Barney Haynes

Barney Haynes has been working in the fields of video art, performance, reactive installation, and invasive media for 20 years. In his art he has adopted an iterative approach to media making, recombining themes and industrial surplus into media machines that evolve and mutate.

For the last seven years, he has been working on The Symbiont, an installation that has a symbiotic relationship with a lone participant. The Symbiont reacts to the participant's presence by probing and grabbing, looking for vital signs with sensors that detect breathing, eye movement, and sweat. The participant in turn affects The Symbiont by servicing its obsessive need for constant attention. So far it has had three engagements with the public: once in Hamburg, Germany, and twice in Oakland.