Betty Sargeant talks to Sunday Arts Team - a podcast by JOY 94.9 - LGBTI, LGBTIQA+, LGBTQIA+, LGBT, LGBTQ, LGB, Gay, Lesbian, Trans, Intersex, Queer Podcasts for all our Rainbow Communities
from 2021-02-21T06:24:08
Experimenta announces its most ambitious triennial: Experimenta Life Forms
2021—2023
Experimenta, champion of art unbound by convention, announces its most ambitious international
triennial to date – Experimenta Life Forms: International Triennial of Media Art. Exploring our
changing relationship and definitions of life forms, this triennial is Experimenta’s eighth national touring
exhibition, premiering at Hobart’s Plimsoll Gallery in March 2021.
Experimenta Life Forms will astonish audiences with 20
international and Australian artists showcasing a range of
emerging artforms, including robotics, bio-art, screen-based
works, installations, participatory and generative art. Curated by
Jonathan Parsons, Lubi Thomas and Jessica Clark, the
exhibition thought provokingly engages with ideas of how new
understandings of biological and artificial life are challenging
human-centric thinking. The triennial features established and
emerging contemporary artists; adventurous creators who work
with technology in unexpected ways.
Signalling the role Australia’s ancient landmass plays in our understanding of the development of life
on this planet is Dominic Redfern’s installation First Forms. This multi-screen video work introduces
us to the pre-Cambrian world through his careful study of cyanobacteria that over time build up
sedimentary forms known as stromatolites. Stromatolites still exist in only a few locations globally,
including sites in Western Australia, home to the oldest known fossils dated to 3.5 billion years.
Cyanobacteria, because of their oxygen producing capability, are credited with significantly altering the
earth’s conditions, supporting the emergence of complex life.
The exhibition features four works from First Nation’s artists in Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand) and
the USA. As Oglála Lak?óta artist Kite writes “Indigenous ontologies already exist to understand forms
of ‘being’ which are outside of humanity.” Kite has collaborated with Devin Ronneberg on the
interactive installation Itówapi ?ík’ala (Little Picture) inviting audiences to interact with a non-human
entity. Narungga artist Brad Darkson’s multi-media work Smart Object contrasts two processes: his
carving of a wooden plongi (club) and an avatar of the artist carving. This work critiques humanity’s
reliance on the digital processes that sever our spiritual connection to country.
Pioneers of the Bioart movement Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr will present an installation work entitled
Biomess. The artwork celebrates the diversity of life forms highlighting natural and artificial life that
confound our cultural notions of identity, sex, gender and reproduction. Natural history specimens,
sourced from significant local collections, feature in this installation and will vary as the exhibition tours.
A number of the triennial works provoke viewers to consider what may happen as engineering becomes
more sophisticated. French artist Justine Emard’s uncanny video work titled Soul Shift (video still
pictured above) documents the staged encounter between two generations of the Alter robot, developed
by renowned Japanese roboticists Hiroshi Ishiguro and Takashi Ikegami. The viewer wonders
whether the transference of Alter’s data between generations is a form of reincarnation without flesh?
Dutch artist Floris Kaayk’s speculative fiction work The Modular Body prompts audience to consider
the ethical questions involved in biotechnology research and development. This multi-channel video
installation explores the power that visual media has in distorting the lines between truth and fiction. It
asks us to consider the ethics of human manipulation of life by bringing us back to the core question:
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