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The Body Malleable is a small-scale interactive work comprised of digital animation projected into a private darkened space. The user controls the animation and its synchronized audio via a custom-built physical interface.

The Body Malleable was commissioned by the Cinemedia Digital Media Fund in 2002. The invitation was to produce an interactive for the Australian Centre for the Moving Image's permanent collection. Philip Brophy proposed an interactive that would minimize anything to do with foregrounding interactive media and maximize experience. He was particularly concerned with delivering content that did not make a broad statement about interactivity. Upon its completion, The Body Malleable received its premier exhibition in the 2004: AUSTRALIAN CULTURE NOW survey at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, 2004.

The Body Malleble was thus conceptually shaped by Philip's established themes (bodies, sound, sex, etc.) and was focused on the 'digital penetration' of a single finger. The interactive took the form of a pod ball (about the size of a soccer ball) with a small opening. Placed on a table in front of a suspended screen, the particpant sticks their finger into the hole to move through a series of animated images on the screen. 4-channel surround sound accompanies the imagery. Both sound and imagery are wholly controlled by the participant's finger action. The animated images comprise a series of morphing possibilities of body parts, orifices, protrusions and organs. The synchronized soundtrack is constructed from digitally-processed fragments of human vocals.

Credits
Concept & direction: Philip Brophy
Images & rendering: Philip Brophy
Animation: Isobel Knowles
Interactive authoring: Casey Rice & Isobel Knowles
Final MAX authoring: Casey Rice
Pod shell design: Philip Brophy & Haima Marriott
Pod shell fabrication: Mother’s Art & Haima Marriott
Pod mechanical engineering design: Anthony Kitchener & Anthony Heap
Pod mechanical construction, maintenance & set-up: Anthony Heap
Sound design: Philip Brophy
MIDI implementation: Casey Rice
Special thanks: Anthony Kitchner of Cash Engineering
Production thanks: Helen Stuckey, Martine Corompt, Cornel Wilczek

ACMI installation thanks: Victoria Lynne, Alexie Glass, Michael Fairleigh
AGNSW installtion thanks: Erica Drew, Natasha Bullock, Brian Blackwell
Artage Bakery installation thanks: Marcus Canning, Ainsley, Yvonne Doherty
National Museum of Art Osaka installation thanks: Yukihiro Hirayoshi & the NMOA staff

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2007
SKIN - National Museum of Art, Osaka
EROTIC ART PRIZE inaugral invitation work - The Bakery, Perth
2006
ANNE LANDA AWARD - Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2004
2004: AUSTRALIAN CULTURE NOW - Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne

Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy