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
2020 Good Design Award: Winner
2019 Rupert Bunny Foundation Visual Art Fellowship: Winner
2018 Good Design Award: Winner
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
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
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
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
