The video explores internal compass, beliefs, mis-beliefs and the desires for new horizons. Inspired by the Gibson Desert and Alfred Gibson who, in 1874, lusted after Ernest Giles’s compass, even though he did not know how to use it. The video opens with a red compass resting on a slatted wooden table. A figure enters, picks up the two objects, and walks across the claypan, shrinking towards the vanishing point on the horizon line. https://vimeo.com/45287392
Alasdair Macfarlane and I took 11 days to winch and pull ourselves through the muddy claypans of the Simpson Desert to Birdsville. Gibson disappeared in 1874 when he went searching for water with Giles’s compass. His body was never found, despite days of searching and the Gibson Desert is named in his memory.
Exhibitions: Blake Prize 2012 Director’s Cut Exhibition http://www.blakeprize.com/galleries/directors-cut?yr=2012&page=3; Desert Equinox Festival, Night-Sun-Days screening, Broken Hill, 1-23 September, 2012; Half a Desk exhibition, Kudos Gallery, Paddington, 15-18 August, 2012.
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Julia Featherstone 