Dr Betty Sargeant: Artist
PhD (Creative Media, RMIT University), B.A. (Hons), B.Ed
Dr Betty Sargeant is a multi-award-winning, internationally recognised media artist. She is co-creative director and artist with the art-technology duo PluginHUMAN. Betty creates multi-sensory immersive art installations that socially and physically engage audiences.
Betty has exhibited internationally (Asia, Europe, North America, Australia). She has won Good Design Awards (2020 and 2018) and a Premier’s Design Award (2017) for her progressive artworks. She was the Melbourne Knowledge Fellow (2016), was artist-in-residence at the Exertion Games Lab, RMIT University (2017-19); and was creator-in-residence at the Asia Culture Centre (South Korea, 2016-17). Betty’s PhD was ranked top three at the CHASS Prize (2015). Her CV is available on LinkedIn. She has academic publications and regularly speaks at public events. In 2019 Betty represented Australia in a federal government cultural delegation to India focusing on partnership building and future collaborations (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Asialink 2019).
Betty has created media art installations for institutions such as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (Taiwan, 2018), Questacon (the National Science and Technology Museum, Australia, 2018) and the Asia Culture Centre (South Korea, 2016 & 2017).
SELECTION OF RECENT AWARDS AND ACCOLADES
2022 Good Design Award, Indigenous Design Award: Highly Commended (PluginHUMAN + Lorraine Brigdale).
2022 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, Australia: Shortlisted (PluginHUMAN).
2021 Victorian Pride Centre’s Visual Art Working Group: Selected member.
2020 Good Design Award: Winner (PluginHUMAN).
2019 Rupert Bunny Foundation Visual Art Fellowship: Winner (PluginHUMAN).
2018 Good Design Award: Winner (PluginHUMAN).
2017 Premier’s Design Award: Winner.
2016 Melbourne Knowledge Fellow: Winner.
2016 Consensus Innovation Award: Winner.
2015 PhD Ranked top 3, CHASS Prize.
SELECTION OF RECENT ART INSTALLATIONS
2022 DISCO APOCALYPSE. Immersive installation. Karachi Biennale, PAKISTAN (with Lorraine Brigdale).
2022 UNEARTHED. Projection mapped mural. **Good Design Awards: Highly Commended, Indigenous Design Award**. GoTafe, Shepparton Festival, AUSTRALIA (with Lorraine Brigdale).
2021 EMERGE. 360 degree immersive projection room. MAP (Multi-Arts Pavillion) mina, AUSTRALIA.
2021 THE ART OF CONSTANT CHANGE. A video artwork controlled by brainwaves. Shepparton Festival, Shepparton Art Museum, AUSTRALIA.
2021-23 PULSE. Environment-controlled sculptural light installation. Experimenta Triennial, Experimenta Media Arts, AUSTRALIA. Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, AUSTRALIA (2021).
2020 [ I MISS YOUR TOUCH ]. Interactive online video artwork. **Winner: Good Design Award 2020**. Be/Hear-Now Festival AUSTRALIA (2020). ArtPlay, AUSTRALIA (2020).
2020 CAPTURE. Public video art projection. Rupert Bunny Visual Art Fellowship exhibition, City of Port Phillip, AUSTRALIA.
2019-20 CONCEAL. Public video art projection. Luminous Festival, AUSTRALIA (2019). Light Windows Festival, HoloCenter, NYC, USA; Centre for Projection Art, AUSTRALIA (2020).
2019 HIDDEN CITIES. Interactive art installation. C-Lab, TAIWAN.
2019 BREATHE. Environment-controlled media art installation. Melbourne Museum, White Night Festival, AUSTRALIA (2019). Geelong Performing Arts Centre, Geelong, AUSTRALIA (2019). Digital Agora Festival, AUSTRALIA (2019).
2019 QUEIMADAS [The Burning]. Experimental light installation. INPA, Manaus, BRAZIL.
2019 WITHIN. Experimental video artwork. Dinacon, PANAMA.
2019 THE LOOP. Multi-sensory projection art performance. Melbourne Knowledge Week Festival, Melbourne Meat Market, AUSTRALIA.
2019-23 FRACTAL MOODS. Interactive brain-controlled touring installation. Born or Built, Questacon, AUSTRALIA.
2018 DREAM 2.2. Interactive brain-controlled immersive art installation. National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. TAIWAN.
2018 THE WORD TREE. Interactive art installation. Oil Tank Culture Park, SOUTH KOREA.
2018 INTER-DREAM. Interactive multi-sensory art installation. RMIT University, AUSTRALIA.
2017 THE PLAYGROUND. Interactive sculptural light installation. ACT Festival, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA (2017). Ararat Regional Art Gallery, AUSTRALIA (2017). State Library of Victoria, Melbourne Knowledge Week Festival, AUSTRALIA (2017).
