I am a Lecturer in Future Media Production and a practising artist-researcher working across art, science, ecology and technology. My practice creates experimental interfaces between living systems, materials, technologies and human perception, using creative coding, sound, photography, video, bio-art, sensors, electronics and workshops.

Across my work, I explore how hidden systems can be made visible, audible or felt. Earlier projects investigated fluid systems, microscopic pond life, electrogenic fish, hand-built electronic sound instruments and perceptual illusions, often through low-tech hands on experiments that used light, sound and responsive materials to create fragile situations for observation and interaction.

My recent research extends these concerns into eco-technological systems, urban ecology, mosses, pond life and walking as research. Through teaching, workshops and collaborative experimentation, I am interested in how people encounter the world through more-than-human life, technical systems and shared acts of attention.

https://antonyhall.net/blog/

Research and collaboration:
Alongside my teaching practice, I am active in a number of research groups, artist collectives and creative technology networks. I am a member of the Embodied Experiences and Earthly Practices research groups. During my PhD research (completed 2022), I worked with experimental psychologists to explore perception and illusion. The project evolved into a collaborative project exploring movement and sesory perception in older autistic adults and people with Parkinson’s.  I am also a member of Proximity collective, para-lab and Owl Project www.owlproject.com whose work combines performance, sound art, sculpture, craft and electronics. 

I am an organiser of Dorkbot Manchester, a regular meetup for artists, designers, engineers, researchers and creative technologists working under the broad umbrella of electronic art. https://dorkbotmcr.org

Career highlights

~Flow’ Owl Project and Ed Carter was a specially created tidemill, a floating building on the river Tyne in Newcastle which enabled sound to be created from the river’s tide and for the public to create their own music. ‘~Flow’ generated its own power using a tidal water wheel. The audience could experience electro acoustic musical machinery and instruments which responded to the constantly changing environment of the river, generating sound and data. One of twelve extraordinary commissions selected by the Arts Council’s ‘Artists taking the lead’ North East commission, as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. ‘~Flow’ attracted around 50,000 visitors during its six months on the river Tyne. See the project here https://vimeo.com/52165936?fl=pl&fe=vl 

Owl Project are Steve Symons, Simon Blackmore and Antony Hall we work in sound, performance and sculpture, often creating digital sounds from objects made from wood.Their work explores the relationship between technology, consumer products and sound with a focus on the craft of woodworking. Owl Project were in residence at Manchester Museum as part of ‘Invisible Dust in Museums’ in 2015.

“Post Pansonic uppercase electronica” – The Wire magazine, Nov, 2008

“The Owl Project are a wonderful combination of inventiveness, precision, lateral thinking and single-minded quirkiness” – Tim Marlow, White Cube Gallery 2009

Owl Project have performed and exhibited internationally.  In 2014 their project ‘Sound Lathe’ continues to be shown as part of ‘Sound Matters’ a touring show curated by the crafts council and they have been commissioned by ‘Barnaby Arts Festival’. In 2013 they were commissioned by Mid Pennine Arts to make ‘K-Scope’ a site  specific installation at Turton Tower, Blackburn, and also solo show at Bildmuseet Umea, Sweden.

Previous performances have been shown at Les Urbaines Festival (Lausanne, Switzerland), SARC, (Belfast, Ireland) as part of ISEA 2009, and a solo show at Lydgalleriet, Bergen, Norway, 2008. Sound Lathe 2005 installation/performance became headline act at the Sonic Arts Network EXPO 2006 event in Manchester. In 2007 Owl Project were commissioned by Lovebytes, Sheffield, to produce ‘chair’ using the Sound Lathe, with the renowned green woodworker Mike Abbott. Sound Lathe was shortlisted & exhibited for the SHARE prize (Torino, IT) 2008. In 2009 they won Urbis’s  ‘Best of Manchester Award’.‘ www.owlproject.com

My research into perceptual illusion and multisensory experience examines how perception can operate as an interface. Working with experimental psychology, I have used participatory workshops to explore body image, sensory suggestion, hallucination, illusion and the ways that tools, environments and social situations can alter what we feel, notice or believe we perceive. https://antonyhall.net/blog/phd-exhibition/

Much of my earlier practice took the form of tabletop experiments: constructed systems that used liquids, bubbles, droplets, pumps, lenses, lasers and biological materials to sustain fragile behaviours for observation. These works were not simply demonstrations of phenomena, but active systems that needed to be maintained, adjusted and cared for. They explored the point at which a process begins to fail, transform or reveal unexpected complexity. https://antonyhall.net/blog/

ENKI was a series of experiments in bio-interfacing between humans and Electrogenic Fish. This is achieved through psycho-acoustic audio and visual entrainment as a means of modulating human emotional state. During this process bio-electrical activity is monitored and used as a means to create a feedback loop between organisms. The research aimed to study interaction between tiny bio-electrical fields of both species [human and fish] specifically the they way in which these fields modulate and the means of controlling them. It also aimed to discover if it is possible to create a harmonious state of interaction that can be of benefit to both species, no matter how different.

The ENKI project was developed through an Arts council, International Artists Fellowship, Pepiniere programme, Paris, with Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) France in 2006. Since then it has been continually developing. It has been shown in the UK Europe including, Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, NL, CAAC, Seville, Spain 2007. International Festival of Art /Science /New Technologies, Prague, the European Forum for Emerging Creation Luxembourg and Spectropia08, Riga, Latvia. 9 ‘ENKI Experiment 3’ was commissioned by Arts Catalyst for the show Interspecies. And shown for my solo show atKapellica Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia 2013.