My questions continually evolve to reflect changes in thinking that are influenced by the findings. The following Abstract was written for a workshop in arts-practice research, to be held tomorrow at the College of fine Arts at the University of New South Wales:
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This animated inquiry bridges the fields of Visual Art, Movement Improvisation and Data Visualisation.
The proposition is that animation can be used to show profound human connections to the Antarctic landscape.
A lexicon of gestures is being shaped through human movement, drawing, writing, sound and assemblage, in response to scientific and poetic texts of Antarctic expeditioners. This lexicon provides a vocabulary with which to animate cycles and transformations that have been observed and experienced. By drawing Antarctic landscape to human scale through gesture, profound connections can be made with its ceaseless cycles of change.
Artists currently dealing with issues relevant to this inquiry include video artist David Buckland (The cold library of ice, 2004), choreographer Siobhan Davies (Endangered species, 2006), mixed media artist Stephen Eastaugh (Travailogues 2000-2), datascape topographer Simon Pockley (Flight of Ducks, 1995-2007) and landscape animator Hobart Hughes (The wind calls your name, 2006).
Early lines of inquiry that relate to the current research include the work of choreographer/movement analyst Rudolph Laban (1879-1953), sculptor Lazlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), animator Norman McLaren (1914-1987), computer animator John Whitney (1917-1995), dancer/choreographer Hanny Exiner (?-2006), and one of the first Australian artists to work in Antarctica, Bea Maddock (b.1934).
I have an image of the physical responses of the viewer in the exhibition space and of these responses being documented and becoming part of the work.
I was once surprised at the effect a persons presence in an exhibition space could have on how a work is viewed. I am now aware of and watch how a viewer effects the experience of others.
We talked about ways that an audience might interact with our work, participating in something of the process that went into the making.
You made me aware of this when we deconstructed your Symmetrical Planting installation in Armidale.
I look forward to being a part of a similar involvement with your Bathurst work.