wodak ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
| paintings | sculpture | emergence | reflection | 3forthree | 3forfour | 4forfour |lllllll
l
archangle josh
The following sculpture and paintings were all done as simultaneous site specific responses to the ground and railing of a veranda and the window+door which joined onto this space. They were designed to complement one another: in physical proximity, materials, form and content, as they all attempt analogue 'equivalents' to the indeterminate form/structure/function/behaviour in the electro-mechanical installations described below under Emergence and 3forthree.
Inverted Preverted (2004-5)Inverted Preverted are two identically sized paintings superimposed onto eachother, forming inverted/reverted/perverted binaries: Inverted = black paint on a white canvas while Preverted = white paint on a black canvas. As a site-specific response to a glass window+door, it can be viewed from the outside looking in and inside looking out. It takes on different properties according to different lighting, so it is backlit during daylight hours and frontlit by interior lights at night. This varies the opacity between the two paintings, so at any one time different portions have different levels of visibility. This means that differing degrees of the black paint on white canvas intermingle with white paint on the black canvas. The form is also malleable, as the vertical proportions can be variably retracted to allow different portions of natural light to enter around the canvas, and since it extends over a doorway, the 'aesthetic' can be reduced to 'functional' when the doorway is used.
From the inside looking out during daytime, with Inverted partly visible through Preverted
From the inside looking out at Preverted during nighttimearchangle wodak From the outside looking in at Inverted during daytime
D#generative (2004-7)D#generative is a triptych in three canvases that are paintings-paint=ings: each was left out flat on the ground in the open to be exposed to the elements (rain, soil, wind, native and non-native garden leaves) and 'fed' organic materials for two years.
Presence of Absence (the left side canvas) was 'fed' globally sourced coffee and tea from Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Sumatra, East Timor, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Honduras, and Cuba.
Absence of Presence (the right side canvas) was 'fed' local fruit and vegetables from Australia, but predominantly from ACT+NSW.
Whatever Will will be Will will be (the middle canvas) had Australian bird seed suspended above it, so it received mixed local-global materials, given the porous roaming of 'Australian' birds and the xenophobic nature of their shit.
The resulting patterns, colours, shapes and forms are like a geological timespan of photography exposure: that which happened on/to them left cumulative indelible impressions+indentations, which interacted with innumerable other decomposing compositions. All but the base layer of surface materials were then removed and each was sealed with acrylic sealant. They were then framed and hung vertically, side by side. The first photos show them on the ground as works-in-progress. The second photos show them as finished canvasses. Absence of Presence can be seen here.
The three canvasses-in-progress archangle archangle archangle archangle D#generative next to Sly Drooler
Presence of Absence archangle archangle archangle archangle wodak Whatever Will will be Will will be
Sly Drooler (2004-5)
Sly Drooler is a series of 35mm film strips (with multi-channel soundtracks) woven through the banister around the veranda, running between Inverted Preverted and D#generative. Their patterned placement represents the multiple simultaneous interwoven non-linear narrative threads, as used in electro-mechanical generative art. While appearing to be physically static, progressive disintegration due to wind, rain and sun exposure has produced differentiated decomposition between individual slides. Their final incarnation will be to be cut into loops fed through a 35mm cinema projector, to reveal the extent of these audio-visual decompositions. Feel free to offer me if you have a spare cinema or two, and don't mind it potentially being blown up by the deteriorated loops.
Sly Drooler at sunrise archangle archangle archangle archangle wodaks Sly Drooler in late afternoon
Sly Drooler in late afternoon archangle archangle archangle arch wodak Sly Drooler at sunrise
Emergence is an interactive poly-media installation that is a hybrid beast of electronic theatre, performance art and pre-recorded multi-channel cinema integrated into a live audience-controlled film.40-odd oddballs+misfits banded together to stage the prototype at The Studio, Sydney Opera House on October 11 and 12 2005. With two sell out shows and support from Australia Council for the Arts, we spent the following two years making the fully fledged version, which premiered in a season at The Street Theatre, Canberra, followed by seasons at The Sydney Opera House Studio and Melbourne Arts House over August-September 2007. The project saw busy bodies slaving over a hot stove to make up one helluva primordial soup. When we weren't busy making dinner, we were researching and developing Emergence into a cross-platform cross-media behemoth that feeds off bees, moths, emergent behaviour, artificial life, artificial intelligence, surrealistic theatrical experiments...and white rabid rabbits that feed off the flesh of monty's python. A national tour of regional Australia and capital cities is being organised for 2009. Visit www.buildyourownbeing.com for more details on the show and the tour.
