What’s in a postcard? Baby, I just wanted to make you smile is an ongoing series of recorded endurance performances where the artist endeavours to share a sunset with her 100-kilo mechanical shark(Baby), by attempting to pull the shark up a hill. Frankie, the artists’ dog who has been equipped with their own camera, both witnesses and at times shares in these attempts.
The project revolves around the romantic and comic sublime, looking into the beauty of the absurd, especially within the urge to want to share something deeply with someone else. The work uses the slapstick materiality of the physical performance and its absurdity to question how different beings, bodies and brains all experience things differently.
Inspired by two of the artists’ favourite films; Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog and its corresponding behind the scenes documentary Burden of Dreams by Les Blank. The work investigates the Comic Sublime by looking at what it is to try and share joy, love, laughter and communicate in a universe filled with beings whose brains, existence and or bodies are built inherently differently to that of your own. The artist recognises the Comic Sublime as physically absurd phenomena, that despite its absurdity is occurring due to the sublime and absurd nature of existence itself.
The sound was created in collaboration between the artist and the musician Marelene Claudine Radice through prompts. The prompts were based on themes of Romantic longing and research into the different vibrational frequencies which sharks and other beings communicate through which the human being is consciously unaware.
The work investigates issues of labor, examining how we quantify and experience the physical in an increasingly digital world. The absurd is used in the work to generate questions surrounding concepts of care, empathy, compassion and labour when it comes to the physical world as well as within past, current and potential future technological advancements.
Please contact the artist directly if interested in viewing the work.
Three performances from the work were screened as part of the artists graduating honours body of work Bedtime Stories for Tired Bots at the Australian National University School of Art and Design, winning the Peter and Lena Karmel Anniversary award for the most outstanding graduating body of work.
Stardust; a hand-crafted robotic arm has been created by collecting and recycling ocean plastics along with space junk and human hair. The robot has been equipped with an endoscopic camera. In the two-channel video work Space Invaders, Double feature, the robot, and artist explore the absurd and sublime nature of scale and materiality within the universe when it comes to exploring both terrestrial and extraterrestrial bodies.
To view the two channel video work Space Invaders, Double Feature which features the robot Stardust, please contact the artist directly.
Stardust and Space Invaders Double Feature were exhibited as part of the artists graduating honours body of work Bedtime Stories for Tired Bots at the Australian National University School of Art and Design, winning the Peter and Lena Karmel Anniversary award for the most outstanding graduating body of work.
Soft Mechanics is an emerging body of work that explores the joy and absurdity within queer material relational kinetics through performance, materiality and robotics. The work addresses the inherent queer nature of the robotic body building upon Steve Dixon’s concept of the “Metallic Camp”.
At the centre of the body of work is the work Lick, spit, chew and blow, can or can’t you swallow me whole? Untitled attempt #1, 2023, a video which documents two robotic limbs attempted automation. One robotic limb is constructed using chewed strawberry flavoured hubba bubba bubblegum. The second limb is constructed from frozen salvia. As the limbs attempt to automate or “wrestle”, the saliva melts and saliva enzymes begin the process of digestion.
The chewed gum and saliva have been either produced or processed for the work using the artists own body. This process of production and processing materials for the construction of the robotic arms has been documented resulting in a series of still and moving images.
Video and images of Lick, spit, chew and blow, can or can’t you swallow me whole? Untitled attempt #1 were exhibited in 2023 at Tributary Projects as part of the Australian Queer exhibition, Cruel Optimism, curated by Christian Sirois.
Press X to… is a series of photographs, staged physically, captured digitally and then translated through varying degrees of both analog and digital media and materials. Spurred by the debate within the computer sciences against the rise of the “one model to rule them all” approach to machine learning and artificial intelligence. The work explores whether it is possible to create a truly empathetic model of artificial intelligence.
The work is a series staged self portraits with the artist real world performance companion; a mechanical great white shark (Baby) in a studio to resemble early video game screens similar to that of Tamagotchis and Pokemon. Using the artists’ own absurd binary of characters; a cow and a shark, coming from the colloquial saying that “you are more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark”. The cow and the shark act as binary figures on many levels including the differences in their environmental needs and social behaviours, as grazing herd animals vs solitary predators. Without the intervention of humans they would have no reason to interact or become aware of one another. The still image behaves as an open generative prompt for the viewer's imagination. The model created within this image generates an endless loop of images within each individual viewer’s mind that only they can see, each new image unique in how the shape of their own minds has interpreted the prompt.
