Spending time up there thinking really helped me figure out what I wanted to install in the space. Being in space where the only reason your there is to walk up the stairs, and to look out over the city and contemplate your own existence. It is a place where I feel a sense of isolation from the city, which I don't necessarily view as a bad thing. It is hard to exist within a society full of ideals which are often different from my own, but the view and also the journey help me to understand how we all exist in our own separate universe. I have been doing a lot of reading about existentialism, but have long had an interest in the absurdist ideas of Abert Camus. His novel The Stranger, was a great comfort to me at a time when I began to consider more deeply the consequences of having no faith. "To live without appeal, as he puts it, is a philosophical move that begins to define absolutes and universals subjectively, rather than objectively. The freedom of man is, thus, established in man's natural ability and opportunity to create his own meaning and purpose, to decide himself. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as he represents a set of unique ideals that can be characterized as an entire universe by itself."

The Machine

In making this piece I have also been looking at the machines place in my studio practice.
I see the images I create on the screen as my way of drawing, and leaving my mark, however ephemeral on the space. I have been looking at the work of Bolint Bolyga, Jurg Lehni and Uli Franke, and Robert Currie recently. By creating their own machines to draw they remove their hands from the process, in doing so they rely on the natural universe, and audience participation to make the work. Working within the Electronic Arts department I have become very aware of the huge role the machine plays in my practice and what this means in terms of authorship. I still use my own hands and also rely on the inter-action of others to move and manipulate the machine to create the imagery, but the documentation of the installation is removed serveral times from the truth, through the use of so many machines. In this sense the fact that I staged the work as an installation piece is very important to me, taking the journey to the stairs (I know most people walked) being at the site immersed in the cityscape seemed to balance out all the machines, for a while I was able to look at the imagery as something that belonged, that reflected and was part of the city.

Installation footage

view of city from top of stairs

'site'

Instead of trying to create a scene within an exhibition environment I have decided to choose a site which reflects the ideas I want to express.

This staircase is just at the top of my street, they are over-grown and abandoned, two flights running in a heart shape to nothing but a cabbage tree and a view through a fence to the catholic primary school inside. The property is owned by the Catholic Diaosese, but the derelict stone stairs lie just outside of the schools boundary, surrounded by unkempt bush and weeds.

The idea of installing a piece at the top of these stairs started after walking up and down them with a friend of mine.
They are narrow and littered with glass, rubbish and twigs, their grandoise design make you anticipate something similar at the top. Although there was no Victorian manor, but an amazing view of the city, you can see down over the CBD and out across the habour, and to the south out to sea, when you go their at night the town is light up with an assortment of coloured lights, when you look closer, lights are changing, traffic is moving, people are walking, opening doors, pulling curtains.. having lives completely separate from my own, and there is no way I can reach them and tell them how I feel.

Project Outline

Working within the Electronic Arts department I have become interested in using projection as a tool for my installation pieces. Coming from a prodominately philosophy and film background, I enjoy the challange of making an installation piece. I love the idea of immersing the viewer in the environment. I find it easier to engage people through film, so installation for me is a lot harder. All the senses are engaged in an installation, in order for me to express my feeling, the whole environment must express the same under lying idea's to the viewer.

I recently installed a piece entitled ‘Gully’ as part of my year three electronic arts criteria. I set up a white screen in the centre of the room; I used an overhead and Mylar photograph to project an image of the pine forest in Bathune's Gully, on the other side I set up a digital projector linked to a camera filming the same side of the screen. This created a distorted feedback effect, generating endless and filtering loops of my original images. The piece also invites people to step into the installation and be part of the imagery they see on the screen. There bodies become part of the scene displayed on the screen; they are part of one of my experiences. It is important for me to draw the audience with something they recognise, while still making the familiar unusual.

This work is definitely a starting point for this drawing project. I don't feel like I have resolved that work at all, I was just coming to terms with the ideas which inspired the piece when I installed it; I wasn't able to coherently express my own feelings. With this project I want to continue to work with the same projection ideas as I have been exploring and also try and make the environment and viewer more interactive. I at least want to make the audience think about the environment they are in and hopefully understand the conclusions I have made which are reflected in the installation.