ShoutOut
2020
ShoutOut was constructed in a large corner window facing a busy area of the university campus. The emergent form, as if escaping from the institution, twitched and flinched randomly, sometimes violently in the wind.
The structure and fabric of the building held the work in a state of balance. At constant risk to the physical forces of gravity, compression and shear, the form’s ephemerality, precarity and unpredictability generated a sense of uncertainty. This, in turn, helped heighten the sense of encounter. By allowing the work to escape the building, contingent elements of the weather and passers-by’s behaviour also became materially integral to the work. Materials and elements, visible and invisible, became interconnected and equally significant to its ongoing existence.
In creating a temporary ‘out of our control’ and ‘on-the-point-of-collapse’ event which relied on the interconnectedness and cooperation of its elements to function, I am acknowledging uncertain futures. On the one hand, I recognise nature’s indifference to homo sapiens. I am also remembering that the natural and the human are co-factors in today’s disasters. Life is contingent. The reflections in the window of the world simply passing by contribute to manifesting these thoughts.
This delicate and precarious emergent form proposes inclusivity in the broadest sense.
What comes to matter in this work is mutuality.
Through the use of a limited palette and washed-out forms of buildings and passers-by, the fragile and delicate properties of each element of the work are revealed more readily. I want to expose the unknown and unfamiliar, not merely document its existence. In this selection, I also wanted to share something of the silence and stillness that we have collectively experienced this year. This resonated strongly with something of my initial intention to engineer an encounter with the unfamiliar in our every day and to generate a greater awareness of ourselves and our surroundings.