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Spaced
Out
Presented
by the Australian Centre for Photography and Sydney
Festival
10
January - 16 February,
2003
Tue - Sun: 11.00am - 6.00pm
Galleries One, Two and Foyer
Science and Art Collide as the ACP boldly
goes into outer space. From super star to super
nova, this exhibition explores the ways in which
the human mind seeks to visualise the enormity of
what lies beyond our atmosphere… and sometimes
bring it down to earth!
Cosmonaut Yuri Batourin's personal
photographs from the Mir space station contrast
with the retro style and flushed enthusiasm of
space race memorabilia documented by Canadian
artist William Eakin. Images of the most
distant bodies in space made by the award-winning
scientist David Malin find uncanny resonance
with the tiny constructed realities of emerging
artist Holly Wilson, whose galactic
panoramas are the result of direct physical action
upon photographic celluloid. Artists Lyndell
Brown and Charles Green layer the
cultural meanings of documentation of the Apollo
missions of the sixties and seventies with images
of 18th and 19th century travel, European cinema
and the lot of today's boat people. Meanwhile
Warren Vance explores the notion of space
travel in relation to the migrant in elegant
juxtapositions of mundane objects and popular
images of the cosmos. Drawing on the rich tradition
of the space movie, Ronnie van Hout makes
playful reference to the 1950s sci-fi horror flick
while David Noonan and Simon Trevaks
evoke that most terrifying condition - to be lost
in space.
Spectacularly installed, Spaced Out offers
an exciting environment in which to experience a
galaxy of imagery from the grand and the beautiful
to the playful and irreverent. With photography and
video by artists and scientists, by cosmonauts and
wannabes, "It's art Jim, but not as we know
it".
William
Eakin
/ Canada
Various
works, 2001/02
William Eakin's fascination with outer space began
on cold morning in January 1991, when, as a result
of a boast, he began photographing doughnuts thrown
into the air behind the Motel Magic in Lethbridge,
Alberta. He and a friend had been looking at a book
of classic close-encounter photographs and he'd
suggested he could do better himself with the
result that doughnuts, dog bowls, tin lids and even
a perogy maker were all launched before the camera.
Made ten years on, the series of images here focus
on small and ephemeral objects - memorabilia from
the heady days of the post-war space race. Far from
being slick and polished, these objects are worn or
faulty, forgotten trinkets of cheap mass production
with low quality control - candy tins, button
badges, bubble-gum cards and enamel pins. They hark
back to an era when the exploration of space was
the great collective vision, soon to be lost to the
potential of miniaturisation and virtual
experience.
William Eakin (b: 1952) lives and works in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has published a number of
books including Home Sweet Home (1995),
Monument (1997) and Have a Nice Day
(1999). He has shown in Canada and Europe.
Ronnie
van Hout
/ Victoria
Untitled
series, 1995/99
Ronnie van Hout's little diorama's hark back to the
Cold War sci-fi horror flicks of 1950s and 1960s
when all that was alien was monstrous, where every
unidentified flying object was bent on abduction.
Each image takes a single emotive word and places
the physical letters (in suitably modernist fonts)
into tiny fabricated landscapes lit by the ghoulish
light of a green sun. Just as George Orwell's 1984
was not about the future but the present, so sci-fi
horror stories were less about outer space than the
caricaturing and dramatising of cold war
insecurities. As such, Ronnie van Hout's images
stem from the emotional obverse of William Eakin's
trashily triumphant souvenirs.
Ronnie van Hout was born in Christchurch in 1962.
He studied film at the University of Canterbury
School of Fine Arts and received his Master of Fine
Arts from RMIT University, Melbourne in 1999. He
has received numerous grants from the Queen
Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand and from
its successor, Creative New Zealand. He has
undertaken residencies at the Foundation Elba,
Nijmegen, the Netherlands in 1994, at the
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth 1996 and
the International Studio Program at PS1 in New
York. He lives and works in Melbourne.
Ronnie van Hout is represented by Darren Knight
Gallery, Sydney
Warren
Vance
/ South Australia
Burgeoning
Frontier, 1998
Warren Vance makes collages. Typically they begin
with a photographic image from mass culture - a
ubiquitous poster or a page from a magazine. Onto
this field of the popular imaginary is placed an
object, often apparently and bizarrely incongruous.
