Biography
David Bobier has an MFA from the University of Windsor and a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. As a multi-media artist his work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally. He has received grants from Canada Council for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Grand NCE, Ontario Arts Council and New Brunswick Arts Council. He is currently partnering with Inclusive Media and Design Centre, Ryerson University, in researching vibrotactile technology. As Founder/Director of VibraFusionLab, London, ON he follows a holistic approach to creating vibratory ‘compositions’ and investigating broader sensory applications and emotionality in art making and explores vibration as a language of artistic creation. This creative media Lab will be opening on April 1, 2014 at 355 Clarence Street, London. He is also currently Director of Development for Toronto International Deaf Film and Arts Festival, Chair and Co-Founder of London Ontario Media Arts Association
(LOMAA) and Board Member, Media Arts Network Ontario.
Statement
The notion of multiplicity in methods of language and communication is the framework for my current research and studio production. The use of the hand image plays the metaphor for touch and feel; it is the physical framework for the language of the Deaf; it poses; it gestures; it is a primary connection to the physical world; it is the brain in motion; it helps to define artistic forms and cultural aesthetics; it has been a symbol of the heart and carries the mapping of the soul. In Greek and Roman times Chironomia was developed and systemized to promote the effective gestural use of hands in traditional rhetoric and oratory. In the 1600’s the study of Chirologia, “the natural use of the hand” identified emotional states as depicted by specific hand positions and gestures. Increasingly, research is suggesting that the hand, through gesture, provides a strong argument as the instrument in the origin of language.