A world which is increasingly digitised, where many interactions happen in virtual spaces and online is explored in Light moves: contemporary Australian video art – a National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition at the RMIT Gallery from 1 July 2016.
Bodies of all kinds moving in space. This phenomenon has been explored in a myriad of ways by artists ever since video art took off as an exciting new development in the 1960s. The select group of works displayed in Light moves continues to further the possibilities of the medium in poetic works that speak to their own personal interests and histories.
The exhibition features work made between 2009 and 2014 by some of Australia’s most internationally-significant video artists; Daniel Crooks, Hayden Fowler, Shaun Gladwell, Gabriella and Silvana Mangano, David Rosetzky, Julie Rrap and Christian Thompson.
The seven works featured in Light moves explore the possibilities of movement, in most cases the body moving in space, in contemporary video. Each is an example of contemporary storytelling, inviting viewers to think about the place and significance of real bodies in a contemporary world.
The portrayal of the body moving in space, creating a narrative, has played a prominent role in the history of video art, hardly surprising perhaps, as the theme plays to video’s primary strengths and attributes: the medium’s capacity to record or make sense of the passing of time and its ability to engage viewers directly with the subject of the video.
Light moves: contemporary Australian video art
RMIT Gallery, 344 Swanston Street Melbourne
Exhibition: 1 July – 20 August 2016
Free admission
For more information, visit: www.rmit.edu.au or www.nga.gov.au for details.
Image: Hayden Fowler, new world order 2013 from the series New romantic. Single channel HD digital video, sound, duration 10 minutes 9 seconds. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.