In the Photic Zone: an exploration of cameraless photography through metaphors of photosynthesis, bioluminescence and Deleuzian notions of folding and immanent life

In the Photic Zone examines the mystical relationship between light, water and life; it is a lament for environmental loss.

Light permeates through metaphors of photosynthesis and bioluminescence as a living light; it caresses objects leaving tangible traces of its penetration on light-sensitive surfaces. Objects become phenomena with no intermediary apparatus, images are creative re-interpretations, truths of art that are different to those of science or biology.

Artworks are immersive fabrications, parallel watery worlds replete with wonder. Lifeforms appear in this potent bio-cultural remix of the sensate and the coded, the natural and the unnatural to evoke a fascination with potentiality. They represent things that might come into being, new digital identities that question what it means to be alive, artificial identities that speculate on what might exist. Place becomes other—a habitat for life ‘unstilled’ through ghosting and ephemerality; ‘thickened’ through long exposure and ‘unsettled’ through the unfolding of real fictions.

Date: 10 - 18 December
Time: 10am - 5pm
Opening: Wednesday 16 December 2009, 5 - 7 pm
Location: Faculty Gallery, Art & Design Building
Enquiries: Jill Winfield
Email: Jill.Winfield@artdes.monash.edu.au
Phone: 9903 2882

Image: Carolyn Lewens, Into the Photic Zone (detail), 2008, digital image from cyanotype photogram, size variable