ART-PRESENTATION: Feedback Loops

Photography: Courtesy of ACCAThe exhibition “Feedback Loops” explores the role of the cycle, the echo and reiteration in the personal mythologies of participating artists, and in artistic propositions for alternate worlds and speculative fictions. . All born in the 1980s, these artists are of a generation that grew up with digital technology as an integral part of the world. They work in a variety of mediums including video, sculpture, costuming, gaming, artificial intelligence and live performance.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: ACCA Archive

The works and worlds presented in “Feedback Loops” take the form of the theatrical, spectacular and the absurd, in their adoption of the ethics and aesthetics of sampling, and re-interpreting of the artist’s real, fictive and virtual experiences. References to spirituality, mythology, philosophy and personal histories are looped into these worlds alongside popular culture and a wide array of technological storytelling and image making. The physical and digital environments these artists have created for this exhibition, and over the course of their careers, comprise installations of video, sculpture, costuming, gaming, artificial intelligence, as well as recorded and live performance. The characters – human and non-human, real and fictive, are those who appear, re-appear = across the artists’ works. A cyclical and playful sensibility is brought into play throughout the exhibition, coupled with at times challenging considerations of the human capacity for empathy towards each other, and readiness to approach the unknown and the unknowable. Artists and projects include: Madison Bycroft’s sculptural and performance work samples from philosophy, art history, mythology and pop music to create carefully crafted and highly theatrical video installations. Commissioned for Feedback Loops, Bycroft will present a new immersive project designed to consider acts of refusal, including confounding the need for interpretation: of desire; of the self and as distinct to others; of a work of art. Bycroft is a graduate from the University of South Australia, and has presented work at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and in the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize, exhibited at Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, as well as part of a collateral event to the 2019 Venice Biennale. Bycroft will present a live performance, titled “Antihero” that will activate the sculptural forms and spill out in to ACCA’s foyer on Saturday 14/12/19. Tianzhuo Chen’s practice brings together influences and aesthetics from Buddhist art and philosophy through to British rave aesthetics, and works across genres of art, performance, music videos, fashion and design. considering the club as akin to the modern temple. Chen presents an video installation, in part produced in collaboration with Los Angeles based animator and artist Andrew Thomas Huang, that extend his exploration of ritual, and the idea of the nightclub as a modern temple. Lu Yang is interested in the intersection of neuroscience, belief and technology, and has at times described herself as living in the internet. Lu has recently worked specifically in the medium of gaming, drawing on the aesthetics of anime, Buddhist art, consumer culture, arcade games and science fiction, to traverse concerns ranging from the politics of gender construction to cancer. The recent game “Material World Knight-2019” brings together a cast of Lu’s characters from over the past seven years – from Uterus Man to her own virtual self – and is shown in two interactive gaming suites in the exhibition. Sahej Rahal is a sculptor, painter, performer and self-confessed Star Wars fan who describes his body of work as a growing mythology that brings together real and mythical beings, social, political and spiritual histories and a keen interest in the science fiction-led practice of ‘worlding’. Rahal will be undertaking a residency at Monash University in the lead up to the exhibition, to produce large scale sculptures that draw on the detritus of the real world. These works will be displayed alongside, and echo the forms of the zoomorphic characters that populate Rahal’s new artificial intelligence programs “Antraal” (which translates as the interstice or the space between) and “Shrota” (the listener) and their endless journeys through his virtual landscapes. Justin Shoulder works with performance, sculpture and video contracting a cast of characters – or an ‘ecology of alter-egos’ as Shoulder describes them – under the umbrella of an ongoing work, “Phasmahammer”, that seeks to queer ancestral mythologies. Operating across the art gallery, cinema, night club and theatre, for Feedback Loops, Shoulder will augment the character “Carrion”, working live in the gallery space over one week in late February 2020, building on his series of episodic character developments. Zadie Xa has developed a growing personal mythology and narrative approach to diasporic practice that draws inspiration from the role of the matriarch, shaman and ocean Korean folklore, interspliced with pop culture, fashion, science fiction and environmentalism. For the exhibition, Xa is presenting new and existing works in an immersive installation comprising costuming, masks, sound and video.

Info: Curator: Miriam Kelly, ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art), 111 Sturt Street, Southbank,Melbourne, Duration: 7/12/19-22/3/20, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-17:00, Sat-Sun 11:00-17:00, http://acca.melbourne/

Zadie Xa, Iridezcent interludez, performance still, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2018. Courtesy the artist. Photography Guillame LeBrun.
Zadie Xa, Iridezcent interludez, performance still, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2018. Courtesy the artist. Photography Guillame LeBrun.

 

 

Lu Yang, Material World Knight 2019 (still), computer game environment. Courtesy the artist.
Lu Yang, Material World Knight 2019 (still), computer game environment. Courtesy the artist

 

 

Sahej Rahal, Walker XV 2018, installation in Asymetrical Objects, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.
Sahej Rahal, Walker XV 2018, installation in Asymetrical Objects, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.

 

 

Sahej Rahal, Walker XV 2018, installation in Asymetrical Objects, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.
Sahej Rahal, Walker XV 2018, installation in Asymetrical Objects, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai, India, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.

 

 

Zadie Xa, Moodrings, Crystals and Opal Coloured Stones 2016 (still), high definition digital video, 21:00 mins. Courtesy the artist.
Zadie Xa, Moodrings, Crystals and Opal Coloured Stones 2016 (still), high definition digital video, 21:00 mins. Courtesy the artist.

 

 

Sahej Rahal, Antraal 2019 (still), sentient AI program. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.
Sahej Rahal, Antraal 2019 (still), sentient AI program. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai.

 

 

Sahej Rahal, Dry Salvages 2017, performance and installation, at PRIMARY, Nottingham, United Kingdom. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai. Photograph: Reece Straw.
Sahej Rahal, Dry Salvages 2017, performance and installation, at PRIMARY, Nottingham, United Kingdom. Courtesy the artist and Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai. Photograph: Reece Straw.

 

 

Justin Shoulder, Carrion 2018, performance still, Arts House, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist. Photography Bryony Jackson.
Justin Shoulder, Carrion 2018, performance still, Arts House, Melbourne. Courtesy the artist. Photography Bryony Jackson.

 

 

Tianzhuo Chen with Andrew Thomas Huang, Exo-performance / Baby Chinayu 2019 (still), high definition video, 5:43 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Bank Gallery, Shanghai.
Tianzhuo Chen with Andrew Thomas Huang, Exo-performance / Baby Chinayu 2019 (still), high definition video, 5:43 mins. Courtesy of the artist and Bank Gallery, Shanghai.