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Paul Mumme and Markela Panegyres

Guys and Dolls

Jonathan McBurnie
Eyeline 83
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Throw a rock in the air and you’ll probably hit a video artist.

While the digital age has armed the general populace with the tools to make music, film, photography, and yes, art, with an ease previously unattainable without expensive technology, it has not necessarily been a wholly inspiring progression. Accessibility is a wonderfully inclusive and democratic (utopian, even) aspect of contemporary society, especially in terms of human rights. However, when applied to art, we are left with mixed results. Yes, we want our next generation to feel welcome and stimulated in the gallery or exhibition context, but this excitement at the idea of 500,000 patrons can easily turn into pandering to the masses.

While video art is by no means new, predating digital technologies by quite some time, its more recent expansion with, say, the iPhone, has attracted unprecedented numbers of would-be artists. The art school dictum ‘do something weird, film it, and loop it on a screen’, unwittingly parodies itself at every graduate exhibition. The camera is now inevitably associated with the smartphone, and by extension Instagram, and of course, the infamous selfie, the shorthand language of the allegedly vacuous, self-obsessed and even psychopathic culture of ‘Gen Y’. Or is it ‘Gen Z’ now? And do we actually care?

It is in this murky context that, on occasion, a rare lightning strike (rather than a rock) hits a video artist with such excellence, sincerity and clarity that their work truly surprises, easily shaking such a cynical worldview. In this case, the exhibition is a collaboration between Markela Panegyres and Paul Mumme, two postgraduate students of Sydney College of the Arts. 

The remarkable thing here is just how well

Paul Mumme. Video installation. Installation view 'Guys and Dolls', Archive Space, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Photograph Jacquie Manning.

Paul Mumme. Video installation. Installation view 'Guys and Dolls', Archive Space, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Photograph Jacquie Manning.

Markela Panegyres. Installation view 'Guys and Dolls', Archive Space, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Photograph Jacquie Manning.

Markela Panegyres. Installation view 'Guys and Dolls', Archive Space, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Photograph Jacquie Manning.