Beyond the Hall of Marvels

BACKGROUND  This work references performance artists Angela Goh and Jenna Sutela, who draw upon new relationships and possibilities to reveal potential meanings within 'mass data.' It applies artistic research methods to explore how notions of the human/inhuman can generate programmed processes and fictional assemblages. It builds on concepts spurred by Leibniz’s 17C Palace of Marvels _Drôle de pensée _ space of encounters. CONTRIBUTION  ‘Beyond Hall of Marvels’ was a performance installation that featured a disembodied voice which the audience experienced through ‘treading the boards.’ The audience acted as a stenographer to operate a loop station triggering incantations while shining an UV light on a script revealing ‘declarations.’ The audience became witness, reader/writer, and/or conjurer; they were asked to think not of mere communication but rather performances with materialities, in line with Jacques Attali (1985) who argues that ‘new noise’ must be produced ‘elsewhere and otherwise.’ SIGNIFICANCE  Evidence of the work’s excellence: - Commissioned by NYC curator Erin Marie Sickler for Exhaust: a group exhibition featuring 13 leading artists of international standing at Contemporary Art Tasmania; - Presented at MONA FOMA - one of Australia’s largest art festivals with 50K+ audiences, widespread media coverage: Mauro-Flude was profiled with curator (Young 1.10.16); - Reviewed by Harper (2016) who noted that sound and text-based work was ‘elegant;' and - In 2021 the work was featured on the front page of an impact report ‘Real Life: Mapping digital cultural engagement in the first decades of the 21st century’ by Australia Council for the Arts.