2016 THE STORYTELLING MACHINE. Interactive immersive art installation. **Winner: Good Design Award**. ACT Festival, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA (2016). Geelong After Dark Festival, AUSTRALIA (2017). Glen Eira City Art Gallery, AUSTRALIA (2018).
SELECTION OF RECENT ART RESIDENCIES
2022 Digital Naturalism Lab, SRI LANKA: Node Leader and Art Residency.
2019 LABVERDE, Artist Immersion in the Amazon, BRAZIL.
2019 Digital Naturalism Lab, PANAMA.
2018-19 Artists-in-Residence, XGL research lab, RMIT University, AUSTRALIA.
2017 Creators Lab, Asia Culture Institute, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA.
2016 Creators Lab, Asia Culture Institute, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA.
ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Sargeant, B, Dwyer, J, Mueller, F 2020, Investigating Novel BCI Displays that Support Personalised Engagement and Interpersonal Connections, Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ACM, New York.
Semertzidis, N, Sargeant, B, Dwyer, J, Mueller, F 2019, Towards Understanding the Design of Positive Pre-sleep Through a Neurofeedback Artistic Experience, Proceedings of the 2019 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ACM, New York.
Sargeant, B, Dwyer, J, Mueller, F 2018, Using EEG to Design Embodied Play for the Resting Mind, Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Play Conference, ACM, New York.
Sargeant, B, Dwyer, J, Mueller, F 2018, The Storytelling Machine: A Playful Participatory Automated System Featuring Crowd-Sourced Story Content, Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Play Conference, ACM, New York.
Sargeant, B, Dwyer, J, Mueller, F 2018, Using EEG Technology to Interact with Dream Visualisations: Playful Brainwave Art Workshops, Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Play Conference, ACM, New York.
Sargeant, B, Mueller, F, Dwyer, J 2017, Using HTC Vive and TouchDesigner to Projection-Map Moving Objects in 3D Space: A Playful Participatory Artwork, Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Play Conference, ACM, New York. CHI PLAY’17 ACM, New York.
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2022 Multi-Sensory Art, LASER Talks, Stanford University, USA.
2022 NATURE vs STUFF, British Council, British High Commission. Karachi, PAKISTAN.
2021 Eco-Sustainability in Arts Practice, Experimenta, School of Art, University of Tasmania, AUSTRALIA.
2020 Behind the Scenes with Immersive Multi-sensory Artworks, ACMI, AUSTRALIA.
2020 Extra-Terrestrial Ecologies, Environmental Film Festival Australia, AUSTRALIA.
2019 Inter-Reactive Art: Fostering Empathy in the Era of Climate Change, Artist Talk and Discussion, Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University, TAIWAN.
2019 Art in the Anthropocene, Artist Presentation, Dinacon, LABVERDE, the Amazon, BRAZIL.
2019 Inter-Reactive Art: Fostering Empathy in the Era of Climate Change, Keynote Speaker and Discussion Panel, C-Lab, Taipei, TAIWAN.
2019 Experimenta Social 24, Artist talk, Experimenta, ACMI X, AUSTRALIA.
2018 Korean Arts and Education Week Festival, Artist Talk and Discussion Panel–Live to TV, Oil Tank Culture Park, Seoul, SOUTH KOREA.
2018 Art, Automation and Social Identity, Keynote Presentation and Panel Discussion, Taipei Culture Lab, TAIWAN.
2018 Art and Design in the Age of Automation, Sensilab, Monash University, Melbourne AUSTRALIA.
2018 Presentation Speaker for Melbourne Knowledge Week, Veski Innovation Awards, Deakin Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.
2018 Customised Reality Opening Ceremony, Guest Speaker and Discussion Panel, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, TAIWAN.
2017 ACT Festival, Artist Talk, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA.
2017 Art, Automation and Social Identity, Invited Speaker, Melbourne Knowledge Week, AUSTRALIA.
2017 Beyond Research: Pathways to Impact, Invited Speaker, RMIT University, Melbourne Convention Centre, AUSTRALIA.
2016 ACT Festival, Artist Talk, The Storytelling Machine, Asia Culture Centre, SOUTH KOREA.
2016 STEM, Art, Technology and Multi-Literacies, Keynote speaker, Australian Literacy Educators’ Association and ACMI, ACMI, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.
2016 The Remediation Loop, Artist Talk, International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), City University, HONG KONG.
2015 Social interaction over shared mobile devices, Invited speaker, /dev/world/2015, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.
