On a recent road trip around the Murray River in regional NSW I collected video footage of passing landscapes, shooting mainly out of the car window. I took these visual field recordings flying through space at 100km/h. Filming in this way made me think about what it means to be in a place—how we understand and connect with place—and also the idea of moving between places. The state of being in transit, of transitions, of journeying. Taking these ideas back to the studio, I have been processing the video and experimenting with different projection surfaces to create an audiovisual installation that represents a landscape in motion between one place and the next. The title, The tide toward the shore, is borrowed from George Maciunas’ 1963Fluxus Manifesto.

Come see the work at Firstdraft gallery from 15 August to 1 September 2012. Opening 6-8pm Wednesday, 15 August 2012.

More info

I will be presenting my work The Vanishing City as part of Excavation at the Armory Gallery.

I will be blogging about my residency here.

The project I am developing during the residency is an interactive audiovisual installation using archival material called The South Sydney Project. The archive I am working with was created by historian Sue Rosen in the early ‘90s. It charts a social history of 20th century South Sydney through 60 video interviews with people who grew up in suburbs such as Redfern, Surry Hills, Chippendale and Waterloo between 1910 – 1980. Over the past few years I have developed an installation practice based on the re-interpretation, re-processing and re-imagining of documentary and archival material. After stumbling across this archive, I became fascinated with the interviews and negotiated to access the material to re-interpret it into an installation artwork.

The Field, 'Headwater', live audiovisual performance @ Memory Flows opening launch

15 May – 20 June 2010

The Memory Flows exhibition involves a range of approaches to artmaking that stream together to make an integrated but textured whole. All of the artists share certain themes and concerns — around rivers, streaming, collaborating, and encountering audiences in new ways. The exhibition venue, the Armory Gallery, is 500 sqm former explosive storehouse on the southern banks of the Parramatta River, and provides an ideal backdrop for works exploring the nature/culture nexus.

The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration: the artists come from different practices (including new media, sound, media arts and performance) but share a concern with the environment. Their approaches vary, however, and they use a range of tactics — from play and humour, to locative and mobile mediated practices, to the poetic. All of the artists are highly experienced and have participated in major interdisciplinary media arts festivals and events.

Presented in partnership with the Centre for Media Arts Innovation, University of Technology, Sydney.

Curated by Norie Neumark, Deborah Turnbull and Sophia Kouyoumdjian.

The Artists

Ian Andrews
Chris Bowman
Chris Caines
Damian Castaldi
Sherre DeLys
Clement Girault
Jacqueline Gothe
Ian Gwilt
Megan Heyward
Nigel Helyer
Neil Jenkins
Solange Kershaw
Roger Mills
Maria Miranda
Norie Neumark
Shannon O’Neill
Greg Shapley
Victor Steffensen
Jen Teo
Jessica Tyrrell

I will be  doing an improvised performance with live video and projections at the launch party for runway Issue 14 – Futures. Chris Caines will collaborate on the performance with live sound.

When: 6pm Friday 10 July
Where: Frasers Studios, 10 Kensington Street, Chippendale
Cost: $10 Entry (includes runway #14)

http://www.runway.org.au/

I will be doing some live visuals at one of the Creative Sydney gigs – lo-fi and loving it. Come along and check it out, should be fun! And free.

Thursday June 11, 8pm – 9pm
Venue: Museum Of Contemporary Art

I will be doing some live visuals in a collaborative audiovisual performance with Chris Caines and Shannon O’Neill as part of Liquid Architecture Sydney. We are calling the set The Field, and it is also part of the ongoing Memory Flows project that the Centre for Media Arts Innovation (CMAI) at UTS is undertaking. Please come along! See below for details.

What: Memory Flows Performance – Shannon O’Neill, Chris Caines & Jessica Tyrrell

Where: Bon Marche Theatre, UTS, 755 Harris St, Ultimo

When: 25 June 2009, 8pm

The Vanishing City, a new installation work, will open at Firstdraft gallery on 29 April 2009 from 6-8pm.

The Vanishing City is an interactive audiovisual installation that transforms the gallery space into an emotional disaster site. Filling the gallery with sound and video of collapsing buildings, the work taps into social anxieties surrounding disaster—our collective fear of collapsing structures; from the twin towers of the world trade centre, to the world financial markets, to our own personal relationships.

The interactivity of the work draws the visitor in, with each step causing the environment to respond with sound and imagery until the once dormant gallery space comes alive. The Vanishing City places the gallery visitor in the eye of an aesthetic storm, where the possibility of imminent disaster seems enveloping.

Exhibition opens: Wednesday 29 April 2009, 6-8pm
Exhibition continues: to 16 May 2009
Artist talks: Saturday 16 May 2009 at 4.30pm

Chris Caines and I did a live AV performance last night at the Sound of Failure sound art festival. Full video documentation can be seen here.

Photo: Greg Ferris