Electro

Electro was one of three works Redfern created for the Parallel exchange exhibition that took place in Melbourne and Seoul during 2003 and involved Australian and Korean artists.Because the work derived from a cultural exchange exhibition between Australia and Korea, it attracted the attention of the curator of the first Move on Asia animation and single-channel video art exhibition. This brought together artists from Australia (also Ryszard Dabek and Van Somerwine),'China, Hongkong, India, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia and toured across East Asia, culminating in the exhibtion at the prestigious Tokyo Wonder Site, centre for contemporary art and cultural exchange in the heart of Tokyo. In Japan the exhibition was curated by Hisako Hara, a leading critic, curator and academic from Osaka, Professor, Faculty of General Information, Osaka Electro-Communication University. In 2003 Refern began to work with splitting and doubling his image as a means of constructing the self as `other' through screen technology. This performative video is part of a strong tradition of artists using their own image in video art. `Electro' extends these ideas by employing cinematic devices and the sci-fi notion of the `double', calling up such references as DePalma's `Body Double', Cronenberg's `Dead Ringers' and Carpenter's `Starman'. This work is part of his large body of work which explores the mutable and multiple qualities of contemporary subjectivity. Electro utilises quotations and a variety of self-reflexive devices to elaborate and reflect on this tradition.