People Like Us
Visitors can ride a bike through the streets of Sydney or travel through the human blood stream as part of a new interactive exhibition to open at the Charles Darwin University Art Gallery next month.
The touring exhibition People Like Us from the University of New South Wales captures universal aspects of the contemporary human condition in film, animation, digital and creative art.
CDU Art Gallery Curator Kellie Joswig said the exhibition would showcase a diverse collection of new media works by Australian and International artists on the themes of mapping, medical and sound to highlight the human condition.
“The exhibition also reveals the many experimental technologies being used by artists today as they comment on issues confronting us in the 21st Century,” Ms Joswig said.
“One of the pieces is a stationary bike that visitors can physically ride, while watching their journey through the streets of Sydney on a big screen. They can even control the speed of their journey.”
Other pieces include a set of ipads with a clip-on ear piece designed to assist with anxiety, a confronting medical procedure, an animated painting and sounds of animals designed to help visitors escape their surroundings and relax.
Curated by Director of UNSW Galleries Dr Felicity Fenner, People Like Us is underpinned by real human experience, a concept that extends to visitor engagement with many of the works on display by international artists including Venice Biennale entrant Yuri Ancarani, British composer Michael Nyman, and award-winning Luxembourg artist Su-Mei Tse.
Well-known Australian artists represented in the exhibition include Daniel Crooks, Angelica Mesiti and Joan Ross, who all deploy innovative filmic methodologies to achieve unexpected and immersive visual experiences.
It is a National Exhibitions Touring Support Australia exhibition developed by UNSW Galleries and toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW. The National Touring Initiative is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its principal arts funding body, and by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.
Image: Angelica Mesiti, Rapture (silent anthem), 2009, Single-channel video, colour. 10 minutes, 10 seconds. Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery