Andy Bates is an interactive artist, designer, researcher and PhD candidate in the Urban Informatics group within the QUT Design Lab. Andy has held roles as an associate lecturer across both Interaction Design and Visual Communication disciplines in the QUT School of Design and is currently a sessional academic for Tangible Media and Embodied Interactions.

Andy’s PhD focuses on the phenomenon of biophilia, and particularly how interactive artworks might facilitate biophilic experiences, which can be understood as experiences that evoke a deeply felt sense of connectedness to life – plants, animals and other human beings. The study involves the application of biophilic design principles, which have been adapted from architectural studies to interactive art, as well as the creation and evaluation of an interactive artwork that has been designed using these biophilic design principles.

While this research initially began as a study focused on ways to inspire new ways designing interactive artworks that connect us to nature, it has evolved into a project that holds great significance as experiencing biophilia is evidenced to promote both wellbeing in humans as well as having positive impacts on how people perceive and treat natural environments – which is quite relevant to the current discourse around climate change and the Anthropocene.

Sympathetic Skin (2020) is a site-specific interactive artwork and iteration of Symbiotic Skin (2018), designed specifically for Yonder 2020.This installation poses the question, how do we sympathise with those who are still forcibly kept distant from their kin? Audiences can build intimate relationships with animate creatures that flicker and cry out for connection.