In September, Adelaide Festival Centre's Moving Image Program is exhibiting 'This Storm is Called Progress' by Grayson Cooke & Dugal McKinnon, 'Emergence: Inference' by Sorcha Annette Wilcox, and 'Peri Urban Progress’ by Cynthia Schwertsik.
Grayson Cooke & Dugal McKinnon, This Storm is Called Progress, moving image, 15:00 mins
Image: Grayson Cooke & Dugal McKinnon, This Storm is Called Progress, moving image (still), 15:00 mins
This Storm is Called Progress is a dual-screen installation, a collaboration between Grayson Cooke and Dugal McKinnon. The project features motion-controlled footage of the Naracoorte Caves in South Australia juxtaposed against time-lapse video of Landsat satellite images of Antarctic ice shelves.
Thematically, the work pits the ‘deep time’ of ancient geological formations against the time of the present, a technologically amplified time exemplified by the speeding-by of satellite images of ice shelves. The title of this project is derived from Walter Benjamin's ‘angel of history’, a tragic figure caught in the storm of progress, forced to unerringly witness the catastrophe of history.
The project was produced with the support of the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Southern Cross University and the New Zealand School of Music at Victoria University of Wellington, and was generously supported by the Naracoorte Caves National Park and the State Government of South Australia. It also makes use of Landsat images from the NASA/USGS MODIS image archive, made available by the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colorado.
Sorcha Annette Wilcox, Emergence: Inference, moving image, 24:30 mins
Image: Sorcha Annette Wilcox, Emergence: Inference, moving image (still), 24:30 mins
Emergence: Inference (E : I) is an abstract photographic composition with an accompanying soundscape that is specifically designed to allow the viewer to experience the sensitivity of visual perception and how this affects us emotionally. Showing a series of photographs taken on 35 mm film, a piece of textured glass slowly changes in hue, luminosity, and definition over twenty-five minutes.
The underlying issues presented within E : I focus on vision: how we consider what we see, and how what we see affects us as an experience. E : I activates our perceived visual sensitivity not only through encounters with light and illusions created by light and colour, but also by challenging our recognitions and attentiveness to stimulate our consciousness.
The repetitive imagery and impression of simplicity that E : I exudes is purposely calculated to create a refined piece with a methodology that is designed to subtly inflict itself upon the viewer.
The consequence of the repetition of formlessness is that a higher organisation of matter is achieved that could not have been reached otherwise.
Cynthia Schwertsik, Peri Urban Progress, moving image, 8:32 mins, video by Biscuit Tin Photos
Image: Cynthia Schwertsik, Peri Urban Progress, moving image, (still), 8:32 mins, video by Biscuit Tin Photos
On my open-top two-seater, unmotorised but elevated, I am a visitor, striding through the neighbourhood. Along the boundaries, fence lines, and roads, I circumvent Adelaide’s peri-urban and suburban districts. Here, where the landscape is begrudgingly slotted into the built environment, I laboriously make my rather lonely way. I wander through space that is claimed for human convenience, but is there really anybody out here?
Rarely, I cross paths with other people, mostly in a car pressing past. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I might end up beyond these partitions and catch a glimpse of the vast, majestic landscapes of South Australia.