calibuYau CV
As an artistic duo, our backgrounds blend the visual arts, neuroscience, live improvisation, human-computer interaction, creative direction, and applied storytelling. Positioned on the fringes of the arts and sciences, our research focuses on discovering inventive ways for audiences to viscerally experience data, actively engaging in the process of making and discovering.
Our foremost aim is to construct a framework where participants can themselves become artist-scientists, remaking sense of the world and sharing emerging perspectives with others. We are guided here by Reed (1996) who makes a useful distinction between secondhand experience where information has been selected, modified, packaged and presented to us by others (e.g., a teacher, scientist or artist) and first hand/primary experience where we are able to explore the world to uncover information for ourselves driven by our unique and evolving needs, characteristics and interests. He argues that Western post-industrial societies have become over-reliant on the former with implications for our overall quality of experience and associated drive to discover: “Without the opportunities to learn directly, we become less likely to think and feel for ourselves”.
Over the last decade, we have developed an artistic approach called the ‘live experiment’: dynamic and iterative cycles of interaction among researchers, practitioners, and diverse audiences. These experiments can take the form of audiovisual performances, interactive installations, and creative labs. Frequently merging biological data with virtual environments, we aim to create contexts that put the boundaries of self into question.
Echoing Dewey (1934), we believe that instead of being the fruit of abstract conception the arts and sciences should be “continuous with the very processes of living” and must be “brought against the resistance offered by actual conditions”, thriving upon the inherent uncertainty that everyday life brings.
Research Interests
- Artistic research
- Art and science collaboration
- Participation and collective experience
- Physiological sensing and biofeedback
- Adaptive and immersive environments
- Medical humanities and health technologies
- Data, embodiment and materiality
- Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies
- Environmental sensing and ecological communication
- Public engagement and knowledge exchange
- Experimental methods and live experimentation
Selected Projects
Closed Loop (2026)
Arts Council England-funded residency within Dr Samit Chakrabarty’s neurophysiology laboratory at the University of Leeds investigating adaptive digital environments shaped by research-grade biological signals sampled at up to 2000Hz.
Touching Sleep (2025)
Artwork developed with Professor Stuart Murray exploring sleep through touch rather than visualisation. Participants encounter another person’s sleep through tactile engraved artefacts generated from physiological data.
LivingBodiesObjects (2021–2025)
Five-year Wellcome Trust-funded medical humanities research programme exploring technology and the spaces of health through residencies, co-design processes, digital environments and public interventions.
AIAI: Artificial Intelligence, Art and Indigeneity (2024)
Collaborative research project with Indigenous artists and communities in Latin America exploring how AI image generation systems represent culture, identity and place. Through artist-led experimentation and critical dialogue, the project investigated questions of bias, technological colonialism and cultural representation.
Aeroecology: A Living Language for Life in the Air (2023–Present)
Research and storytelling framework developed with aeroecologist Dr Chris Hassall and partners including DEFRA, Natural England and the National Trust. The project translates atmospheric radar data into accessible narratives, creating new ways to understand relationships between migration, biodiversity, land management and environmental change.
UNRESP: Unseen but Not Unfelt (2020–2024)
Interdisciplinary research project exploring resilience to persistent volcanic emissions. Working with communities, scientists and cultural partners in Nicaragua, the project investigated how environmental sensing, local knowledge and creative methods can support new forms of environmental communication and public engagement. The project contributed to the development of VUMO, a new term combining the Spanish words volcán and humo (smoke), creating a shared language for understanding and communicating persistent volcanic emissions.
Born in Bradford VR (2019)
Immersive experience translating population health data into a navigable virtual environment using machine learning and participatory storytelling approaches. Selected for SXSW and featured through the Audience of the Future programme, XR Stories and BEYOND.
Thought Forms (2015)
EEG-driven audiovisual performance, installation and participatory artwork transforming neural activity into sound and image in real time. Developed through an early live experiment methodology exploring participation, biofeedback and adaptive systems.
Project Nimbus (2012–Present)
Long-term investigation into atmospheric media and cloud projection. Included the world’s first projection of moving images onto clouds from aircraft and a nomination for the Ars Electronica STARTS Prize.
Selected Publications
2027
Leonardo Gallery 60:2 (forthcoming)
Commissioned artist statement with response by STS scholar Kristin Hussey.
2025
Touching Sleep: Immersed Process, Dispersed Object, Situated Vulnerability
In Sleep and Its Meanings: Sociocultural Investigations from Critical Sleep Studies (MIT Press).
2025
Dragon Dreaming: Notes on Methodology for Collaborative Design of an Indigenous Image-Generation Prototype
In Artificial Intelligence and Art: Histories, Practices and Futures (University of Chicago Press).
2024
The Lab
In Constructing Sites (Bloomsbury), with Stuart Murray and Lynn Wray.
2018
From VOG to VUMO: Science Communication and the Role of Socio-Technical Interrelations in the Stabilisation of New Volcanic Realities
European Geosciences Union General Assembly.
Selected Awards & Recognition
- Winner, Engaged for Impact Award, University of Leeds (2022)
- Winner, Best Climate Emergency Film, AHRC Research in Film Awards (2021)
- Alternate Realities Award Nominee, Sheffield DocFest (2021)
- UK Government 100 Ones to Watch (Immersive Networks, 2021–22)
- STARTS Prize Nominee, Ars Electronica (2016)
Selected Presentations, Festivals & Exhibitions
- ITHRA (King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture), Saudi Arabia
- SXSW
- UKRI Annual General Meeting
- Sheffield DocFest
- COP26
- BEYOND Conference
- European Geosciences Union
- Centre for Life, Newcastle
- The Lowry, Manchester
- Leeds Art Gallery
- BBC Radio 3
- Audience of the Future Programme
- XR Stories
Selected Collaborators & Partners
- University of Leeds
- Wellcome Trust
- Arts Council England
- Born in Bradford
- MIT Press
- Leonardo Journal
- DEFRA
- Natural England
- National Trust
- Centre for Immersive Technologies
- European Geosciences Union
- XR Stories
- Audience of the Future Programme
- ITHRA
- Indigenous communities and artists across Latin America
Current Research
What Happens When Implicit Optimisation Becomes a Cultural Actor?
Current research investigates how adaptive systems increasingly shape behaviour, attention, health and participation through feedback processes operating below conscious awareness. Through artistic research, live experimentation and critical prototyping, CalibuYau explores how agency, governance and public value are transformed when optimisation emerges through distributed interactions between people, algorithms, institutions and environments. The work seeks to develop new methods for making implicit optimisation visible, tangible and discussable, opening space for alternative futures shaped by participation, care and collective agency.