Eugenie Lee and chronic pain research with Body in Mind (Sansom Institute, Unversity of SA) and Charles Perkins Centre (University of Sydney)

Here is a brief introduction of myself and my project for Synapse residency 2015 by Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT).

I am an interdisciplinary artist with a strong focus on chronic pain, founded on my own personal pain experience. For the last few years I’ve been working on sculptures, installations, performance and paintings to communicate the complexities of chronic pain issues.

In 2014, I received a research residency grant from Accessible Arts to work with a neuroscientist who specialises in chronic pain, Professor Lorimer Moseley, and his team Body in Mind (BIM) at the University of SA and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) in Sydney. The 8 month long residency gave me an opportunity to learn, witness and participate in various scientific experiments and studies, and also to meet a number of world-renowned scientists in the field.

During my Synapse residency this year I will be researching and developing toward an artwork with my collaborating scientists that will simulate the experiences of chronic pain patients – specifically of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) – within a Virtual Reality Environment (VRE). The idea for this VRE concept came as a direct result of Accessible Arts research residency. To accompany the VRE I will also be looking into creating an installation to enhance the VR experience – possibly by incorporating other fun devices to manipulate visual perception in the brain of a participant.

Chronic pain is a complex disease and studies into it have shown that by altering our sensory perceptions the brain can be made to interpret pain differently. This is the core theme of what we are trying to experiment during my residency.

The key members of the project team are:

Dr. Tasha Stanton, a postdoctoral research fellow from Body in Mind (BIM), Sansom Institute, UniSA and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA),

Prof. Philip Poronnik, a professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Sydney (USYD),

Dr. Valeria Bellan (BIM),

Dr. Carolyn Berryman (BIM),

Stuart Esdaile, a programmer, IdeaLab (USYD)

Rosie Menzies, a medical student, programmer (USYD)

Matindi Twyford-Moore, science student (USYD)