Blood Brain Barrier
video, loop, 2015
The body without a body...The body as parts, broken down, dis-organised and re-assembled. The real body, the abject body, the unreal body, the simulated body.
Disfigurement - The History of Art
video, loop, sound by Camilla HannaN, 2014
A series of images taken from the National Archaeological museum and Acropolis museum in Athens, Greece are reanimated. The history of western art in the form of classical Greek sculptures form the basis of this work. Such sculptures give us the human face that has been damaged, disfigured, broken and bodies dismembered.
Historically however such disfigured heads are still perceived as beautiful, their readings sublimated, in any other context however faces with missing noses, skulls split open, eyes removed, and faces damaged beyond repair would be repellent, but such material forms the very basis of the human body in the history of western art, a history based on disfigurement of the human form.
The Frozen Dead: Cinematic Homeostasis Device
video sculpture, 2013
The Frozen Dead - cinematic homeostasis device is a 'black box' device for keeping the decapitated head of an actor alive in a permanent state of un-death on screen. The ubiquitous black box – a common addition of the home entertainment system is given a new meaning here, a device for maintaining life on screen - Playing on a range of schisms of the animate/inanimate and dead/alive qualities of the video image itself.
The black box is also the name given to the flight recorder to hear those last remaining details of aviation disasters and the voices of the dead; the black box too references science and engineering, as a device or system which contains some kind of input/output without any knowledge of its internal workings.
The work activates the last remaining moments of death onscreen, with the function of keeping the actor alive from slipping over into onscreen death, the device also functions as a means of keeping the medium of film alive which like the decapitated head in my work, is in the throes of dying.
ZOSO
Collaborative mixed media installation, with Darren Tofts and Philip Samartzis, 2007
Rock music was designed to be transported, captured in the dark matter of vinyl and brought back to life through the rediffusion of hi fidelity. The stylus is to the turntable what the wand is to the magus. Jimmy Page channelled the airwaves with the theremin, the electronic conductor of the spectral. His violin bow is the anachronous coupling of spiritualism and cock rock, a relic from a different age, the sword that invoked the Egyptian god Anubis, the black dog, the despoiler, messenger from the afterlife.
Sick
Drawings, 2006
The gallery is like a hospital, the white washed walls, the halogen lights, the hushed tones and vacant contemplation, like a sterile hospital ward. If the gallery is a hospital then art and artists are the diseased, sick and injured. The whole idea of making art is indeed a kind of pathology. Creativity a form of sickness, art as a disease.
Liberv Rel Reguli
video, 30 secs, 2005
A possessed mobile phone, haunted media, satanism, a conduit to the otherworldly and the paranormal...
How to Make a Monster
video, 3 mins, sound by Philip samartzis, 2005
An allegory of disease, sickness, cleansing, detoxing and the inner and outer body.
Eastland Shopping Centre 1975
video, 3 mins, sound by Philip samartzis, 2005
ACDC, Bon Scott, Friday night, Eastland shopping centre, Ringwood, 1975
I was made for Loving You
video, 3 mins, music by Nick Bates, 2004
Flesh coloured appliances, designed to increase auto satisfaction, in the guise of a late night TV ad (animation based on futurotic sculptures)
Premonition
video/surround sound installation, Martine Corompt, Ian Haig, Chris Langton, Sound Design by Philip Samartzis, 2003
On entering the soft inflatable pink environment of the vinyl dome, the participants will be aware of the pliable and partly inflated floor, squishy and uncertain underfoot. Each step on this pliant surface invokes a response from both the audio and projected images on the surface of the floor.
A collaborative work exploring the popular horror motif of the maggot, as a metaphor of decay, transformation, or demonic activity, taking the participant through the emotional stages of dread and repulsion, as an accumulative, shared experience. The cute pink exterior disguises the unpleasant and all together non cute interior.
My Favourite Babe
(compatible with Netscape's 1994 1.0 browser) (800 x 600) web site, 2003
A web project about human evolution, Amphibians and Pamela Anderson 'My Favourite Babe' depicts the ultimate cybernetic and digitised body of our times: Pamela Anderson. The project explores the extremes of human evolutionary discourse and finds its starting point in the modified and digitised body of Pamela Anderson and her character of CJ Parker from the TV series Baywatch, as a surf lifesaver, mutant information amphibian and DNA of the internet.
Ectoplasmic Baby Fat Provider
video, 1.30 mins, sound by Philip Samartzis, 2002
Shape Shifting mutant metamorphosis and zombified human experiments gone wrong that are injected into your brain while you are trying to get to sleep after eating too much meat at your cannibal dad house.
Anti Ergonomic Hump Machine
sculpture, 2001
While ergonomics dictate that 'incorrect' use of computers can produce 'adverse' results on the human body, this work looks at the inverse; where the adverse effects of computers on the body can be seen as desirable body modifications, for the user to try and attain.
Psycho Samba,
video, 3 mins, music by Atomic fuzz, 1999
It happened when I was half way through watching the late movie : Magnetic Monster; suddenly a bolt of electricity sprang from the screen and hit me in the head, scorching my forehead with the uncanny resemblance of a burn which looked like a human eye. I could hear a buzzing in my ears, normal everyday sounds, appeared distorted and overtly loud. Sounds ate away at my brain, like some newly formed parasite burring it's way deep into my cranium. I felt good, I felt alive.
Trick or Treat
Video/surround sound installation, Martine Corompt, Ian Haig, Sound Design by Philip Samartzis, 1997
Whether Spectral or just plain spectacle, Trick or Treat seeks to explore our romantic understanding of technology as having a life of its own. How it has been used to create illusion, to suggest the supernatural, or to animate the inanimate.
Mighty Morphin Muscle Men
prints, 1996
The body is being enhanced, modified and upgraded. These hypermuscled morphing bods also represent the body in a state of impending collapse. The body pushed too the limit, with no place left to go. Mighty Morphing Muscle Men seek to heighten this amplified body
Hack
interactive mutant, 1992
Hack is a crude and simple interactive piece. The user navigates through a series of permutations of the human head and machine.
K-Rad Man
10 mins, 16mm, video, sound by Philip Samartzis, 1991
A computer virus takes over a computer nerd's life
Snap, Crackle, Die
super-8-film, Ian Haig and Maria Kozic, 8 mins, 1989
Man wakes up, eats cereal and swallows alien parasite, blood and gore, man dosen't feel too well
God Bless Charlton Heston
super-8-film, 5 mins, 1986
Screamin' Mimi's
3 mins, video, silent, 1984
Sometimes images are louder than words. A video which consists of screaming fans
Sociocusis, noise music, 1983 - 1984