Press X to… in its various mediums was exhibited as part of the artists graduating honours body of work Bedtime Stories for Tired Bots at the Australian National University School of Art and Design, winning the Peter and Lena Karmel Anniversary award for the most outstanding graduating body of work.
How can I make my Baby smile? Is an interactive queer, comedic, new media robotics performance work. The work explores the possibilities and limitations of technology and language as linked material-based mediums of communication and ways of mutual understanding between beings. Is there cruelty in demanding complete understanding between different worlds? Are there benefits that can come from the acceptance of surface-level understanding based on care for the differences between different worlds and their inhabitants?
Based on the artist's own research into creating compassionate machine learning models and Artificial intelligence in order to help “Queer the machine.”
Developed during the Queer Development Program with Performance Space and Performed for the first time during Queer Nu Werk 21/07/2023 - 22/07/2023 at PACT, Sydney, Gadigal Country, Australia.
The Performance in its current state is just over 5 minutes long. The work features the artist in her cow suit and one of her robotic shark performance partner Moo/Cherie.
“From the world of an Art Tech Femme Pest. How can I make my Baby smile is a material, generative and tactile experiment into bringing queer wanderlust back into adulthood after experiencing heartbreak. Using the absurdity of binaries through that of a cow and a shark. The work is a conduit of learning to reconnect with our inner and often misunderstood, yet gorgeous monsters. For Sharkie this means reaching back into their girlhood to remember the first time, she felt the queer sublime joy of falling in love with a perfect pair of ankles and or dorsal fin.”
Bots will be Bots #1 “The Rose” was shown and performed live at Carriage Works during Sydney’s Vivid Arts festival, on Gadigal Country, Australia and produced by Performance Space as part of their Live Dreams - Jester series, curated by the Australian artist Joel Bray.
The video work was also exhibited at the Australian National University School of Art and Design Gallery in 2023 as part of the artists graduating honours body of work Bedtime Stories for Tired Bots.
A series of stills taken during the staged wreckage of a car crash. The crash is in reference to Elon Musk’s Telsa Roadster that he launched into space and is currently in orbit around the sun. The scene plays with the idea that the Roadster fell out of its orbit and crashed back down to earth. Photographed and filmed at sunrise and sunset, the work uses light and colour to create a dreamy aesthetic in an absurd contrast to that of the violence of the fragmented car. The absurd nature questions ideas of dominance and boundaries within the relationship of nature and technology.
The installation and scene was made, filmed and photographed in Yuin Country, on Australia’s South East Coast.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly.
The scene Roadster Crash, is in reference to Elon Musk’s Telsa Roadster that he launched into space and is currently in orbit around the sun. The scene plays with the idea that the Roadster fell out of its orbit and crashed back down to earth. Shot from the POV of a figure moving through the washed up crash, the work uses camera motion as well as this figureless POV as a tool to draw the viewer into the scene. Photographed and filmed at sunrise and sunset, the work uses light and colour to create a dreamy aesthetic in an absurd contrast to that of the violence of the fragmented car. The absurd nature questions ideas of dominance and boundaries within the relationship of nature and technology.
The work’s non verbal script is that of AI generated observational narrations through Alt Text captioning. The AI Alt Text has been chosen due to its inability to pick up on cultural subtext and its lack of a physical experience of the world through that of a body, or as we would perceive as one.
The installation and scene was filmed on Yuin Country, on Australia’s South East Coast.
Still from Video recorded through screen record with the app QuickTime on a computer, self portrait with shark teeth veneer prosthetics, YouTube video, added subtitles and AI generated alt text.
From the project Love Bites, 2021.
Love Bites is a comedic multimedia installation consisting of sculpture and photo-media. The project is a surreal self-portrait of the artist in the form of a meta queer transhuman dating profile. The work looks at relational identity within the digital and natural world. The viewer follows the artist through different media as they are slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark. The project asks what role does technology play in our lives when it comes to intimacy and dating, as well as that of danger and desire?
At the centre of the work is a just over 5 metres long mechanical Great White Shark, hand crafted by the artist. The project follows the artist as she is slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark. The work explores the different ways in which we experience life through physical and digital spaces by trying to create a sense of danger as well as intimacy with the viewer.
