Sophie Hedderwick
Sophie is a multimedia artist/researcher, completing a practice research PhD at Birmingham School of Art, funded by M3C/AHRC. She has worked as a performer, textile designer and media artist, and her practice is a synthesis of the body, technology, and movement. Sophie designs and makes interactive and sensory installations, using photography, film, VR, and haptic interfaces using smart textiles and biomaterials, that map bodily responses.
She have worked for 25 years as an interdisciplinary artist with choreographers and dancers from the Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Sonia Sabri Company, young dancers from DanceXchange, composers Jonathan Girling and Andrea Granitzio, to name but a few.
Sophie has exhibited interactive light works in New York (2007) and the Hippodrome Theatre (2010) and interactive films – which were live video-mapped – at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (2013) the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2013) and the Patrick Centre, Birmingham (2012). Her artworks have been exhibited worldwide, including photography at the Venice Art Bienale (2009), a VR installation at Godsbanen Arts, Aarhus (2018) an experimental short film and an interactive light rug at the Dutch Film and Design Festival (2011).
In 2017 Sophie ran a masterclass at the Data Arena, UTS, Sydney, showing 3D scans. This created a step change in her practice, whereby she began experimenting with ways of experiencing a virtual body, and how the participant can become an agent of the artwork.