Scanlines Remix - Black Box Projects

SCANLINES REMIX curated by Sarah Vandepeer 25 February to 10 May 2014

dLux MediaArts presents ‘Scanlines Remix’ curated by Sarah Vandepeer for Black Box Projects 25 February to 10 May 2014

dLux MediaArts presents Scanlines remix, a selection of Australian video art by contemporary established and emerging artists in parallel with works drawn from the dLux archive spanning thirty years of media arts practice.

The exhibition, curated by Sarah Vandepeer, aims to showcase the dynamism and variety of contemporary video practices and locate them within the recent tradition of Australian media art histories. Embracing current practitioners, the exhibition highlights artists who have Australia-wide and international significance.

Scanlines remix is informed by the Scanlines online database, which brings together information about Australian video artists, curators, organisations and events since the 1960s. Material on this site has been compiled from several important archives relating to video art, including the dLux MediaArts d/Archive, the archives of the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and the Stephen Jones Archive of Art & Technology in Australia.

Fabian Astore, ‘The Threshold’ 2012, HD video - 7:00mins, edition of 10

Fabian Astore Artist Statement Sitting at the threshold, the presence of childhood innocence renders complex boundaries to a moment of spiritual elevation.

Recorded serendipitously in Istanbul, Turkey January 2012.

Denis Beaubois, ‘Constant’ 2004, single channel HD video (720p) - 8:40mins, edition of 4

Denis Beaubois Artist Statement ‘Constant’ plays with the conventions of portraiture through a seemingly static individual that continuously changes its identity. The subject engages us by staring at the camera, with a fixed and un-blinking gaze. As we watch we witness the creation of 13 000 new faces, that slip by us virtually unnoticed, making it difficult to commit the face to memory.

The work came from my interpretation of conversations held with Dr Richard Kemp and Helen Patterson from the Forensic Psychology Department at the University of New South Wales. The aim of the project was to study the problem of wrongful imprisonment, through inaccurate selection of suspects in a line up environment. Within such situations there is strong pressure on the witness to identify the suspect - that is the person the police think is guilty - whilst they may not be so. Studies have shown that people tend to be better at recognising members of from their own racial group and will often confuse the identity of members from other racial groups. This makes suspect recognition problematic in crimes where the witness / victim is of a different race to the perpetrator. This pressure for resolution can lead to cases of wrongful imprisonment, particularly in situations where the perpetrator is of a different racial background to that of the victim. The morphing process through the presence of composite identities was an attempt to provide greater latitude in the displaying of potential suspects. The identification of a composite frame as a suspect would not run the risk

Ray Harris, ‘She Blows Blizzards’ 2013, HD digital video - 3:03mins, edition of 6

Ray Harris Artist Statement In exploring the psychological uses of fantasy to restructure reality, ‘She Blows Blizzards’ addresses the discrepancy between what you say and consciously want, and the compulsion of the fantasy to drive you in another direction. The substance coming from my mouth communicates the seepages of repressed material or feelings we try to keep in. This work explores the body as a container filled with mental and emotional substances that seep and project from it, exploding out from behind our conscious will.

Sue Healey, ‘Reading the Body’ 2009, single channel HD video - 6:00mins, edition of 5

Sue Healey Artist Statement A duet for dancer and animated anatomical imagery, based on a poem by Jenny Bornholdt (NZ Poet Laureate).

‘Reading the Body’ Back lit clipped on the board light goes through you shows you up in black and white for what you are – a gather of bones, a curled frond of a spine…

Neil Jenkins, ‘Horizons’ 2011, HD video, Blu-ray - 11:24mins, edition of 8

Neil Jenkins Artist Statement I am an artist whose practice is heavily engaged with electronic media, language, programming and networked communication. I am particularly interested in the creation of generative audio video work, interactive online pieces and installations that draw upon real-time data and visitor participation.

