Keith Armstrong and James Muller

Event date: 28 May 2010 - 6 Jun 2010

 

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Exhibit:  May 29 - June 6, Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve

KEITH ARMSTRONG has specialised for 18 years in collaborative, hybrid, new media works. His ongoing research focuses on how scientific and philosophical ecologies can both influence and direct the design and conception of networked, interactive media artworks. Keith's artworks have been shown and profiled extensively both in Australia and overseas and he has been the recipient of numerous grants from the public and private sectors.  www.embodiedmedia.com 

JAMES MULLER runs Earth Base Productions, a multi- disciplinary, creative media studio.  He has over 12 years experience in the film, television and digital media industries.  Earth Base Productions produce a diverse range of projects utilising screen technologies and emerging digital media.  They collaborate in cross sector and cross platform environments to create projects with intrinsic cultural and creative values. Earth Base Productions is based on the Sunshine Coast and works throughout the State  www.earthbase.com.au

LEAH BARCLAY has been recognised as one of the most promising Australian composers of her generation. Since graduating from the Queensland Conservatorium, she has performed, published and produced commissioned works across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, India and Korea. Her dynamic work has resulted in numerous awards, including the 2009 Asialink Performing Artist Residency at Art Centre Nabi in Seoul, South Korea and the inaugural Premier of Queensland's National New Media Art Scholarship. www.leahbarclay.com

The Remnant

Keith and James project ‘The Remnant’ will be an interactive, holographic new media installation located within the information centre at Mary Cairncross Rainforest Conservation Park.  It examines the idea of the remnant - that which remains when the majority of something has been lost.

The project will include  a series of interdisciplinary ‘happenings’ at Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve and an interactive audiovisual installation in the Information Centre themed on the Richmond Birdwind Butterfly and its host, Aristotelia praevenosa.  

"THE REMNANT" Version 1

Keith Armstrong, James Muller and Leah Barclay present the premiere of the new media, interactive installation THE REMNANT (v.1). This is the first version of a major new work that examines the idea of the remnant – ‘that which remains when the majority of that something has been lost’.

THE REMNANT (v.1) is a major commission for the 2010 TreeLine ecoArt event, an initiative of the Sunshine Coast Council. TreeLine will celebrate trees and their stories with Sunshine Coast communities and inspire others to take action for the environment.  It will be presented at a stunning remnant block of subtropical rainforest called ‘Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve’ - located 100kms north of Brisbane near the township of Maleny. Once a small part of a thriving subtropical rainforest region called the Maleny Plateau, Mary Cairncross Reserve is now the only significant rainforest block left in that vicinity. Cairncross is an archetypal ‘remnant’.

THE REMNANT (v.1) examines dramatically differing conceptions of the landscapes  - that we each inhabit and imagine – landscapes that are both literally organic but also products of our imagination.  The work asks an apparently simple, but in fact profoundly complex pair of questions  - how could we have so divided and decimated our heritage, and, in full individual and collective acceptance of the scale of this tragedy – what can we now do together to improve both the land itself and how we conceive of it?

THE REMNANT (v.1) draws upon the dramatic power of holographic 3D illusion, satellite imagery, surround sound and intuitive interactivity to present an open response to these dilemmas. Participants peer one at a time into a mysterious, long tunnel of imagery and then navigate the work entirely through their gentle head movements - allowing them to both 'steer' in three dimensions and also 'alight', as a butterfly might, upon a sector of landscape - which in turn reveals an underlying 'landscape of mind'.

THE REMNANT (v.1) draws upon a range of local but also universal themes: The tragedy of an ecological ark contrasts with the vision of the site’s bequestors and a local community of support. The endless argument between preservation and pasture, between crops and housing resonates. The voice of local indigenous custodians contrast with the fences and boundaries conception of our private property based democracy. And in between these clashes sits the story of a critically endangered butterfly, hanging on through dint of community will and one key host plant found in the reserve. Both butterflies and rainforests are flagship examples of that which we are losing.  Threatened species such as the Richmond Birdwing - who have suffered so much because of us - now depend upon us to ‘allow’ them survive.

And so the work revolves around a truism – that there can no longer be any significant separation between what which we imagine as ‘natural’ and that which we think of as ‘artificial’. ‘THE REMNANT’ therefore speaks for a fundamental rethinking of the critical relationships that frame our worlds - the social, the political, the economic and the cultural. Today WE are the ecological crisis – and so, WE together must now understand how to collectively and creatively move forward.

PLACE :  Mary Cairncross Scenic Reserve Information Centre, 148 Mountain View Road, Maleny, Queensland 4552, Australia

DATES: 28th May – 6th June 2010, 9am-4pm

KEY URLS: 
http://www.treeline.org.au/program/keith-armstrong-and-james-muller
http://www.embodiedmedia.com/#/page/the-remnant 
http://www.mary-cairncross.com.au/

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