A project in collaboration with Thrill Engineer, Brendan Walker, 2009

Researchers from the Mixed Reality Lab and Horizon Digital Economy Research worked with Brendan on Broncomatic following the project ‘Breathless’, which concentrated on the relationship between pleasure and discomfort. Broncomatic explored several themes, such as gaining and exercising power, vicarious experience, loss of control, risk taking, instruction, authority and spectacle.

The Broncomatic installation was similar to that of a fairground bucking bronco, providing an intensive physical experience for a single rider (usually sufficient to throw them off) and controlled in real-time (by a human operator). However, there was a difference – Broncomatic was controlled by the riders breathing.  Find out more about this the Broncomatic project here and visit Brendan’s website to read about the Bucking Bronco: Adaptive Ride Experiment No.1

Publication: Contesting control: journeys through surrender, self-awareness and looseness of control in embodied interaction.