a session in the ground on the air - 2005
For one day the artist digs holes and bunkers, builds desks and chairs, and creates a loop pulley system to a tree
For two days people are invited to enter the earth, and type a work, building on the last two lines left to them by the previous writer. Pegging their writings to a rope, this rope is then pulleyd by the artist who belays himself up a tree. the writings are then pegged to a leaf on the tree.
For one night the artist sews the writings together, in chronological order. Inviting the writers back to listen to their connected-poem. The writings are belayed back down the rope after being read. On the ground two people take the paper, burning it as they drop it into the holes of earth. The hole is covered in its own earth, and a native sappling is planted - growing from the connected-poem of participants.
One Night in the Well - 2003
The Stitch - based on the solitary confinement of Henri Charriere (papillion) set to Astor Piazzola's 5 Tango Sensations. Tango, 3d model projections that came out of the wall, a live string quartet & a remote control mouse puppet.
Untitled - a fluxus work looking at the sometimes bizarre moments in time shared by brothers and sisters. Piano, movement & silence
On Time - a study in comparative mythology, using the underlying tenet that all figures of myth are variations on character from an individual's psyche. Video art, physical theatre, narration & aerial puppetry
This image was taken as promotion for one night in the well. a durational breakfast-installation
Progress Party - 2005
Over two days well and students from VUT intervened Hardware Lane, CBD Melbourne. Our brief was to create works which highlighted the outmoded and unfair tax system that has been in place in Australia since federation. The Progress Party support a single land tax, meaning the only tax paid is equivalent to your use (or abuse) of land. A system no longer in the zeitgeist but a forerunner to both the Green and Labor movements in Oz. We created a durational work over the two days consisting of: long queueing for nothing, paper writing and fighting, tying a thousand ties around each other's eyes, force feeding of macdonalds happy meals whilst on all fours whilst singing an old black-american slavery song & getting to know eachother intimately through a variation on the Meisner technique
Q: 4 a Dog - 2002
RMIT commissioned well artists to work with a spectrum of their students from accounting to geography who were interested in theatre. A bizzare and curious series of art works was created as a result. Incl: a video art work looking at the connection between oil, prickly pear, dog testicles and september 11. Theatre training beginners culminating in interventionist street theatre for High Vibes Festival and a complex 2 act performance experiment at Kaleide Theatre for Melborune Fringe, using: recorded and layered audio, xenon light, mugwort soup (an attempt to bring the audience to a state of hypnogogia), large scale set, theatrical illusion, re-visioned 20th cent. musical numbers and video that moved in and out of the audience on a hand crafted multi faceted projection screen (4 frames in a metal frame on a track)