Hollis, Edward

Dobson, Nichola

Hood, Beverley

2026-04-03T13:48:49Z

2026-04-03

The materials that form this PhD by Research Publications were published as a multimodal practice-based research project titled Eidolon. The PhD materials include a portfolio detailing a live immersive performance, an artist film installation, a virtual reality film, a fully illustrated monograph, a peer-reviewed journal article, and this critical review summarising the research methodology and contributions. Developed over five years, the research employed an interdisciplinary, distributed dissemination strategy, with publications spanning from 2016 to 2018. The research has reached large and varied audiences through presentations at international exhibitions, conferences, and events. Eidolon developed from an ongoing interest in the relational impact of technology on the body, relationships, and lived experiences, explored as a creative critique through digital media, performance art, and writing. The research reimagines our embodied and relational encounters with technology by engaging with art as an interdisciplinary research practice, undertaken in collaboration with NHS medics, technologists, professional performers, and the cultural sector. It uses creative practice as a means of critical inquiry into real-world concerns about current and near-future existence, reflecting upon the implications of our digital and technologically entangled lives. The research addresses how creative practice can be used to examine how science and technology affect our relationship to and experiences of the body, each other, and the world. Here, by teasing out the emotional, physical, and psychological presence of humanlike patient manikins used in medical training. The research examines performance art practice as a relational approach to investigate technological concerns in new ways, i.e., as an artist and creative practitioner, not as a roboticist, programmer, or engineer. Eidolon explores what new insights this can bring, not on the technicalities of science and technology, but its affective sociotechnical potential and implications. This is achieved by assembling a novel grouping of an artist-researcher, professional performers, medics, and technologists to provide new insights and experiences, sitting at a crossroads between the arts, public engagement, and academic research. The research contributes to the fields of interdisciplinary and collaborative creative research practice, placing the artist at the intersection between art, science, and technology. Eidolon was undertaken through a mixed, emergent methodology that combines practice-based research with theory, grounded in philosophy and science and technology studies (STS), drawing from feminism, posthumanism, new materialism, and phenomenology. It extends previous work undertaken by artist-researchers within the context of science and medicine, adding a relational, embodied approach, drawn from participatory performance, collaborative, and digital art practice.

https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/44563

https://doi.org/10.7488/era/7080

en

Brown, S and Hood, B (2022-2025) Surface Echoes [Multimodal artwork]. Available at: https://www.ascus.org.uk/projects/surface-echoes (Accessed: 29 January 2026)

Hood, B. (1997) Anonymous Drawing Room [Installation]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/anonymousdrawingroom (Accessed: 12 August 2025)

Hood, B. (2000) Asex [Installation]

Hood, B. (2016) Eidolon. Edinburgh: Beverley Hood

Hood, B., and Flint, T. (2017) Eidolon360 [360 VR film]. Hood, B. (2016) ‘Introduction’, Eidolon. Edinburgh: Beverley Hood. pp. 6- 8. Hood, B. (2014) ‘Eidolon – Phantasm and fidelity in the Theatre’, in TAPRA, 3 – 5 September 2014, Royal Holloway. London: pp. 100-101. Available at: https://intranet.royalholloway.ac.uk/dramaandtheatre/documents/pdf/tapraprogrammeandinformation.pdf (Accessed: 28 August 2025)

Hood, B. (2015) ‘Eidolon – reworking’, Eidolon blog, October 28. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/eidolon-reworking/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2015) ‘Eidolon – The Technological Body’ [Paper presentation], Consciousness Reframed, DeTao University, Shanghai, China. 22 November. Available at: https://i-dat.org/the-matter-of-the-immaterial/

Hood, B. (2016) ‘Eidolon: The technological body’, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, 14(3), pp. 147-158. Available at: https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/tear.14.3.147_1

Hood, B. (1998) encounter [net.artwork]. Available at: https://archive.bhood.co.uk/archive/encounter/ (Accessed: 12 August 2025)

Hood, B. (2004) Ersatz [Installation]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/ersatz (Accessed: 12 August 2025)

Hood, B. (2012) Glitching [Performance]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/glitching (Accessed: 12 August 2025)

Hood (2002) ‘Hybrid Invention’. in Candy, L. and Edmonds, E. (eds) Explorations in Art and Technology. London: Springer. pp. 179 – 184. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0197-0_19 (Accessed 21 September 2024)

Hood, B. (2021-2023) It’s all about the feelings… [Digital performance]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/its-all-about-the-feelings (Accessed 5 June 2025)

Hood, B. (1996) Les Yeux Enchantés [Net.art project]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/les-yeux-enchantes (Accessed 15 May 2024)

Hood, B. (2019) Immobile Choreography [Installation]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/immobilechoreography (Accessed: 15 May 2024)

Hood, B. (2006) Madame I [Artist film]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/madamel (Accessed 12 August 2025)

Hood, B. (2015) ‘MANIDANCE – showing’, Eidolon blog, April 22. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/manidance-showing/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2013) ‘Observation Day 1’, Eidolon blog, November 10. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/observation-day-1/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2014) ‘Performance Workshops’, Eidolon blog, August 28. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/performance-workshops/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2013) ‘Research – Brecht’, Eidolon blog, November 20. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2013/11/20/research-brecht/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2015) ‘The first performance!’, Eidolon blog, January 13. Available at: https://eidolonblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/the-first-performance/ (Accessed: 6 October 2025)

Hood, B. (2001) translocale [Performance]. Available at: https://www.bhood.co.uk/projects/trans-locale (Accessed 12 August 2025)

Hood, B., Moneypenny, M. and Stallard, M. (2017) ‘Performance Art and Simulation: a groundbreaking project’ [Paper presentation], Society in Europe for Simulation Applied to Medicine – SESAM Paris 2017, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France. 14 - 16 June. Abstract available at: https://www.sesam-web.org/media/documents/2017-abstracts.pdf (Accessed 09/07/2025)

Pfefferkorn. J. and Hood, B. (2025) ‘Computational Intimacies, from Prompting to Prose’, in Bartlett, V. Pfefferkorn, J., and Sunde, E. K. (eds) Decentring Ethics: AI Art as Method. London: Open Humanities Press. pp. 279 – 306. Available at: http://www.data-browser.net/db09.html (Accessed 4 September 2025).

Eidolon

Relational

Embodied

Interdisciplinary

Practice-based

Eidolon: a relational, embodied approach to practice-based research in art and technology

Thesis

Doctoral

PhD(P) Doctor of Philosophy by Research Publications