The Artist Is Present (or do you believe in ghosts) - Video Documentation

for 1 screen


The Artist is Present (or do you believe in ghosts) - Nicola Morton from nicola morton on Vimeo.


for 12 screens

The Artist is Present (or do you believe in ghosts) - Nicola Morton from nicola morton on Vimeo.





for 15 screens

The Artist is Present (or do you believe in ghosts) - Nicola Morton from nicola morton on Vimeo.

The Artist Is Present - Photo Documentation

Performed from 7.20 pm until 10.00pm on Dec 27, at Other Film Festival 'Institutional Capture' at Boggo Road Gaol, Brisbane.

 

Performance 

Screening:

Photos: Alan Warren and Bryan Spencer

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My father was a screw. He started with seemingly impossible ideals of social change in the Joh era and ended a very cynical, tough as nails, one-punch man. Thirty plus years later in 2014, we find ourselves in a ‘social turn’ of contemporary art,[1] where art is trending towards activism and our conservative governments are selling/leasing off public interests to private concerns. A private company working for profit could soon operate the jail my father worked in. I find myself unable to share my father’s righteous belief in the Law when the Law and (other Institutions like Art Institutions) are increasingly serving private interests and the accumulation of value. Working towards the contrary, other artists and I produce our art within the context of this ‘social turn’ to disseminate ‘the power over’ hegemony into ‘the power with’ community. Without the technocratic skills of hacking, I wish to interrupt the surveillance technology with community concentration. In doing so I ask Art to take a look at itself: what does activism from within the Institution look like, what does it hope to achieve and how can it do so without serving private interests. 

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[1] Anne Marsh. Performance Ritual Document (Melbourne: MacMillan, 2014), 20.

Unicorns and Slow Revolution (I am Wild Free and Beautiful Pt2)

“Unicorns and Slow Revolution (I am Wild, Free and Beautiful Part 2)” (7/06/2012-10/06/2012) Video Installation 5mx2mx1.5m (Recycled cardboard, plastic bags, dog hair, rice, mirror, tree bark, 15 min subtitled AV projection, instructions, crayons) Psycho Subtropics 2: Available States at Serial Space, Sydney

Connecting the collective imagination of unicorns to transitions. Blindfolded collaborative drawing confuses the intelligible and unintelligible, it confuses the cis-norm. Intimate interviews are projected within a psychic ritual space – an alchemy for unicorns to emerge. It is the artist’s hope by connecting to the collective unconscious/fantasy/imagination a slow revolution will occur towards natural unintelligible disorder, existence in a simultaneous epoch of all ‘available states.’