Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is Reader in Digital Performance and Head of the Performance Research Centre. She is a professional performance artist and writer working internationally and has created ten digital performance works since 2000 that have experimented with bringing impossible performers to the live arena. These have included Mary’s own cartoon double, a phenomenal animated performer that can do anything except leave the screen, and the world’s smallest performer (viewed with the aid of opera glasses).

In a performance designed to frighten children, she performed with her virtual child-eating head in a pet carrier. Her seminal work "Mother Tongue" (ICA, Royal Exchange 2001-2) was the first full length live performance work to be created for and delivered via computer, allowing her to play five roles simultaneously. From 2008-9 (AHRC and ACE funded) she collaborated with Liquid Animation Studios and award winning animator Rozi Fuller to create two performance duets with animations. Her novel approach to scriptwriting includes the development of several motion responsive characterful objects that deliver a non-linear playful narrative and this research has led to the development of a number of advances in approaches to the design of the performative human-technology-interface.

Mary was organisor of the international symposium the As Yet Impossible: in human performance in May 2011 that took place at our partner organisation the Lowry Centre, which brought Artists and Scientists in close collaboration to explore our future potential relationship with technology. She is currently planning follow up events including collaborations with the Waag Society Media Lab, Amsterdam.

She is currently organisor of the HEIF funded As Yet Impossible public lecture series which is bringing international researchers from the arts and sciences who are working at the periphery of what is physically possible, to inform and inspire staff, students and the public at large to think about our collaborative futures.

Her work has been described as ‘sharpest comedy currently being performed’ (Philip Auslander) ‘highly endearing’ (Andrea Zapp) ‘too entertaining for the live arts scene’ (Tamsin Drury) ‘One of the highlights of the Sensitive Skin Festival’ (Robert Ayers.)