A video self portrait using artificial intelligences, prosthetics, a straight jacket and robotic flopping fish mechanism from inside of a cat toy. The viewer watches the machine learning algorithm in real time learn how to deduce what is occurring within the absurd scene. From the project Love Bites, 2021.
Love Bites is a comedic multimedia installation consisting of sculpture and photo-media. The project is a surreal self-portrait of the artist in the form of a meta queer transhuman dating profile. The work looks at relational identity within the digital and natural world. The viewer follows the artist through different media as they are slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark. The project asks what role does technology play in our lives when it comes to intimacy and dating, as well as that of danger and desire?
At the centre of the work is a just over 5 metres long mechanical Great White Shark, hand crafted by the artist. The project follows the artist as she is slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark. The work explores the different ways in which we experience life through physical and digital spaces by trying to create a sense of danger as well as intimacy with the viewer.
She, Omnia Vanitas, 2020, GIF, 16 seconds.
Materials: robotic cow skull with crystal eyeballs, blue velvet eyelids and baby pink human hair.
Robotic cow skull currently NFS
Warning some viewers may find images within this gallery disturbing.
They contain mild nudity and discussions of sexuality.
Self portrait with rhinestone netting and Jaws mask as well as self portraits with fake tattoos made from screenshots from news articles, memes and headlines from the algorithm of my Facebook feed as well as the 1975 movie Jaws.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly.
Headlines in Thirst Trap; Origin du Monde read from left to right:
“Global Internet Is Being Attacked by Sharks Google Confirms”
“Shark Jesus is here!!!!”
“Space Junk Long Feared is Now an Immanent Threat”
“Shark Gives Virgin Birth to Miracle Baby in All-Female Tank”
Love Bites is a comedic multimedia installation consisting of sculpture and photo-media. The project is a surreal self-portrait of the artist in the form of a meta queer transhuman dating profile. The work looks at relational identity within the digital and natural world. The viewer follows the artist through different media as they are slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark.
At the centre of the work is a just over 5 metres long mechanical Great White Shark, hand crafted by the artist. The project follows the artist as she is slowly transformed and consumed by the Great White Shark. The work explores the different ways in which we experience life through physical and digital spaces by trying to create a sense of danger as well as intimacy with the viewer.
The Hairy Panic is a series of photographs and land art installations that took place in the farmland surrounding Lake George, NSW, Australia, Gundungurra People’s land. Sovereignty was never ceded. The Installation consisted of pink hybrid tumbleweeds made of industrial fencing steel and human hair placed within the drought stricken pastoral landscape.
The name of the work comes from the press coverage of the 2016 invasion of the Australian town Wangaratta by “Pancium effuse” a native species of tumbleweed. An overgrowth of the “native weed” occurs due to dry and windy conditions combined with soil toxicity levels brought on through industrialised agriculture that causes the plant to thrive. The plant when consumed by agricultural livestock can cause toxicity exhibited through photosensitivity and blisters.
The choice to name the project after this event came from wanting a way to share a narrative with the viewer that causes them to reflect on our relationship with the land and how something comes to be labeled a weed. The work reflects on the history and politics behind the aesthetics of landscape documentation as both a means of production and as a means of aesthetic communication of what it is to be labelled alien.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly
Matter is a series of images of hand dyed and chemically treated human hair introduced into a landscape. The images show a world where humans have become extinct and alien. The only traces left behind of them is their hair. The series explores the relationship between that of the human body, toxicity, and the environment.
The series came about while looking into the research being done into the links between environmental exposure to toxins, infertility and related conditions such as PCOS and Endometriosis. The hormonal changes brought on by these conditions cause hair loss. Endometriosis is a condition that has been and is sometimes still dismissed as a symptom of female hysteria.
The work is aesthetically inspired by the artist’s childhood love of 19th century scientific illustrations and 70s and 80s science fiction and fantasy films. The romantic aesthetic combined with the informative captioned text explores how aesthetics can affect how we engage with information.
The series questions our own environmental and emotional foot print, and the role they both play in our evolution and possible extinction as a species.
Prints are available to be purchased either through contacting the artist directly
An Entropic Utopia
A series of Photographs of an Installation built within a Studio Environment
Materials: Dye, Protein, Cleaning Utilities and Chemicals
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly.
Black holes, 2014
Eggs mixed with cleaning products and coloured dyes in different frying pans.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly
Giants, 2014
Eggs mixed with cleaning products and coloured dyes.
Prints are available to be purchased through contacting the artist directly.