As a self-taught programmer using early home computers in the 1980s, I became fascinated by the machines ability to generate images, audio and animation and to mimic natural systems and mechanics through instructional code. The advent of the World Wide Web brought with it amazing new possibilities for me to create and self publish artwork that existed purely in a virtual space and that allowed the audience to not only to interact with the work, influencing its ongoing appearance, but also with each other. The network also afforded me the possibility of using real time data - news headlines, search engine requests, weather forecasts and other environmental data to be incorporated in or interpreted by the work.

Laresa Kosloff, ‘Swell’ 2002, digital scanned Super 8 film - 3:00mins loop, edition of 3

Laresa Kosloff Artist Statement My super 8 films capture people interacting with the built world, undertaking work and leisure activities. The Super 8 camera acts as a filter, reinterpreting everyday scenes and disengaging them from a contemporary sense of time and space. Cultural activities are reframed in new ways, playing with our impressions of the past, and assumptions about the present.

Tony Lawrence, ‘Girl on Fire’ 2009, Super 8 film/digital video, stereo sound - 2:00mins, edition of 8

Tony Lawrence Artist Statement I am a film artist based in Sydney, Australia. I create new film works utilizing found footage from my archive of over 400 films, mostly home movies - abandoned relics of a bygone era. To me the films become enhanced by decades of damage and decay, along with often vibrant colours and flickering light, these old images belong within the fragile realm of dreams and memories.

Often slowed down and using various transfer techniques and home built machines, I try to share with others the strange magic I see in these films. Enhanced by haunting soundtracks I create with antique synthesisers and piano.

Dani Marti (courtesy Arc One Gallery, Melbourne & Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide) ‘Butterfly Man’ 2012, 4k video - 16:09mins, sound by Alex Macia, edition of 3 + 1AP

Dani Marti Artist Statement I met Mark two years ago during my visit to NYC . A former antique dealer, a former actor, well read and a very intelligent and well-spoken individual.

At the time I met him, he was consuming crystal meth, among other drugs.

I met him again two years later during my artist residency in NYC. He had lost a lot of his weight and started to loose his teeth. He preferred not to acknowledge (the link) between his drug addiction and the breaking down of his body.

He mentioned that he really enjoyed ‘flagging’ and I suggested if I could film him in the studio. We organized a date and invited him to bring along any drugs he would like to take prior and during the filming.

I explained to him the concept behind the filming and how I was interested in capturing the fragility and decay of the body in contrast to the beauty and gayness of the movement of the silk of the flags in the air. I mentioned that I was going to push him to exhaustion. We filmed for 3 hours.

A month later I saw him again. He had an eye patch (pirate style) due to an eye infection and some ulcers in his forehead. I suggested him to have a second session, and we did the following night.

Kate Murphy, ‘Cry me a future (Dublin)’ 2006, single channel digital video installation with sound - 12:00mins, edition of 5

Kate Murphy Artist Statement Kate Murphy’s self-portrait ‘Cry me a future’, pays homage to festive periods spent alone reminiscing about the past and wondering what the future holds. Murphy’s recording of a visit to a psychic alludes to our desire to search for answers of what awaits us in the future while exploring societal anxiety about relationships, money, grief and loss.

James Newitt ‘Untitled’ 2010-11, HDV, silent - 2:35mins, edition of 3 + 1AP

James Newitt Artist Statement Untitled is a document of a performance in public space that was both a demonstration and a celebration. A group of people move rhythmically through the centre of a city listening to a soundtrack only audible through individual headphones.

The group moves silently in unison while each person is consumed within their own private soundscape. The performance represents a conjuncture of internalised experience and external circumstance, although the video refuses to reveal the specific social and political context of the event.

Jess Olivieri & Hayley Forward (with the Sydney Chamber Choir), ‘Harlequins V’s Visitors’ 2012, HD video - 7:10mins, edition of 5

Jess Olivieri + Hayley Forward Artist Statement Shot at the Campbelltown Show Grounds, home to the Harlequins Rugby Team ‘Harlequins V’s Visitors’ calls the imaginary game between art and sport through a series of vocal warm ups sung by the Sydney Chamber Choir. .

