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Rivers, wetlands and all kinds of salt and freshwater ecosystems is the focus of this 23rd Biennale of Sydney. And Melissa Dubbin and Aaron Davison’s work ‘Delay Line’ is a system, a mad laboratory, a closed system of water travelling through glass – you try and follow the bubbles of air. Glass and water are a combination made in heaven (like egg and chips).
A computer runs a simulation of an ocean floor to a tank of saline solution holding a robotic manta ray. More art and science. A lovely guide said she had read up on it but still couldn’t quite grasp what was going on. Some art is like that, like a performance by Gilbert and George.
Her favourite piece was beside the laboratory, a golden seascape, an abstracted, Japanese style large work made from gold leaf and fishing hooks.
Cuban artist Yoan Capote, Requiem (Plegaria)Beside this are Duke Riley’s plastic vessels painted in a scrimshaw style depicting some of the worst oil spills globally and the people responsible.
I didn’t appreciate the eyes and teeth of Erin Coates, but did enjoy the video of Hanna Tuulikki singing to seals in Scotland. ‘ Her practice spans performance and audiovisual installation, blending vocal music, choreography, costume and drawing. In her work, she investigates how the body communicates beyond and before words to tell stories through imitation, vocalisation and gesture. With a largely place-responsive process, she considers how bodily relationships and folk histories are encoded within specific environments, ecologies and places.’ (www.biennaleofsydney.art)
What stand out so brightly are outside and upside, large Kingfish shiny-fresh in a bucket.