This simple but elegant juxtaposition sets up a
dialogue or resonance which educes and seduces the
viewer's own imaginative speculations. In this
series, Burgeoning Frontier, he takes
posters published by The Hansen Planetarium in Salt
Lake City which reproduce images of the heavens
made by David Malin and others. Onto these he
places a bucket of pinecones, a model sailing ship,
a pair of little girl's shoes and part of a model
house. While these juxtapositions suggest the
pioneering spirit of the settler in a new country,
the juxtaposition also suggests the continuing
colonisation off the planet as humanity seeks new
environments in which to live.
Warren Vance (b: 1964) is a graduate of the
Victorian College of the Arts. He has shown widely
in Australia and also in the Canary Islands. He
lives and works in Adelaide.
Yuri
Batourin
/ Russia
Short
rendezvous with the Earth, 2001
Yuri Batourin's photographs are essentially
personal travel shots, the 21st century version of
snaps from the plane, the hotel, the conference
centre. They occupy the human-scale space between
the enormity of David Malin's images and the
miniature fantasies of Holly Wilson. While the
earth below is made strange by distance and the
somewhat dilapidated paraphernalia of the space
station lends an air of precariousness to the
scene, there is no great emotional leap in
understanding why the images were made. The
motivation is simple and human. To show I was
there. To remember.
Yuri Batourin (b: 1949) has a background in rocket
science, law and journalism. He worked in the
Yeltsin administration until 1997 before going on
to join the Group of Cosmonauts in the Yuri Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Centre (Star City, Russia). In
1998 he was mission specialist on a three-man Soyuz
spacecraft delivering two fresh cosmonauts to the
Mir Space Station and returning with the previous
crew. His second space flight was made in 2001 when
he was flight engineer with the first space
tourist, Dennis Tito (USA). Yuri Baturin is
currently Deputy Commander of the Cosmonaut Corps
of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre. He
has made two documentary films: Touch-and-go in
Space (1997) and Ladder to Heaven
(2000). His photographs have been exhibited in
Russia and Europe.
Yuri Batourin is represented by the Russian Union
of Art Photographers
David
Malin
/ New South Wales
Untitled
Installation
David Malin is an award-winning photographic
scientist whose work has spanned the very small
(crystallography) and the immensely large
(astronomical imaging). He developed the first
method for making true-colour images of some of the
most distant perceivable bodies in deep space,
seven of which are showing here. These images,
which represent galaxies, stars and star-forming
regions are arranged around a formula known as the
Drake Equation, which is an algorithm for
calculating the number of technological
civilisations in our galaxy.
Nortel Award for Scientific Excellence at
Quebec's Festival International du Film
Scientifique in Canada in 1996.
The Drake Equation was first postulated in
1961 and identifies specific factors thought to
play a role in the development of any technological
civilisations that may exist in our galaxy.
Although there is no unique solution to this
equation, it is a generally accepted tool used by
the scientific community to examine these factors.
The equation is usually written:
N = R* • fp • ne • fl •
fi • fc • L
Where:
N = The number of civilisations in The Milky
Way Galaxy whose electromagnetic emissions are
detectable.
R* =The rate of formation of stars suitable
for the development of intelligent life.
fp = The fraction of those stars with
planetary systems.
ne = The number of planets, per solar
system, with an environment suitable for life.
fl = The fraction of suitable planets on
which life actually appears.
fi = The fraction of life bearing planets on
which intelligent life emerges.
fc = The fraction of civilisations that
develop a technology that releases detectable signs
of their existence
L = The length of time such civilisations
release detectable signals into space
David Malin (b:1941) won the Lennert Nilssen
Award in 2000 for his pioneering work with
astronomical imaging. His novel image enhancement
techniques have led to the discovery of two new
types of galaxy which bear his name, while in 1987
he discovered an extremely faint, uniquely massive
'proto-galaxy' which has since been named Malin-1.
