Graduate Academy Member 2021
Jessica Laraine Williams is a transdisciplinary researcher, visual artist, writer and part time PhD candidate at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Her creative work relates to interests in performative identity, relational cartography (systems) and institutional critique. Jess has been working for over a decade as a clinical physiotherapist, and now specialises in aged care physiotherapy.
Still from White Passing (2020), single channel video with sound and subtitles (English), 8:42 mins
In its final year of candidature, Jess’ PhD research situates the posthuman through transdisciplinary work with art, oriented through the perspective of an embedded practitioner in the field. In this dissertation, she documents and discursively reflects on her contributions to three major projects that span matters of human-nonhuman concern including posthuman nature, multispecies translation, and the speculative valences of technology. These projects are contextualised by a number of formal outputs and related case studies in art and critical theory aligned with posthumanist frameworks.
Supervisors: Dr Danny Butt, Dr Alex Martinis Roe
Jess’ research outputs reflect the diversity of her transdisciplinary practice. Recent and upcoming publications include popular, art professional and scholarly platforms such as Art+Australia, The Conversation, and Virtual Creativity journal. She exhibits and practices as an artist regularly with the Creative Occupation artist collective, based in Geelong. Jess has been awarded the Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative (CAWRI) PhD Top-up Grant as research convener of Virtual Nature, Inner Forest (an extended reality, collaborative health-arts project).
Still from Hands-On, After the Distance (2021), single channel video with sound (English), 4:15 mins