Special Interest Section

BACKGROUND I was invited by curator Carollyn Kavanagh to exhibit a selection of my video work in the exhibition 1000 Forms of Fear at The Australian Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide. I exhibited 14 different video works some going back 18 years. Many of the video works explored the visceral human body and its relationship to the contemporary media environment. While some of the works have been previously seen, many others have never been exhibited before. The retrospective of 14 video works provided an entirely new configuration to view many of my video works at a significant venue. Soundtracks for the works were produced by PH2, Darrin Verhagen and David Haberfeld
CONTRIBUTION
Has fear become the zeitgeist of our era? We fear ageing, disease, disfigurement and death as well as an ever-expanding list of phobias. Cultivated by media and politics our current culture of fear is all encompassing: from fear of terrorism, migration, pollution and pandemics. 1000 Forms of Fear examines the aesthetics of fear and terror. The range of video works I exhibited all explored ideas of body horror and body fear. Official and established discourses and histories on the body, abjection and confrontation of the body in contemporary art have often avoided the horror film and in particular the genre of body horror and the visceral confrontation of body. Many of my works re-visit the genre of body horror while exploring ideas around the de-familiarization of the body and notions of attraction and repulsion of the body.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Australian Experimental Art Foundation is the oldest experimental art space in Australia. The significance of the research sees a rethinking of the body in contemporary art practice and its relationship to the contemporary media environment and the ways in which the rational, logical world of technology confronts us with its aesthetic opposite in the form of the messy, irrational and illogical human body.