Dr Tracey M Benson is an Australian based interdisciplinary artist, UX designer, researcher and founder of Treecreate. She is passionate about more-than-human design and bridging the links between western ways of thinking with experiential and interconnected knowledge.
Tracey works at the nexus of media arts, digital transformation, ecological systems and citizen empowerment. Her work focuses on issues related to belonging, place, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour change. Experimentation and collaboration is central to her creative practice, also exploring emerging and traditional media tools to engage audiences to see their places with fresh eyes.
She brings these diverse elements together to heighten a connection to place through a range of embodied modalities including meditation and walking as well as dowsing and Reiki. Tracey is a trained Reiki Master, with a Usui Reiki Ryoho linage, a traditional Japanese line starting with Mikao Usui through to Hiroshi Doi, Frans Stiene and Diana Fels.
Her work has been extensively presented internationally in media arts festivals and exhibitions. With a passion for understanding different knowledge systems and engaging audiences, she often collaborates with Indigenous communities and Elders, historians, technologists and scientists.
Tracey most recently co-designed and facilitated the international program Meeting of the Waters:Locative Media Oceania in collaboration with Supercluster, hosted by the Centre for Applied Water Science at University of Canberra. She is listed as an expert with the Australian Academy of Science for her work on citizen engagement and behaviour change around energy and household sustainability.
Academic overview
In 2001 she received a Research MA from Queensland University of Technology, focusing on souvenirs, nostalgia and personal identity. In 2010 Tracey was awarded a PhD at The Australian National University, where her thesis explored online communities, activism and social networking tools. She lectures internationally and holds adjunct positions at University of Canberra, the More than Human Lab at Victoria University, Wellington, NZ, the eXtended Reality Collective at Charles Sturt University and is an Advisor for the TransArt Institute. As an independent academic, Tracey has assessed a number of PhDs and is an advisor for PhDs in Australia, UK and USA across a range of disciplines including organisational psychology, media arts and urban design. She is currently working as a sessional academic at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Tracey is a personality of generousity; directed, cooperative, an artist of life, she changes where she lives. She combines a capacity to research her materials appropriately with a brilliantly original and controlled theatrical direction in realising them in performance and installation works. I recommend her and her work unreservedly. Paul Carter
Curriculum Vitæ
- Academic CV – Dr Tracey M Benson (Google Doc)
- Artist CV 2 page (Google Doc)
- Artist profile (Google Doc)
Tracey M Benson || Bytetime 