These are some of the faintest objects ever
detected by a ground-based telescope and are the
result of a photographic process that has been
dubbed 'Malinisation'. Their discovery represented
a significant advance in photographic astronomy, as
well as being a major contribution to research on
galaxies. He won Italy's prestigious Prix
Leonardo in Parma in 1997 and the Nortel
Award for Scientific Excellence at Quebec's
Festival International du Film Scientifique in
Canada in 1996.
Holly
Wilson
/ South Australia
Cataclysmic
Variables, 2002 and Observations from Planet
16 in the System Tau Ceti, 2002
"Creating these images has taught me to move
from my safe space into further unknowns."
These images by Holly Wilson seem familiar in their
apparent representation of galactic phenomena and
the barren surface of icy moons. They resonate with
images such as those made by David Malin. Yet they
are of a wholly other scale and mode of creation.
These images were made by the direct action of
physical and chemical agents on pieces of film.
There was no camera and no subject as such. Rather,
the images were formed physically on the surface of
the film and prints were then made using the
'negatives' so produced. The final selection of
work was made with advice from David Malin on the
images that resonated most for him as being
reminiscent of real phenomena in space.
Holly Wilson (b: 1981) is an artist based in
Adelaide.
David
Noonan and Simon Trevaks
/ Victoria
More
Apt to be Lost than Got, 2000
Originally a painter, David Noonan uses video and
the artifice of the cinema to make his work. In
order to maintain control over the finished work
and keep costs to a minium, Noonan collaborates
with fellow artist, Simon Trevaks and together they
do everything themselves. The design, set building,
special effects, filming, editing, sound and acting
are all handled by the artistic collaboration. In
this work, More Apt to be Lost than Got, we
see Noonan as spaceman, detached from his rocket,
spinning towards us and past us into (one assumes)
the vastness of deep space. It is a classic
sequence from the sci-fi genre and the first sense
we have is of its familiarity. Noonan is drawn to
these overplayed cliches of cinema. Recreating them
and cycling them over and over, he forces us up
against both the melodramatic (but non-the-less
potent) narrative - to be lost in space, cast
adrift, alone - and the mannered gestures of the
simulated motion. Noonan and Trevaks further
undermine the cinematic illusion by placing two
'production stills' elsewhere in the gallery. In
time the viewer makes the connection and the
spaceman's hi-tech suit is revealed as nothing more
than cardboard and plastic and silver aerosol
paint. But for all the debunk and playful
deconstruction, it's a game played with a certain
affection.
David Noonan (b: 1969) and Simon Trevaks (b: 1964)
have shown extensively both nationally and
internationally. Both artists live and work in
Melbourne.
David Noonan and Simon Trevaks are represented by
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney
Lyndell
Brown and Charles Green
/ Victoria
Five
Works, 2002
Here, images from the Apollo space program share an
uncanny, mille feuille of imagery with pictures
suggesting other sorts of distance, travel and
discovery. In the central image, Island, the
astronaut, face shrouded in a fish-bowl helmet,
shares his tromp l'eoil moonscape with two other
images. One is a late eighteenth century etching of
a vast jardin chinois, which has apparently
'landed' in England. The other is a still from
Jean-Luc Godard's film, Le Mépris
(Contempt, 1963), in which a couple (played by
Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot) face each other
at the irrevocable point in the disintegration of
their relationship.
Lyndell Brown and Charles Green are fascinated by
the processes of collecting, sorting and archiving,
and by the implied relationship between memory,
meaning and image. Photographs are recreated as
paintings, rephotographed and printed onto clear
plastic film that in turn casts a shadow of the
image onto the wall. It is a delicate playful
meditation on the ever-expanding possibility of
meaning, which has at its heart a deep fondness for
the visual and a strong grasp of the
conceptual.
Lyndell Brown (b: 1961) and Charles Green (b: 1953)
have been working collaboratively since 1989.
Charles Green is Senior Lecturer in the School of
Fine Arts, Classics and Archaeology, University of
Melbourne; and Senior Curator, 20th and 21st
Century Art at the National Gallery of Victoria.
They live and work in Melbourne.
Lyndell Brown and Charles Green are represented by
Grant/Pirrie Gallery, Sydney
Image Credits:
• Yuri Batourin, Untitled,
2001
• David Malin, The Orion Nebula M42
and M43
• Lyndell Brown & Charles Green,
Island, 2002
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