Incompatible Elements

If the earth beneath of our feet could speak…’Incompatible Elements,’ a project by Australian artists Josephine Starrs and Leon Cmielewski, re-presents the relationship between nature and culture by reconfiguring land as active rather than neutral, verbal rather than mute, and therefore able to comment directly on the impacts of climate change. Building on the long tradition of artists combining text and image to communicate ideas and concepts, poetic texts are digitally embedded into satellite images of landscapes in crisis. In each digital print and video these texts reveal themselves dynamically, growing out of the landscape in different ways – the text design and method reveal the reflecting qualities of the landscape. ‘Tipping Point’ responds to the issues of climate change in ways that are mythical, biblical and chemical. The video illustrates the Boiling Frog story that has been used by environmentalists to describe the physical state of humanity in relation to ignoring the early effects of global warming. ‘Maldives Match-Up’ is a participatory mapping project that invites visitors to map their own city block onto an existing Maldive island, offering displaced Maldivians an opportunity to relocate

Wai

There are five components to the Wai project. Te Iarere (communication across vast distances) involves data from a tree in Opunake, New Zealand Aotearoa. Tree voltage, temperature and light are measured. The second component is Pou Hihiri (the womb of the universe). Video is the third component. Indian video artist Sharmila Samant has contributed The Wasteland, an exploration of Wai in New Zealand. Julian Priest contributed Sink a model of anthropogenic ocean acidification. The fifth component is an animation and audio work by Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs Puwai Rangi Papa. Projected onto the floor, the words of Te Huirangi Waikerepuru are etched into the mountain landscape of his home – Taranaki Maunga (mountain)

Moving Graffiti; The Verdant Shed

Moving Graffiti: The animation shows a map of the Shoalhaven River morphing into an Australian Bass fish leaping out of the river. The Bass are in decline due to weirs and dams blocking migration on most of our rivers. Tallowa Dam on the Shoalhaven excluded the Bass from more than 80% of their habitat before the fish lift was built. Australian Bass are a good fish to eat, but should only be taken from stocked areas. This moving graffiti has been projected onto several locations around Bundanon. Moving Graffiti is installed the Bundanon Homestead Library from 29 September throught to 29 October 2012. The Verdant Shed: A projection piece where the long dead trees that are the posts supporting the old shearing shed come to life. The Verdant Shed was projected onto the Study Centre at Bundanon on the night of the 29th of September 2012 as part of SITWORKS: Future Food Feast. Siteworks is an ongoing series of interactive projects focusing on the unique Bundanon properties: 1100 hectares of pristine bush land overlooking the Shoalhaven River, which is Arthur and Yvonne Boyd’s gift to the Australian people. Siteworks invites selected arts practitioners, scientists and scholars to meet and stay at Bundanon, responding to the site through the lens of their specific discipline and areas of interest. This has led to stimulating conversations and collaborative site-specific projects

Chapel of Rubber

Cementa_13 is a biennial contemporary arts festival taking place in the post-industrial town of Kandos NSW. Over forty artists exhibited video, installation, sound, 2d and 3d artworks in venues and locations across the town. Chapel of Rubber is a mixed media installation that acts as a shrine to rubber, burnouts, metal, wheels, donuts, horsepower, petrol, fire and smoke

Downstream shown in Impact by Degrees exhibition

Impact by Degrees: Australian Perspectives on Art and Climate Change was a group exhibition of Australian artists addressing the subject of climate change. Curated by Antoanetta Ivanova, the exhibition ran from 3 September to 20 November 2009 at the Australian Embassy Gallery, Washington, DC, USA. Featured artists: Justine Cooper, Natalie Jeremijenko, Jon McCormack, Leon Cmielewski & Josephine Starrs, Pip Starr, Mari Velonaki, Martin Walch. Leon Cmielewski and Josephine Starrs: large scale satellite image with the inscription ‘and the river was dust’ which charts the damage that drought and climate change have already inflicted on Australia’s largest river system

SMS_origins

A phone number is displayed on a large screen in a public space along with the instruction “sms your family origins.” Participants sms their own and their parents places of birth to this number and linked curved vectors are added to a public map that updates in real-time as it receives texts. Locals can sms their Australian postcodes. The map is not static, texts are displayed in real-time, while the map zooms in to the countries of origin and animated vectors connect the locations. As more people participate the map grows to include accumulated vectors

Epicormic

For 60 years the Victorian National Park Association (VNPA) has been at the forefront of protecting Victoria's natural environment. It undertakes scientific studies in close co-operation with the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research in order to gain a better understanding of native wild life. Employing motion-triggered surveillance cameras they are currently monitoring animals in national parks in Victoria to study how wildlife responds, long term, to fire or the absence of fire. In co-operation with the Centre for Creative Arts, La Trobe University, photos from the study have been made available to artists as the starting point for a project that invites our own response and interpretation as we witness the unreserved behaviour of native animals in their own habitat. These interpretations will be projected into the busy day/night life cycle of Melbourne and its public spaces – our own city habitat. Despite what we think we know about the aftermath of fire, there's surprisingly little understanding of its effects on native wildlife. Looking at the photos there is something incredibly intimate and unguarded about them. It's as if wildlife social-realism meets the monochromatic aesthetic of night vision surveillance and we are becoming voyeurs of another intelligence at work -- which we would not have encountered otherwise

Waterways

Sydney Harbour! Gorgeous blue water, glittering city skyline, exclusive “dress circle” suburbs, lovely fresh ocean air. However commercial fishing has been banned in Sydney harbour because the marine life is considered toxic. Recreational fishing is extensive, but fish caught on the Western side of the Harbour Bridge should not be eaten as they contain high levels of dioxins and other carcinogens. Waterways, a video installation created for the Urbanition: 2011 Sister City Biennial: San Francisco and Sydney exhibition, offers ideas for solutions to these problems while at the same time revealing the underbelly of Sydney Harbour through a mash-up of the popular 1990’s TV show Water Rats

Incompatible Elements

Incompatible Elements is an ongoing project that evolved during an artist residency at Performance Space, Carriageworks, Sydney. In this media art installation, poetic texts are embedded into animated satellite images of terrains and waterways in crisis. The intention is to configure the land as active and to imagine it being able to speak and make comment about human impacts upon it. The installation was first exhibited at Performance Space Carriageworks, Sydney in October 2010

Dancing with Drones

Dancing with Drones is a two channel video installation that explores the normalization of drone warfare and surveillance. In this work Starrs and Cmielewski use drones to capture still and moving images of a dancer performing within landscapes that are in crisis due to climate change. The figure exhibits a range of emotions, including curiosity, agitation, and resignation, in response to the persistently intrusive drone. The video artwork aims to encourage contemplation about our relationship to nature and technology