Nic Sandiland
Nic Sandiland is a UK based artist working across installation, performance, and film.
He originally trained as an electronics engineer before studying dance, performance, and fine art. Over the past 30 years, his practice has centred on the presence and actions of the viewer and how, through digital mediation and interaction, we can reconcile our physical bodies with the progressively techno-centric world we find ourselves in.
Through his work, Nic seeks to re-enliven the body, revisiting and revaluing the viewer’s actions through their innate physical presence. To do this, his work has drawn on cinematic techniques such as slow motion and moving camera mechanisms as well as, more recently, machine vision, LiDAR, and robotics. He has made work in London, Europe and Southeast Asia and has presented at theatres, art galleries, and many unusual venues. His film work has been shown worldwide and has been broadcast on UK TV (Channel 4).
Nic’s work has been commissioned by organisations such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican Arts Centre, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, and The Brighton Festival, and he is a regular collaborator with choreographers Yael Flexer and Rosemary Lee. Alongside this Nic has also worked as an interactive technology designer with artists Station House Opera, Blast Theory, Gary Stevens and Imogen Stidworthy. Recently he was the producer for BBC award-winning online experience, Flight Paths, directed by Extant Theatre, the UK’s leading professional performing arts company of visually impaired artists and theatre practitioners.
Nic has taught workshops on digital technology and dance around the World including Bangalore, India and Seoul, South Korea. He also taught video production for 10 years at London Contemporary Dance School (MA dance for camera) and is currently a senior lecturer in fine art at Middlesex University.
In 2022 Nic completed his PhD on agency within interactive installation.
Conference papers and presentations
Disappearing Acts
(joint paper with Dr Yael Flexer)
2016 Terror on Tour conference, Chichester University
Modulation in Interactive Installation
2013 Affective Experiences conference at Parasol Unit, London produced between City University, Middlesex University, UCL and Kings College London
2013 Corporeal Computing conference at University of Surrey
Modulation of Movement and Composite Choreography
2011 Digital Futures in Dance Conference, Bournemouth
Victorian Film Mechanisms and Physical Interaction
2009 Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) Tel Aviv University.
Interactivity and Public Choreography
2007 The Future of Media Symposium, The Lansdown Centre of Electronic Art, Middlesex University, UK
2007 Tel Aviv University, Israel
New Media in Performance
2006 Matin Dance and Education, Israel
Site-specific Performance and the Reconfiguring of Theatrical Space
2005 Anywhere but the Stage Conference, Surrey University & Woking Dance Festival
Recordings
Crossing Borders, 2013
Artists Katja Nyqvist and Nic Sandiland discuss the role of audiences’ everyday movements and cinematic techniques in shaping interactive choreography. Crossing Borders is a series of talks curated by Frank Bock that invites UK and international practitioners whose work understands movement and embodiment through a variety of different forms. Art practice, neuroscience, somatics and curation underpin the many contexts where such explorations take place. Presented by Independent Dance at the Siobhan Davies Studios, London.
Crossing Borders, 2011
Nic looks at the inter-relationship between live movement and prerecorded movement as a fundamental aspect of his practice over the past 10 years aiming to show that through various digital interfaces (motion tracking – ultrasound, infra red and now hacked Kinect sensors) how one can achieve an intimate movement-based relationship between pedestrian movement in everyday environments (members of the public in high streets, town squares etc.) and dancer/performers in in a cinematic environment. Presented by Independent Dance at the Siobhan Davies Studios, London.
Reviews
Remote Dancing 2004-9
Review from The Guardian by Judith Mackrell 2004
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Frozen Progress 2001
Review from The Observer by Jan Parry 2001
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Big Satellite Days 1998
Review from Total Theatre by Jane Martin 1998
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About the Weather 1996
Review from Live Art Magazine by Josephine Leask 1996
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Perpetual Indecision and other works 1996
Review from Live Art Magazine by Josephine Leask 1996
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Broken White Vessel 1995
Review from Total Theatre by Fiona Millward 1995
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