Roles:
Director of Interface+Interaction Design, Technical Director, Audio-Visual Media System (AVMS) Designer, Concept+Script Advisor,
Associate Producer (Canberra season)Roles for 2005 prototype:
Interface Designer, Technical Director, Multimedia Coordinator, AVMS Programmer, Audio-Visual Operator, Concept+Script Advisor.
An interactive multi-media installation revolving around the premise of audience-as-artwork (via interactive reflection of audience in artwork).
Roles:
Project Coordinator, Cinematographer.Installed at:
WWII air-raid tunnel at The Cockatoo Island Festival, Sydney March 05.
3 stilms, each in 3x3 sections, 3 slide projectors
with 3x3 canisters,
3 screens, 3 amplifiers, 3 loudspeakers for
3x3 spoken words,
3 mediums: image, location sound + speech
Stilms (3forthree) are interactive poly-media installations designed to explore synthetic sociality/coerced cooperation between collectives of audience members that control the real-time behaviours of the audio-visual media. Each involves three side-by-side slide projectors, with a live soundscape of environmental/location sounds and a collage composition of a triplet of spoken words, which together create a 'stilm' (still films), a cross between stills and films. The stilms are both retrospective and prospective. The use of silent images with no synchronous sound, and a live mixing of sound samples that differs with each performance is a reference to the pre-talkie days of cinema, while three progressively more interactive interfaces probe electro-mechanical forms of interactive art.
Diagram of installation design and layout for 3forthree
Stilm I: A Day in the Life of the City of Death
The stilm attempts to represent the omnipresence of death in daily life in the most sacred Hindu pilgrimage city of Banaras, in North India. The soundscape samples the experimental ethnographic film Forest of Bliss, which is about death and regeneration in Banaras, and which was the subject of my anthropology honours thesis in 2002. Through the;interweaving non-linear audio-visual barbarities of 'a day in the life', the stilm explores relationships between creation-destruction, conservation-development, sacred-profane and idealist-materialist perspectives on life-death.
Stilm II: Down to Earth Up in the Himalayas
This stilm is about pilgrimage, conservation and development in a landscape revered for its sacredness: the Himalayan area around the source of the Ganges. Organised around three related themes-
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllParadoxes of Pilgrimage/
llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllfllllllllllllllllProblems of Progress/
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllflllllllllllllllllllllPurity or Pollution
-the work concerns the performance of pilgrimage amidst a backdrop of rural industrialisation. Banaras lies on the same river, and as such Stilm II develops further the Stilm I exploration of problematic human relationships to the natural environment.
Stilm III: ABACADABA (AKA grin reepercussions)
In ABACADABA (AKA grin reepercussions) the slide projectors are amplified, and their operation is offered to three volunteers from the audience (inviting them to become co-performers in the work). A collectively orchestrated audio-visual environment is constructed, out of collages, collisions, contrasts and montages between not-so-natural built and not-so-built natural environments in India, Nepal, Tasmania, Blue Mountains, Sydney and Canberra. Shots, scenes and sequences pre-loaded into the projectors are improvised on: between different operators and between each operator and their own projector, as every slide change is amplified and processed through live signal manipulation, to create audio rhythms which spring from the visual rhythms. In response to image combinations created, I provide a 'second fiddle' laptop processed stereo soundscape. All the sound sources are mixed by another volunteer from the audience, who may shape the balance of the soundscape in tune with their own response to the images.
Roles:
Director, Producer, Photographer, Editor, Sound Designer, Interface Designer, PerformerPerformed/installed as 'A Trio of Triple Triptychs' at:
Magic Theatre, Annandale, January and March 2004
Balmain Hybrid Happenings Festival, Nov 2004
School of Art, Australian National University (ANU), Oct 2004
Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, (ANU), July and Oct 2004
ver 1.2 text+photos © archangle archangle josh[at]arch-angle.net