Artist Statement
Development stage of a multi-disciplinary performance work based on the notebooks of First Fleet marine / astronomer / surveyor William Dawes who recorded his encounters between 1788-1790 with the indigenous peoples of the Sydney foreshore area most notably young Cadigal woman, Patyegarang.[...]The live action process will involve the opening up of the primary source notebook text through the actor's physiology of movement, voice, physical and emotional inter-relationships with Dawes text (words, correction marks, and spaces/silences between the words) and each other. Other source material will be diaries and letters that refer to Dawes and Patyegarang (i.e., Elizabeth Macarthur's letters & journals).
The secondary source material will be current writings and interpretations of their encounter (i.e. Inga Clendinnen's Dancing With Strangers). The other source text will be what the artists bring of themselves to the work, personal text, cultural stories, constellation and creation myths and their 'speakings back' to Dawes and Patyegarang from varying viewpoints. We aim to devise a chorus ensemble of indigenous performers to counterpoint the dual Dawes Patyegarang protagonist/s structure.
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Artist Statement
Life After Wartime is a suite of multimedia artworks by Kate Richards and Ross Gibson. Based on 3000 archival scene-of-crime images from Sydney and thousands of evocative texts by Gibson, each iteration within the suite uses various design and interaction techniques to engage its audience. The suite comprises: Crime Scene 1999-2000 Justice & Police Museum Sydney and touring; Darkness Loiters 2000 an interactive story engine; Life After Wartime CD-ROM 2003 exhibited nationally and internationally, for sale through the artists, funded by the Australian Film Commission. Life After Wartime live with The Necks Adelaide Fringe Festival 2001 and Sydney Opera House 2003 a live improvised event with world renowned jazz trio The Necks; Street XRays 2005 Gibson's re-photography installation at ACMI. Bystander 2007 a 5 channel interactive and immersive video installation at The Performance Space@CarriageWorks Sydney 2007.
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Artist Statement
Bystander is an immersive environment composed of photographs, sequences of short text, and musical patterns that all knit together to conjure haunting moods and stories for a large, darkened gallery space. The images, texts and sound files of Bystander are all governed by computer systems to form an environment that responds evermore intelligently, semantically and aesthetically to the behaviour of visitors interacting with the historical material over time. Feedback relationships develop between the visitors and the environment so that the 'eco-system' of Bystander offers emergent patterns of narrative and ever-altering rhythms of dynamic reaction.
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