My aim is to explore the premise that the universe is complex and ecological in the sense of a generative system – it is outcome and process. The universe is not just an engineering equation but is informed by creative intelligence, ordering principles, patterns, significance and aesthetics. Does it posses a kind of intelligence with aesthetic qualities as well as mathematical ones? What can folk sciences and naive ontologies offer current astrophysical problems? How can we come to terms with a universe that is expanding and accelerating, from each point in it? I am working experimentally with astronomical visualisations (3d), scientific language, cosmology (current theoretical dilemmas of mythical proportions) and folk sciences (Aboriginal and classical), to explore the gaps and connections between science and spirituality, fact and speculation.

Developed during a residency at the Research School for Astronomy and Astrophysics, ANU with help from Professor Brian Schmidt and James Hudson from Nocturnal.

eclipse project description PDF

The investigation of the historical source material is not an end in itself, and we are not looking to dramatize history by ‘mimicking’ the encounter between Dawes and Pateygarang. The historical documents are a provocation to stimulate investigation and debate between the artists (and the audience).

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 Pateygarang (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 Pateygarang from varying viewpoints. We aim to devise a chorus ensemble of indigenous performers to counterpoint the dual Dawes – Patyegarang  protagonist/s structure.

Stage 1 development took place at Bundanon Artists Retreat, NSW in Winter 2009.

The focus of our research is contemporary conundrums in science, things that we are asked to believe but that don’t add up. In an era when master narratives have foundered, these conundrum become metaphors for the human enterprises of questioning and belief, creativity and cognition. By engaging creatively with these conundrum we are working at the frontiers of science and scientific research, we are delving into the interstices and into the heart of the unknown, and we are finding ways to develop projects and technology that are culturally critical. We are interested in the cultural implications of these conundrum, to develop alternative lines of inquiry around them and to contribute to new forms of knowledge. Science has replaced art and spirituality as the main framework for understanding ‘the unknown.’ We believe art has a re-invigorated role to reject the authority voice, the role of dogma and entrenched knowledge, and to investigate the ‘yearning to know’ that science now monopolises in touching parts of the human spirit.

All ports have an isomorphic relationship to each other – they are connected by the flows of people, goods, stories and songs. These geopolitical links create a worldwide network that transverses oceans, continents and hemispheres. Every port attains the universal feel of an inter-zone, a liminal interface of comings and goings, yet still retains its own character.

In wake visitors enter the shipping container and see footage of world famous ports – Belfast, Singapore, Montreal, Sydney, New York, Vancouver, Bangkok and Barcelona. Shot by the artist from boats and ships, these miniature viewpoints create an affective connection with the network of ports round the world. The shipping container is a metaphor for all the people, goods and stories that have crossed the seas over the years.

augment_me is comprised of a responsive database of images, sound and videos, accumulated over the past 8 years. Forming sequences in response to audience movement and position, these data ‘moments’ are animated by the augment_me software according to a set of rules applied to a live video camera feed, and then sequentially embedded into a strip of images presented horizontally. These ‘moments’ and their aggregation track relationships with people, places and moments of the everyday, intrinsically measuring change or transformation to produce a kind of memory machine — an attempt at resisting external ideas of what might be augmented.