.
On Aqualux II (Charuck 2005)
“…in the midst of this fire that burns not” (DVD) Peter Charuck 2005
Images of the spectacular, presented in slow motion, allow time to absorb and appreciate fleeting scenes and beauty. In this work, from an artist who has observed and learned from scientists, reams of scientific data are synthesised into a video presentation showing hidden landscapes and an insight into seabed mapping.
.
The artistic voyage
For three months (March, april and May 2005) I participated in the Synapse art ist in residence program at CSIRO, Hobart. During this time my interest and focus developed in several areas: the processes, technology and imagery involved i data-acquisition, vvido-capture and seabed mapping research, and an annotated version of Jules Verne’s 200,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
(Charuk)
CSIRO Synapse Residency Exhibition notes, 2005
.
But you don’t know it all – you have not seen all…you are going to visit the land of marvels. Astonishment will possibly become your normal state of mind! – visiting again everything I have ever studied on the floor of the ocean. From this day forward you enter into a new element, you will be seeing what no person has seen before you…
Spoken by Captain Nemo, in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jumes Verne 1876
.
Sound, motion and painterly hues
conspire to inquire.
Floating forms of colour dance
ocean creatures breathe.
Man overlooks.
Corridors
close.
Metal, flesh, flash
light measure grid
Journey deep will
Glimpse life trawl.
Tenacious inquiry.
Beautiful!
Oceanographic choreography
draws sound-scaped seas
into human scale,
embodying
seabed.
.
Peter Charuk presented his paper, History, Memory and the Mythology of Ice-Glacial Lux at the inaugural Imagining Antarctica conference, held at Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand, 4-6 September 2008.
A gasp arose from many as we watched a particular moment from his video work, Aqualux II.
A fish and a man are seen swimming, on separate screens side by side. Their gestures, propelling them up from beneath the depths of the sea are indistinguishable from each other.
Seeing the human connect through gesture with the swimming fish triggered a response within me that I find hard to translate into words.
What triggered the gasp? Delight? Recognition?
I imagined my primordial ancestors before they stepped on land. I recognised myself as part of the fish’s world.
On some deep level those images worked to connect me with the environment.
Is this how the artist sees this this moment?
Was that the artist’s intention?
What ideas emerge from the making process?
Has he found words to describe his ides, now he has given them form?
Lisa,
Just a minor correction before we start. The animal is actually a seal not a fish which changes the context a little. The bodily gestures of both are even more similar underwater.
Yes I guess you made the connection. It was based on the gestural movements of both parties. I shot the man in a swimming pool (related to the CSIRO project) and the seal was photographed by the CSIRO towed video cameras. It was serendipity that I discovered both in the editing process whilst constructing the video. I had worked with gestures (of humans) in some previous photographic series and continue to be interested in these movements. Even going as far as researching “mudra” Indian dance gestures that are prominent in historical statues of the Buddah. The gestures signifying something outside language that can read in an instant by the observer.
The intention to bring about a moment of empathetic connection with what is under the ocean. Completing this project left in complete awe as to what actually exists (only seeing a partial census) under there and about which almost complete ignorance continues in the wider debate on ecology. The “earth” is so named for whose benefit. Shouldn’t it really be the “water?” It is still a cliché to say that the “earth” is 72% liquid but is not acknowledged enough in ongoing debates about climate change. Particularly when the oceans have a massive influence on this change debate through its influence on weather systems, bio-diversity (algae has the potential to put massive amounts of oxygen back into the atmosphere) and many other factors.
I guess you and others reacted to what I was attempting to do provide a visual and gestural connection through the body of what can happen underwater. It is fleeting moment but what that you identify with. There is no language needed, no words can give the experience. Words would not do it justice that is why I make art instead of write.
I am not surprised to see more connections between our work, now that I am specifically looking at how human gesture connects us with the natural world.
Interesting too that since stumbling upon the shakuhachi, my understanding of what gesture can be has opened right up.
The shakuhachi sound honours silence, just as stillness in honoured in the most profound human gestures.
You have spoken about what cannot be seen. I see us as both trying to frame the invisible, the silences and stillnesses – those connections we sense but cannot describe – the fascia of matter within and around us.
I am very excited by what you are doing.
Interesting that yours has from the start been at the head of my bibliography.