V22 ASHWINSTREET

Transporter is a large scale video installation consisting of multiple life-size videos projected in a darkened space. Each projection sees a person captured from above when engaged in a typically private activity (sleeping, bathing, day dreaming). The standing figures are projected onto plinths attached to the walls of the space, offering simulated openings into other spaces and times. The virtual nature of the openings and the ostensible simplicity of the movements of the actors create a contradiction within the experience; the viewer is at once exposed seductively to the intimate and personal behaviors of the persons within, yet simultaneously withdrawn from any real communication or understanding owing to the simulated, unreal and minimal extent of the actions recorded. Thus nakedness and simplicity appear not so easily accessible as might first appear, producing an altercation that quietly forms a wall of silence between the actors and the spectator.

The nature of film and video concerns transportation to another reality or space, designed to engage a viewer. These videos seem to deny even that limited engagement, demanding the onlooker to pause and think, thus allowing more freedom for the individual to construe meaning for themselves.

The back space of the exhibition again transports the audience through the use of sound and video, this time arriving in a room adorned with delicate drawings playfully depicting fantastical worlds and characters imagined by the artist. This transformation also in artistic form makes the exhibition in its totality a multi-disciplinary compilation of works that tease the viewer, drawing them in but ultimately contemplating and pointing to something else less tangible. The experience asks the viewer to focus their attention elsewhere; behind? out? up? inside? Or perhaps someplace within our own thoughts and imaginations.

Simon Petre