Curated by Charlotte Day, Fascination is an exhibition of new photo-based artists which explores the performative in contemporary photography and video: artists acting (up) in their work; using flawed, repetitive or obsessive behaviour to create images; and the playing out of self-consciously theatrical scenarios. In various ways, these artists convey insights into the construction of our personalities, the often precarious nature of communication, and life experiences mediated via technologies and consumer-driven visions.
Amanda Marburg's painted renditions of 'bad' photographs forefront the human and environmental factors which impact upon the mechanical sovereignty of photographic representation. Blair Trethowan is interested in the way signs and symbols mutate through various popular, cultural and commercial technologies. Adhesive dot self-portraits present the artists as a digital (de)composition. Starlie Geikie uses the film The Howling as a starting point for her exploration of a feminine psyche shaped by fashion and cinematic conventions. The artist book Tyranny of Feelings by Emily Floyd, Starlie Geikie and Lara Stanovic establishes narratives over and between existing narratives from a number of Hollywood films, mythologising the artist and the creative process. Using the 'before and after' makeover format popularised by women's magazines, Nat & Ali play with photography's implicit role in manufacturing our insatiable desire to be glamourous and famous. The complexities of masculinity are the inspiration for Spiros Panigirakis' video performances. The suburban water sprinkler is a fetishised prop - pathetically loaded with sexual and art historical references. Jennie Lang's model bridges stand as metaphors for social relations and artistic intention: our quest to record transient experiences and thereby produce new meanings. andrea Tu is also concerned with the interrelation between geometries and forms in nature, art and technology. In Stealth, meaning is created through movement and repetition, with identity revealed as constantly shifting and increasingly mechanised.
FASCINATION is part of Dreaming at Twilight at ACCA, CCP and 200 Gertrude Street, an official event of WIDE AWAKE, Next Wave Festival 2000. This project has been assisted by the Australia Council, the Federal Government arts funding and advisory body.
Image Credit: Spiros Panigirakis

Centre for Contemporary Photography
404 George St, Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Australia
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