Charles Walker is an interdisciplinary artist who researches the intersection of fine art, music, theatre, and technology. His work focuses on how technology has transformed interactive performance and led to innovation by facilitating connections across disciplines. As a composer and multimedia artist, Walker explores the relationships between sound and visual media, such as how digital editing has created similarities between video and music production. He is currently a professor in Australia seeking to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts, particularly regarding technology and interactive performance.

1. INTERSECTION BETWEEN FINE ART, MUSIC AND THEATRE MAKING,
AND HOW TECHNOLOGY IS TURNING THE ARTS INTO A FERTILE
GROUND FOR INNOVATIVE
An accomplished musician, multimedia artist, lecturer and academic, Charles Walker makes visual art
and connects it with sound. His research focuses on the way technology has transformed possibilities
for interactive performance, and how an interdisciplinary approach leads to new knowledge and
innovation.
The connections between scientific and artistic visualization processes have fascinated Dr Walker
since he was studying computer music composition at the Oxford University of United Kingdom.
From the moment technology began transforming the music industry with file sharing, online user
experience and computer-generated composition, the lines blurred between the technical and the
artistic.
"There was a shift toward an understanding of the importance of the role of technology in the
research process in music that can be adapted to other circumstances," he says. "It is about
interactive engagement, about the relationships between technology, science and art and the way
these can work together."
Dr Walker has worked in the performing arts industry throughout his career, with each of his research
projects being realised as major works.
In 1989 he became composer-in-residence with a Theatre Company, where he wrote numerous
scores and directed a number of works, winning the Perrier Award in 1992 for his electroacoustic
experimental dance/theatre piece, Brightside.
He moved to Australia for the Expo in 1994 and worked as a musical director, composer and
producer for, among others, the Queensland Symphony, Melbourne Theatre Company and the
Queensland Theatre Company. He taught popular music and composition at Southern Cross
University and ran the jazz course at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music while pursuing his
professional career as a performer and producing records for a number of high profile performers.
He used to complete his PhD in music and applied technologies from the University of Oxford in
2004.
It was at this time that Dr Walker developed his enduring interest in the relationship between sound
and image. Digital editing processes meant there were great similarities between the production of
video and music. He began to explore how we interpret the complex interactions between the
acoustic and the visual.
A theme through many of his recent projects has been the expression of sound as moving image, and
how moving images can inform our perception of sound.
Dr Walker is Professor of Music in the School of Fine Art at University of Melbourne, where he
continued to create works for performing arts, television, theatre and site specific performance.
As Professor in Melbourne, he sees a unique opportunity to foster inter-disciplinarily between theatre
making, fine art and music, particularly in relation to technology and creating interactive performance.
His practice-led approach seeks to define the complex nature of arts research and its place in the
broader Australian research landscape.