motion control camera equipment for Lord of the Rings productions.

Raewyn Turner & Brian Harris, Crumbs, 2021, Recycled copper, control electronics and seed dispenser mechanism, glass demijohn, stainless steel, porcelain, aluminium composite.

Raewyn Turner and Brian Harris co-create their interactive and sensory focused art installations. They combine art and engineering, intertwined with science research, often working with scientists. Their skills have been developed through their individual practices in theatre, the film industry, video, olfactory art installations and performance.

In their work Raewyn and Brian question human relationships with the world of sensory substitutions, digital synaesthesia and technology, exploring the fragrance of contemporary existence, illusion, and sense-making. Their thinking is influenced by new materials as well as the technological algorithmic analysis of data involving numerical analysis and probability; their output has become associated with new forms of sense-making.

Together they’ve participated in numerous projects with major arts institutions and universities, and been artists in residence in LAZNIA Gdansk, Poland, CEINT Centre for Environmental Implications of Nano Technology Science Centre Duke University, USA, Periodic Table, Italy and Intimate Technologies, UK, and SCANZ, They’ve won several awards including the Wallace Trust first runners up, Corbans Trust Art Award, Kinetica NZ. They've exhibited in ISEA2013, Sydney, The Big Anxiety Festival, Sydney 2017, What Taste is the Colour Blue? LA 2017, and 1st Synesthesia Art Exhibition and Forum in China -Beijing, Xu Zhou, Hang Zhou and Guang Zhou and presented SPECTRA2018 art + Science Symposium, South Australia. They’re currently working on Sensorium an art and science residency LAZNIA, Poland 2019 and 2023, and are part of the World Outreach Team, Journey Through The Senses. Los Angeles 2022–3.

<< Return to the 2021-22 Exhibition page