Caught between feedback loops and light is a two channel projection installation, which sees digital projection used as both subject and material. Within the artwork are two further moving image artworks created by the artist during Melbourne's extended lockdown. The first, Played as they lay (2020), follows a series of moths as found in pantry traps. Each moth was seized, lured by pheromones, protruding from tacky adhesive. The forms are traced to compose a score, transferring the path of moths into notes on a musical stave. The second is Keaton Fly, after Gordon (2020), which documents observations of a housefly. The fly enters the screen in lieu of an actor, as its movements are used to compose a score, sound-tracking as the fly performs in each scene until it slowly dies—like a micro silent film creating itself. I put houseflies to work as actors, in a deadpan parody of a classic silent comedy.
Between the musical pieces, two column-sized projections of vertical projectors dominate the gallery: monolithic imageries and parodies of themselves. Lumens lock eyes: a stare down between projected imitation and machine. The projection apparatus is turned back onto the viewer and onto itself, taking on the role of sentinels, acting as invigilators for the gallery in situ. We can hear, in the background, an orchestra tuning instruments. Caught between feedback loops and light sees the medium of projection and the concept of psychological projection feeding back into the artwork as a disembodied psychological sinkhole, constructed of sound and moving images.
