Measures

Measures is a work that came out of the actual and imagined societal/internalised pressures and expectations of where one might or “should be” at a particular age.  Speed signs from around Australia were collected, photographed and reconfigured with composited footage of a drive through the Brindabella mountain ranges from Namadgi National Park which was formerly a satellite tracking station site and formed part of the space communication network used to support the Apollo mission to the Moon.

In conjunction with this notion of tracking and mapping vast spaces and time spans the work is also influenced by the experience of driving long distances between Australian cities and the opportunity these journeys offer for reverie and reflection.

The audio texts that form part of the work’s soundtrack are based on the artist’s reflections and projections around particular ages. The work begins with the text “When I was 5 I lost my country” referencing my experience of leaving Australia and moving country and culture to Pakistan in 1977.

As part of the Domain 2006 public art exhibition held in Canberra the work was projected onto the post office clock tower in Alinga St. in conjunction with an installation in the City West Car Park. There were two components to this installation. The first was a series of speed signs arranged in the void spaces between floors of a multi-level car park. The second component of the work was a series of texts stencilled onto car spaces below the multilevel car park. The texts reference thoughts, events, reflections and projections around particular ages.

In order to see both elements of the work the audience had to interact spatially with the architecture of the car parks. You were either in the car park discovering the texts in the ground floor car park, perhaps parking over the text and obscuring it with your vehicle. From the ground floor position one can relate the signs to the texts or the texts to the signs. From inside the multi-level car park one can look down at the texts and see the back of the signs, which then lead you out of the exterior of the building to see the augmented façade of the building.

Measures has been exhibited in the Gaden’s Top 10 show, Brisbane 2006, Domain 2006 public art exhibition, Canberra, After Urban; video art and architecture event, University of Pennsylvania, USA 2007, and in May 2007 BOOM, An Interplay of Fast & FrozenPermutations in New Media Arts, Taiwan-Australian Exhibition, Kuandu Museum, Taipei National University of the Arts, Shifting Ground, Watch This Space Gallery, Alice Springs.