Indigo Rising

Research Background This research responds to the issue of global social anxiety in a collective memory context by using slow cinema as a device to create a feature length video artwork. The research acknowledges anxiety as a critical barrier of social perception and moves to establish a way for contemporary art to respond to this problem by generating new knowledge through practice. Research Contribution The contributions are attested to four factors. First, the work responds to a real-world problem by contributing new approaches to contemporary art in finding ways to respond to critical barriers attested through anxiety; second, to contribute to an international dialogue around social anxiety with attention to perception and collective memory; third, contribute to a new way of thinking about anxiety through contemporary art; and fourth, contribute through practice to find a new reference point to understand the impact of social anxiety on the perception of the subject and challenge the barriers of visually experiencing the implications of anxiety through art to further our understanding of the issue. Research Significance Significance was attested to three factors: first, the work was selected as peer review to be screened in a solo exhibition at Sawtooth ARI, Launceston; second, the exhibition was curated by Dr Malcom Bywaters (UTas) who has attributed to high profile national and international curatorial research activity over a thirty year career; and third, the work was discussed in the peer review paper 'Rethinking the Longshot in Critical Studio Practice' by Shaun Wilson in The International Journal of Practice Based Research Journal, V3, N1, in Dec 2018.