Transmission is Drew Pettifer's first object-based solo exhibition outside of his traditional photomedia practice. This exhibition looks at the relationship between domesticity and intimacy through an installation consisting of a series of domestic lamps synaesthetically pulsating in response to an unheard soundtrack.
Pettifer has worked with sound producer Geoff O'Connor to capture intimate field recordings of young men in their bedrooms. Through this transposition these private moments are transformed into anonymous public contributions. The mediation of sound recordings into light patterns creates a discreet, intangible and ephemeral moment of exchange between the audience and the work. As an artwork of duration to be experienced over time, it depicts fleeting private moments to which the audience is momentarily privileged, creating a public recognition of private acts.
This new series continues Pettifer's interest in the relationship between public and private, concealment and revelation. Engaging with themes of metamorphosis, loss and renewal, this particular work reflects upon the poignant tension between light's capacity for revelation and transcendence and its inevitable dimming over time. It presents a cycle of accumulation, depletion and replenishment, a cycle in a perpetually transitory state of being, as the light patterns start and stop in response to the looped soundtrack.
This exhibition will be opened by Kate Rhodes, Curator, Design Hub at RMIT University and Adjunct Curator, Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design. The exhibition will also feature sculptural contributions by Marcin Wojcik.
LAUNCH Thursday 8 March 2012, 6–8pm
SHOWING 9 March – 21 April, 2012
Dowload the Transmission exhibition catalogue. (pdf)
Photography: Lily Feng
