Background
Collaborator Sonia Leber and I were invited to present an historical work in the “Australian Centre for Contemporary Art” (ACCA) exhibition “Who’s Afraid of Public Space?”. The work addressed the exhibition’s question: how can public art investigate and respond to contemporary debates and phenomena related to the increasingly contested nature of the public sphere, including the dynamic relations between urban design, surveillance and regulation? Our research investigated how materials and documentation from our historical site-specific artwork could be successfully re-purposed as a gallery-based artwork that was accessible to contemporary audiences.
Contribution
“We, The Masters (video documentation with sound, assembled archival elements and notes derived from original work) 2021”, is a performative archival artwork referencing the historical work “We, The Masters” (2011) that was originally installed in Swanston Street, Melbourne. In the original artwork, city pedestrians unexpectedly encountered a soundscape along the footpath built up from hundreds of personalised, intimate vocalisations of people talking to animals in parks, veterinary clinics and zoos. Our creative approach combined video, a visual mind-map referencing original concepts and archival audio tapes containing the animal recordings. The archival artwork comprised multiple points of engagement that allowed audiences to encounter characteristics and qualities of the original artwork including sonic and temporal experiences.
Significance
The artwork actively portrays how intimate, cross-species communication takes on new perspectives when recorded sounds are re-addressed to passers-by in the staged urban architecture of a civic space, calling into question the relationship of citizens to their public spaces, and the underlying organisation of public and civic life. The work was reviewed by Robert Nelson in the Age Newspaper. An exhibition catalogue is forthcoming.
History
Subtype
Original Visual Artwork
Outlet
Who’s Afraid of Public Space?
Place published
Melbourne, Victoria
Start date
2021-12-04
End date
2022-03-20
Extent
video 20 minutes, archival text and tapes dimensions variable
Language
English
Medium
video 20 minutes, archival text and tapes - Sculpture?