Design and Art Australia Online

Wade Marynowsky works across a number of new media forms including video, music, installation and interactive media. His work mocks the stereotypes of Australian visual culture while constructing a critique of the way new media has engaged – or failed to engage – with an audience. Performance video pieces such as The_Geek_From_Swampy_Creek [2007] has gentle fun with the clichés of new media, mocking the nerdish stereotype of the boffin-artist, while Uranium Country [2005] revels in ridiculous meetings of nature and technology – a glowing koala head with swirling red mandala eyes floating over a rapidly moving background. Although broad in their delivery, Marynowsky’s live video mix performances have at their centre a sophisticated notion of transmutation as a defining characteristic of the relationship between sound and image, a continual and subtle evolution of one state to another.

Working in what the artist describes as “serious mode (no costumes)” pieces such as Apocalypse Later [2004] reveal the complexity of Marynowsky’s project. Using a vast array of material recorded around the country – including images of nature from national parks and historical re-enactments from theme parks – Apocalypse Later was produced using a custom-designed computer program to create a live mix of sound and image. The result evoked the visual clichés of Australian nationhood while leaving the distinct impression that the construction of its national identity grew from distinctly unnatural forms. Marynowsky’s Autonomous Improvisation VI [2007] explored the notion of the uncanny through the presentation of an automaton – in this case a computer-controlled Pianola – and a three-screen video installation of musical performances by musicians and burlesque artists. Like his live video mixes, Autonomous Improvisation VI offered an intriguing take on the notion of improvisation, asking if the mere coincidence of data equated to a real or “unreal” experience.

Writers:

Andrew Frost

Date written:

Last updated:

Status:

moderator approved