Sally Jane Norman

Sally Jane Norman

Next: Sally Pryor »

« Previous: Sally Abu Bakr

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

ISEA2014

Since 2010 as Professor of Performance Technologies at the University of Sussex (UK), Sally Jane Norman has directed strategic development of the Attenborough Centre for creative research, while teaching and supervising on interdisciplinary post-graduate programmes; from 2015 she will be co-investigator of the new Sussex Humanities Lab. Holder of dual nationality (Aotearoa-New Zealand/ France), and a Doctorat d’Etat and Doctorat de 3è cycle (Paris III), her research spanning art and technology focuses on liveness and performance, scenography and sound environments.

Alongside academic publications, she engages in creative practice (including past initiatives at the International Institute of Puppetry, Charleville-Mézières, and the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music, Amsterdam, as artistic co-director from 1998-2000). Sally Jane participated in the first jury of the Vida Art and Artificial Life competition launched in 1999 by Telefonica Foundation, Madrid, to which she has regularly contributed since. From 2004-09 she was founding director of Culture Lab, Newcastle University’s interdisciplinary digital hub, helping secure its UK Digital Economy Centre status. Previously as Director General of the Ecole européenne supérieure de l’image, Angoulême-Poitiers, she launched a Digital Arts doctoral programme. She has been part of international cultural lobbying groups and institutional consortia since the nineties, including as EU Framework Programme researcher at the Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe). Sally Jane ensures advisory missions for the European Research Council and organisations in the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Portugal, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden.

ISEA2011

Sally Jane Norman is the Director of the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts and Professor of Performance Technologies at Sussex University (UK). After obtaining an MA at the University of Canterbury, Aotearoa/New Zealand, she received a Doctorat de 3eme cycle (1980) and a Doctorat d’etat (1990) from the Institut d’etudes theÃ¢trales, Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle. Her work on art and technology has involved collaboration with various organisations including the Performing Arts Laboratory of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unesco, and the French Ministry of Culture, and has led to numerous publications in French and English. In 1993 she directed the Louvre’s New Images and Museology conference. She has developed research projects at the International Institute of Puppetry (Charleville-Mezieres), Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (Karlsruhe), and Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (Amsterdam), where she was Artistic Co-Director from 1998-2000. As Director General of the Ecole Superieure de l’Image (Angouleme/ Poitiers), she launched a practice-based Digital Arts Ph.D program, subsequently leaving France in autumn 2004 for Newcastle University to create and direct Culture Lab, an interdisciplinary research facility. In January 2010 she went to the University of Sussex to found the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, a resource designed to nurture and catalyse the radically interdisciplinary, uniquely creative research for which Sussex is renowned, and which encompasses pioneering artificial life and artificial intelligence initiatives. Sally Jane’s work engages with collaborative interdisciplinary practice, relations between art and technology, and disruptive innovation processes. She frequently advises on research and cultural policy frameworks and regularly reviews texts and contemporary creative work for national and international academic and cultural bodies.

ISEA1995

Sally Jane Norman, Aotearoa (New Zealand)/France, is a performing arts theorist, author of numerous articles on the body and new technologies; organizer of an international motion capture course in 1994.

Born in New Zealand, Sally Jane Norman studied at Canterbury University then completed a Doctorat de 3e cycle and a Doctorat d’etat in Theater Studies at Paris III. She took courses with Stockhausen, Xenakis, and Cage, and was member of the CAIRN artists’ cooperative. Her articles on performing arts and new technologies include publications with the Performing Arts Laboratory of the CNRS. She directed the “New Images and Museology” conference at the Louvre in 1993, and a motion capture course at the International Puppetry Institute in 1994. Trained in classical dance and martial arts.