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Urban Tactics
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Artists involved:
Alexandra Gillespie, Martin Sercombe, Matt Warren
Raw Space Gallery, Melbourne St. Brisbane
Opening with artists’ talks and performance: Thursday 2nd February at 7 pm
Exhibition continues until 14th February
Urban Tactics explores three artists’ negotiations of and within urban space, produced during the eighth Raw Space residency.
Alexandra Gillespie – Queensland
http://www.synapse.net.au
Alexandra Gillespie is an artist who works with installation, video projection and technology. She is interested in exploring the intersection of virtual and actual space and responding to existing sites. The artist’s recent work is concerned with integrating media and architecture, and how this synthesis can be used to speak of cultural and individual identity.
For the Raw Space residency the artist has developed a work in progress City Annotations that explores a low-technology way of augmenting the urban environment with chalk inscriptions. The video work is potentially part of a larger interactive installation in development. The work is inspired by a “chalk walk” taken with media artists Katherine Moriwaki and Jonah Brucker-Cohen and artists involved in the Create Space Laboratory facilitated by the Australian Network for Art and Technology held in Melbourne 2005.
Alexandra has researched, created and exhibited video/interactive installations since 1998. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Alexandra holds a B.A. in Media Studies from the University of Queensland and a Masters degree in Communication Design from QUT. She is currently a sessional lecturer in Digital Art and New Media at Queensland College of Art in the Department of Fine Art and PHD candidate in Visual Arts at QUT. Alexandra lives and works in Brisbane.
Martin Sercombe – Norfolk, UK
http://www.mediaprojectseast.co.uk
Martin Sercombe began making abstract films on 16mm in the 1980s, and was closely involved in the independent film workshop movement in the UK. His work is an amalgam of impressionistic visual music and poetry, tied closely to specific landscapes and environments. His single screen works have been screened at many international festivals and in touring shows. Maud (2000) recently featured in a 10 year retrospective of international video art, curated by Tom Van Vliet of the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam. This and other works have been screened on broadcast television and the net in the USA, UK, Spain, Japan and Hong Kong.
Delirium was inspired by the artist’s first impressions of Brisbane, and evolved as an improvised, kinaesthetic response. Much of the material was shot in infrared, using long exposures and gestural camera movements. The work is a gothic, trance-like vision of the city, inspired by its skyscrapers, parks and surrounding forests. The lyrics are sung by Matt Warren, in the style of a chant, with electronic underscore.
I jitterbugged into jungle city
a shimmering delirium
of clustering geometries
splicing clouds in a black light sky
Matt Warren – Tasmania
http://matt.vkool.com
Matt has exhibited in Sydney (installation at MCA in 1999/2000 and sound work in Sydney Opera house d>Art04 2004), Melbourne (Fringe Festival screening 1999 and Hearing Place audiotheque 2003), throughout Tasmania (exhibitions and screenings), Vancouver (screenings and exhibitions1999-2001), Czech Republic and New Zealand. Matt has produced work for and in collaboration with performance-based productions including work with Salamanca Theatre Co/is Theatre, IHOS Opera and produced the work Broken Down with performance-poet Beth Lisick and electro-acoustic composer Eli Crews from the U.S.A.
A recent conceptual concern of Warren’s has been the search for and the representation of the spiritual, the divine, the supernatural or the profound in the ‘everyday’. But rather than see it as a weighty subject he tries to approach it and present it with a sense of wonder than can be taken on face value, taken seriously or regarded as a ‘cosmic quirk’ that mingles with everyday life.
The Sound of the Earth Changing Gears is an in-progress, 4 part series of single channel videos inspired by songs written by John Fogerty and performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival. “I found one day, listening to a collection of his songs that many were somewhat apocalyptic in vision and full of dark portent. They conjured up eerie mental images and that is what I’ve attempted to do with these simple, ‘one-gag’ shorts.”
“Voice is a meditative piece that had been floating around for a while in note books. Brisbane CBD being quite a busy area, (especially compared to Hobart) seemed a good place to produce this work that is based on a recurring creed or mantra in my work. The statement brings up questions rather than presents answers, which is fine with me. The chase is often better than the catch.”
Smoke and Mirrors is an idea that truth can be relative and when presented in an attractive way, a lie or an exaggeration can be quite persuasive. The Wizard of Oz springs to mind. (Screened after dark only.)
Alexandra Gillespie, Martin Sercombe, Matt Warren
Raw Space Gallery, Melbourne St. Brisbane
Opening with artists’ talks and performance: Thursday 2nd February at 7 pm
Exhibition continues until 14th February
Urban Tactics explores three artists’ negotiations of and within urban space, produced during the eighth Raw Space residency.
Alexandra Gillespie – Queensland
http://www.synapse.net.au
Alexandra Gillespie is an artist who works with installation, video projection and technology. She is interested in exploring the intersection of virtual and actual space and responding to existing sites. The artist’s recent work is concerned with integrating media and architecture, and how this synthesis can be used to speak of cultural and individual identity.
For the Raw Space residency the artist has developed a work in progress City Annotations that explores a low-technology way of augmenting the urban environment with chalk inscriptions. The video work is potentially part of a larger interactive installation in development. The work is inspired by a “chalk walk” taken with media artists Katherine Moriwaki and Jonah Brucker-Cohen and artists involved in the Create Space Laboratory facilitated by the Australian Network for Art and Technology held in Melbourne 2005.
Alexandra has researched, created and exhibited video/interactive installations since 1998. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Alexandra holds a B.A. in Media Studies from the University of Queensland and a Masters degree in Communication Design from QUT. She is currently a sessional lecturer in Digital Art and New Media at Queensland College of Art in the Department of Fine Art and PHD candidate in Visual Arts at QUT. Alexandra lives and works in Brisbane.
Martin Sercombe – Norfolk, UK
http://www.mediaprojectseast.co.uk
Martin Sercombe began making abstract films on 16mm in the 1980s, and was closely involved in the independent film workshop movement in the UK. His work is an amalgam of impressionistic visual music and poetry, tied closely to specific landscapes and environments. His single screen works have been screened at many international festivals and in touring shows. Maud (2000) recently featured in a 10 year retrospective of international video art, curated by Tom Van Vliet of the World Wide Video Festival in Amsterdam. This and other works have been screened on broadcast television and the net in the USA, UK, Spain, Japan and Hong Kong.
Delirium was inspired by the artist’s first impressions of Brisbane, and evolved as an improvised, kinaesthetic response. Much of the material was shot in infrared, using long exposures and gestural camera movements. The work is a gothic, trance-like vision of the city, inspired by its skyscrapers, parks and surrounding forests. The lyrics are sung by Matt Warren, in the style of a chant, with electronic underscore.
I jitterbugged into jungle city
a shimmering delirium
of clustering geometries
splicing clouds in a black light sky
Matt Warren – Tasmania
http://matt.vkool.com
Matt has exhibited in Sydney (installation at MCA in 1999/2000 and sound work in Sydney Opera house d>Art04 2004), Melbourne (Fringe Festival screening 1999 and Hearing Place audiotheque 2003), throughout Tasmania (exhibitions and screenings), Vancouver (screenings and exhibitions1999-2001), Czech Republic and New Zealand. Matt has produced work for and in collaboration with performance-based productions including work with Salamanca Theatre Co/is Theatre, IHOS Opera and produced the work Broken Down with performance-poet Beth Lisick and electro-acoustic composer Eli Crews from the U.S.A.
A recent conceptual concern of Warren’s has been the search for and the representation of the spiritual, the divine, the supernatural or the profound in the ‘everyday’. But rather than see it as a weighty subject he tries to approach it and present it with a sense of wonder than can be taken on face value, taken seriously or regarded as a ‘cosmic quirk’ that mingles with everyday life.
The Sound of the Earth Changing Gears is an in-progress, 4 part series of single channel videos inspired by songs written by John Fogerty and performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival. “I found one day, listening to a collection of his songs that many were somewhat apocalyptic in vision and full of dark portent. They conjured up eerie mental images and that is what I’ve attempted to do with these simple, ‘one-gag’ shorts.”
“Voice is a meditative piece that had been floating around for a while in note books. Brisbane CBD being quite a busy area, (especially compared to Hobart) seemed a good place to produce this work that is based on a recurring creed or mantra in my work. The statement brings up questions rather than presents answers, which is fine with me. The chase is often better than the catch.”
Smoke and Mirrors is an idea that truth can be relative and when presented in an attractive way, a lie or an exaggeration can be quite persuasive. The Wizard of Oz springs to mind. (Screened after dark only.)