5th International Biennial of Media Art
Experimenta Speak To Me is the 5th edition of the International Biennial of Media Art, which tours Australia nationally every two years. The theme of this exhibition is connectedness, and it invites us to reconsider how technology and social media shape our social interconnectivity. In the exhibition catalogue curator Abigail Moncrieff writes, ‘Artists often begin at the place where language is most limited, identifying its gaps and using the technological vernacular of our time, to unpack and investigate systems of language and cultural meaning’.1 The selected works tease out the discontinuities, failed connections, unspoken meanings and blurred translations inherent to the media vernacular, along with its corresponding vulnerabilities and insecurities. In a time of such deeply pervasive social media interconnectivity, why do we feel more alienated than ever?
On entering the darkened gallery space one is immediately overwhelmed by Shih Chieh Huang’s Slide To Unlock (2012) featuring three suspended octopus-like creations, gyrating and flickering in ghoulish wonder. Huang is fascinated by the peculiar evolutionary adaptations of deep sea creatures: an adaptation known as bioluminescence enables such creatures to emit iridescent light as a means to communicate, attract and detract. Adapting mundane consumer products, such as tupperware, computer cooling fans, cone shaped plastic bags and LED lights, Huang creates animated robotic organisms. Triggered by the viewers presence, the otherworldly creations begin to flash phosphorescent colours as the appendages expand and collapse in whirring and clicking gyrations.
Archie Moore’s Kinelexic Tokyo (2012) was made in homage to Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), and draws on a key scene, shot in Japan, of futuristic freeways and tunnels. In Moore’s digital video he replicated this visual voyage, but stripped away all visual