Sam Smith (courtesy of Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane), ‘Into The Void’ 2009, single channel HD video, stereo, colour - 5:50mins, edition of 3 + 1AP

Sam Smith (courtesy of Ryan Renshaw Gallery, Brisbane) Artist Statement Sam Smith works across sculptural construction and moving image to create a visual language that speaks to both the history of cinema and its possible future forms. By intersecting the formal and conceptual frameworks that have previously separated these artistic disciplines, Smith asks us to rethink sculpture as montage, cinematic editing as object construction, and technical image apparatus as subject.

Using montage, multiple exposure and digital compositing ‘Into The Void’ (2009) builds a tangent narrative. The artist searches New York for works of International Klein Blue (IKB) and a location that reflects the site where Yves Klein famously staged ‘Le Saut dans le Vide’ (The Leap into the Void, 1960). Once the IKB works are found the artist extends his arms into the pigment, delving into the blue screen void. The work culminates in a time-based recreation of Klein’s famous jump: the artist hovers not only in space but also in time, suspended in a digital loop.

Gary Willis & Eva Schramm ‘Te Ve Vu Du’ 1980 video, silent - 1:21mins edition of 5

Gary Willis Artist Statement My video work has a short history. Although it arguably began in 1973 with a 5 minute piece designed for ABC Television (Canberra) ‘About Face’ - this tape has since been lost.

The rest of my video work is thus far confined to one specific period of my life 1979 – 1982. These works came at the end of the 1970’s after I had become known as a conceptual/performance artist.

This period began in 1979 when I conceived a work for public television whilst living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York; ’Is This What you Call Love?’ I produced this work on my return to Australia with funding from the Australian Film Commission and my partner at the time - Eva Schramm.

The subsequent works, ‘Te Ve Vu Du’ – ‘Holy Word’ – ‘Strategies for Goodbye’, were built as in the medium of video/television to speak directly to a screen audience. They made a decisive break with my own history as a performance artist and were never repeated.

All of these works were exhibited in conduction with the ‘Diagrams 4 Clones’ exhibition at Reconaissance Gallery in Fitzroy 1981. ‘Strategies for Goodbye’ was later revised and re-edited. They share a post-punk aesthetic with the static 2D works of the ‘Diagrams 4 Clones’ exhibition (laminated electrical tape and vinyl sheeting).

At the end of this period I moved to central Australia and completely changed the aesthetic parameters of my work.

I never went back to either video-tape or plastic laminated vinyl.

Although I have never stopped production as an artist, subsequent bodies of work appear to bear little relation each other. As Kate Challis put it in her essay on my work on ‘La Commedia del Arte’ ( 1997) - entitled ‘Like a masked traveller drifting through time’; ‘Willis is a vertical raider, claiming no language as native tongue and no culture as indigenous. He is a contextualist, appropriating visual language and themes relevant to his own personal concerns, and his cultural context, such that each body of work bears little resemblance to the previous. Willis has no single style. This is a reliable trait throughout all his work.’

Paul Winkler, ‘Bondi’ 1979, 16mm film - 14:21mins

Paul Winkler Artist Statement Filmmaking has always been a journey into the unknown for me. Each new film demands its own trajectory. I might start with a particular idea and then, after the first 100 feet of exposed film comes back, the images tell me which way to go, or not go.

There is always a kind of pull between me and the material photographed, something opens up. If everything works out fine and the images connect to me and I can almost hear the sound they want, it is one hell of elation running through you mind and body, unbelievable. To sum up: my approach to filmmaking is primarily an organic one. The films are a synthesis of intellect and emotion all filtered through the plastic material of film. I try to let images flow freely to the surface.

B R E N D A M AY

G A L L E R Y

2 D a n k s S t r e e t Wa t e r l o o N S W A u s t r a l i a 2 0 1 7 www.brendamaygallery.com.au info@brendamaygallery.com.au tuesday - friday 11-6 saturday 10-6 t. 02 9318 1122 f. 02 9318 1007