f l o a t | Queensland College of Art and Brisbane Powerhouse
Review written by Molly Young
On Wednesday October 14th I dropped by The Brisbane Powerhouse to see F L O A T. The exhibition was held on the Turbine Platform, and was a group exhibition of 14 Queensland College of Art Students.
After a tumultuous walk making my way through the suburbs of New Farm (not a simple process) and accidentally walking past the show a few times I was finally able to establish myself on a couch with a well needed wine to see what was happening. The exhibition was structured so that there were 14 separate videos playing on the one large screen one after the other, all together the loop took about 45 minutes. So the vibe of the show was really more like a very casual movie showing rather than an image sound projection event. However that did not detract from the quality of the work at all.
I had done a bit of research (I read the Facebook event) and the premise of the show was 14 students had gone on an excursion to North Stradbroke Island and were tasked with making works in response to their stay there. They also were allowed to collaborate with students from the Conservatorium of Music to create sound for their work, which a few of the artists successfully did. It was a shame however that due to the nature of the Brisbane Powerhouse, being big and very echoey, and the large turnout of people there, they were often drowned out, thus I wasn’t able to receive the full effect of the sound aspect.
There were however quite a few promising works that speak to an already well established practice, and lots of potential for the future. I was especially pleased to see that no two works were ever really the same. There was a true sense of variety in each artist's response to the landscape. The nature and landscape of North Stradbroke Island being the only common recurring theme. Particularly the seascape and horizon, the unique beach scrub and explorations in the water.
A couple of the works went very analytical and isolated single aspects of the landscape, that obviously struck a chord with the artists. Renata Buzlak, who worked with Vanessa Tomlinson to create the soundscape, produced the work Melaleuca Quinquenervia… antiseptic. The title of the work is the scientific name of the paperbark, one of the predominant plants on the island, Buzlak used this tiny aspect of the landscape rather than pointing her camera outwards and filming the whole landscape. Buzlak isolated this small branch, placed it on a photographic emulsion paper, filmed its decay and fusion and regeneration into new funguses and molds. Tomlinson’s soundscape was discordant and erratic, yet elegant and delicate. Matching the pace and speed of the time lapse, the work captured the not often observed cycle of nature, something essential to the landscape of North Stradbroke. The work really brings to life just how alive the bush is in its single element, rather than being objectified in its full context.
This simplification of focus became one of the more successful themes throughout the night. Cale Searston had success with this as well with his digital film Cold of Brown Lake. Searston focused on documenting the process of playing with the sand at the bottom of Brown lake. It was an incredibly relaxing video to watch. Filmed underwater, the colour of the water made everything an incredibly warm red that I was not expecting, with the background fading into an ominous black. Watching the hand pick up the sand and move it around in front of the camera really made you focus on the materiality of the sand interacting in the water. Again, another small isolated moment and action in the broad landscape of North Stradbroke, but powerful enough to really absorb you into the feelings and sensations of what it would be like to be there.
That’s not to say there weren’t more elaborate works that weren’t powerful. Wha Suk (Lucy) Park created Puzzle, a series of collages of human waste and detritus found on the island to create images of natures and plants. However she then constructed the collage into a slow moving video where different aspects of the collage faded in and out at different times, sometimes to just a white space, sometimes to leaves, turning a cigarette butt into a tree for example. A powerful comment on the impact of human waste on the natural landscape. I was actually sitting next to her and her friends on the night and she certainly deserved the little round of applause she got from her friends when her video finished up.
Like Park, there were other works that were able to comment on the politics surrounding the nature of the island. Nicole Paulsen in Island Acquaintance filmed her way driving around the island, the classic Australian beach-and-bushscape. She then projected that footage onto the side of a house with a window in the middle of it and a bush on the side. I loved this video because it immediately struck me as a modern re-interpretation of paintings such as The Car by John Brack. The sense of voyeurism looking over the Australian landscape literally through the window. I believe it makes a strong comment about our objectification of our own natural landscape, and how we as Australians are so isolated from the environment.
I could certainly go on and on about all the videos about the exhibition, say like how in James Hornsby’s work Something’s Wrong it went through as a highly kaleidoscopic and heavily edited dreamscape version of North Stradbroke, but then to finish up with just a shot of a cow in the middle of a field actually made me laugh out loud. But in the end there were 14 videos. However it is obvious from that night this cohort is very talented. All of the videos demonstrated unique sets of view and an ability to think critically of their source materials in different ways. Kudos also goes to the Queensland College of Art for organising this opportunity for the students. A good night with good art and hopefully, I’ll actually get to go to North Stradbroke Island very soon.
