Featuring performances by Igneous, 'Fluidata' will explore questions around the state of Queensland waterways, the ways in which digital media can help connect audiences with the natural environment and anecdotes about local waterways.
'Fluidata' is an immersive and explorable installment with durational performances by Brisbane-based inter-media and performance company, Igneous – the co-founders of 'Waterwheel'. A globally successful online platform dedicated to the awareness, celebration, care and accessibility of water everywhere, Igneous have instigated and partaken in international collaborations between artists, scientists and activists for more than three and have made the decision to go local.
Igneous artists, James Cunningham and Suzon Fuks, drove 7,000 km, crossed 663 waterways and walked down 24 creeks throughout Queensland during the development of 'Fluidata'.
How would you describe what 'Fluidata' has to offer?
There are three pools of water that reflect projections on black scrims and walls. The creek names, GPS co-ordinates and statistics – collected from all over Queensland – are cascading into a narrow channel of water. If you stay a while you'll notice the gradual movement of precise lines, generated from creek-walk GPS recordings, meandering across the walls and corners of the room. A textured spatialised soundscape juxtaposes field recordings – like the rumbling of road-trains meeting the babbling of brooks. In the Waterwheel engine room – you can navigate the media centre, and in the meditation room, lay down and let go – washed over by sounds and images, projected on the ceiling, of freshwater textures.
There are a multiple ways in which the installation invites visitors to connect to the immediate environment of the space, to their internal environment, to ideas they have about natural environments, and to their memories of them. The media showing in one set of large projections responds to the amount of time people spend with them, and the amount of people together. The media on a meandering line of monitors responds to the direction people move in front of them. Recorded spoken cues (on mp3 players and coming from mini-speakers), guide visitors to bring awareness to their own bodies and in walking within the space. People can contribute memories to a twitter feed, and freely browse archives of media on computers in the engine room.
What did you do while on your journey exploring waterways throughout Queensland?
We drove our funky red Hiace van 7,500km, crossing over 663 waterways (we collect data). We walked super slowly up dozens of little creeks, in tropical Cairns, outback Cloncurry, remote Longreach, lush Carnarvon Gorge, and in mining towns like Blackwater and Miles. We connected with councillors and arts workers who organised workshops and the participants of those workshops, four of which were open to public and one for students of James Cook Uni. We stayed with friends, in our van in camping grounds, in council units and in flash-packers. We met and talked to locals and travellers in the street, and in the camping grounds. In Cloncurry we had the amazing fortune to be welcomed by a large indigenous family to events that were part of their family reunion over the entire Easter weekend of 2014, that they entitled 'Remembering Coppermine Creek'.
We wanted to work on a project that combined our interest in mobility, accessible technologies, being in the bush and waterways, and conscious physical attentiveness to environments. As we say in the project blurb 'accustomed to a life of instantaneousness, productivity and getting there’ (the straight line), we made a deliberate decision to slow down, allowing our bodies – and our digital devices – to absorb the landscape and the moment. Slowly, we walked the way of the water (the meander).
'Parallel Worlds' by Seda SaarWhat were some of the concerns you developed, or experienced, while on this journey?
We recorded locals and farmers recounting the extremes of drought and flood – and some expressed concerns over mining, CSG fracking and the degradation of waterways and aquifers. We also met with people from landcare and environmental organisations that are developing science-based data monitoring the health of waterways, that is some areas show improvement in the health of water from the implementation of ecologically sensitive technologies.
What are some of the questions you sought to answer throughout the development of this exhibition?
The work explores questions around the state of Queensland creeks, the ways in which we can connect or reconnect with the natural environment, both physically and via digital media, and we wanted to get some sense of people's relationship to their local waterways. What came up for us was a sense of time, how in the context of deep time – or geological time – the extremes that have catastrophic affects on humans and other species, are mere fluctuations, the natural cycle. The main elements of the installation are deep time, embodied presence and slow walks down creeks.
Why do you think it's important to explore these questions?
Because by building awareness to our connection with our environment – we can evoking a sense of wonder and also wondering in what exists, even in our own backyards.
What do you hope the audience gain, or learn, from this exhibition?
That by connecting to the real physical world, your own body, the present moment, what's right there in front of you or around you, your awareness opens up and so does your inner sense of appreciation and curiosity.
In what ways can digital media help audiences to connect with the natural environment?
Technology is getting more and more mobile which allows us to use the tools and techniques we are accustomed to – digital recording devices, smartphones, social media networking, the internet, streaming, GPS – to get out into the bush, the outback, up rivers, canyons and mountains. We initiated an online platform for sharing media and ideas about water called 'Waterwheel', which is free and open for anyone to use for their own projects or live events. We use it to create networked performative events inspired by water and issues related to global water care and management.
What can you tell us about the live performances included in the exhibition?
At designated times during the run of the installation, we will enact live, durational, networked performances. In keeping with the installation themes of time and presence, we will utilise simple, repeating gestures or movements such as walking in water, or placing a drop of water into the palms of visitors using an eye-dropper. These actions will be webcast online via the Tap and projected onto the mega outdoor-screen in the adjacent Parer Place. On the Opening Night (13 June) we'll team up with Bonemap at the Centre of Contemporary Arts in Cairns for a collaboratively devised networked performance.
'Fluidata' exhibits at The Block, QUT Creative Industries Precinct, 13-20 June. Live durational performances will take place on 19 & 20 June. The performances will be screened at Parer Place in Brisbane and CoCa in Cairns, and live streamed on the interactive, collaborative platform, 'Waterwheel'.
