CAUSE + EFFECT
STACKS Projects
4 – 21 July, 2019
Gillian Kayrooz · Tina Stefanou · Jessica Thallmaier
Using existing mathematical theories, which map uncertainty as its foundation – Chaos Theory, Butterfly Effect, Dynamical Systems – Cause + Effect investigates the highly sensitive nature of causal sequences. These scientific expressions of incidental happenings are the nonlinear flow of force or energy, dependant on time and geographical space, creating unpredictable results through its sensitive variances. Arguably, all art embodies an action and a reaction. Cause creates effect,
in turn impacting a grand narrative or larger reality. Even the most minute actions create residual consequences, repercussions that cannot be controlled or predicted. Often these actions are so minuscule we cannot determine which changes effected which outcomes. Cause + Effect
uses this particular branch of science as a point of reference, stimulating further discussion around concepts of community, physicality, identity, and material domains.
Cause + Effect functions as a metaphysical enquiry into art as it is
made and as it functions in the gallery space. These works and their concepts are not exempt from change and are wholly vulnerable to the instability of worldly conditions and the forces enacted upon them, both theoretical and literal. In amalgamating methodologies of art and science, we continue to move away from specific modes of interpretation relating to science, philosophy or art, and towards the realisation of the third space
of curating and art.
This exhibition has been generously funded by STACKS Projects
Gillian Kayrooz,
Pre-Chora, 2018
suspended moon screen structure, video projector*, endoscopy camera
8’15”. NFS
*projector kindly provided by ALASKA Projects.
Pre-Chora is a suspended visceral video installation originating from an experimental filmic practice incorporating performativity, blurred aesthetics and video materiality focused installations. The constant presence of the gaze in art and the patriarchal discernment of female performance work as aggressive or masochistic; remains explicit when concerning genitalia. A frustrating factor to consider when capturing the bodily has undeniably remained a theme at the forefront of recorded performance work. However, the progression of developing the camera as an extension of the human body instead of identifying it as an intrusive or observational tool, demonstrates how the eye rests as a tactile organ in place of a simply visual aid. These affects the camera pertains are developed through the constant corporeal relationship between the performing artist, camera, camera operator and viewer, cultivating an intimate and involuntary sensory environment. A work branching from theorist Julia Kristeva’s study of the Chora(1); the psychosexual development of a child once leaving the womb up to the age of six months. Pre-Chora strengthens the ability for this naturally formed blurred visual to surpasses sensuality and transcend carnality, in a primal return, pre-gender, to the womb.
Jessica Thallmaier,
Unanticipated Consequences, 2019,
glass, electronic
dimensions variable. POA
Each pillar has sliding control (slide potentiometers) embedded within them through which the audience may manipulate the works. The levers are coloured to indicate their purpose, with red, green and blue mapping to RGB values in the lighting system respectively. As the controls are moved, the lighting for each channel is mixed within the immediate sphere with minimal delay allowing the participant to comprehend the direct result of their actions. Each pillar’s lighting system is controlled by a separate computer system (Ardiuno) and has a radio transceiver allowing the pillars to communicate. Whilst the levers directly manipulate the immediate lighting system attached to it, the systems also respond by sending out signals to the neighbouring systems.
Every second, the readings from the pillar switches are read and ‘pulse’ out across the room. Pulses can be sent out by any of the pillars depending on how recently they were manipulated. Over time, the signal decays and returns to the default lighting representing ‘recurrence’, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions.
In a deterministic system, the initial conditions of the system fully determine the ultimate outcomes. Small changes to initial conditions may result in widely different outcomes. Over time, the levers on each system are expected to be manipulated by the audience, and the lighting systems more intertwined with each other. As the conditions change, the lighting effects across the greater system become more and more complex, obfuscating the cause and logic for their functioning. This
cacophony of lighting pulses may give the illusion of chaos but is in fact determined entirely by
the system parameters.
The work is engineered to allow the audience to interact with the work physically and to experience the consequences of their actions in a gratifyingly immediate manner. The works intent is to encourage the participant to question the scope and breadth of even their smallest action as it may have far reaching consequences across the world.
Tina Stefanou,
Pop Song, 2019,
suspended oud, fishing wire, clear PVC copper wire, video projector, speaker
dimensions variable. POA
Pop song is a sound installation and sculpture where the voice of a six year old girl asks us to be present to the cause and effect of our actions. She calls into question our idea of love and the burden she carries as she moves into the future. She sings into her great grandfather’s grave - echoing into a silent chamber where only she feels the effects of generations past.
Stefanou explores the human voice as a multi-faceted instrument, expanding traditional boundaries in collaboration with visual language to explore social and poetic spaces. Stefanou seeks to interrupt a particular space to offer an idea beyond what is expected or anticipated, inviting the audience to transform their symbolic relationships to material. Stefanou performs cultural and imagined stories across mediums, acting in unison to reflect a totality of experiential knowledge as felt through the ideas of origin and states of being-ness. The artist can never comprehend the totality of the work. She takes part in the field of tension between the visual parameters and the voice, allowing the materials and composition to co-author the work.