Moonlight Sonata explores the emotional impact of the full moon and artificial light on human perception when alone at night in the desert landscape. Looked interesting when projected onto the roof of a workingman’s cottage @ Beams Art Festival, Chippendale Creative Arts Precinct, on 18-19 September, 2015.
Posted in Absurd, Invisible, Landscape, moonstruck, Shadows, Surreal, Video Stills
Tagged Boulia, desert, Min Min lights, moonlight, moonlight sonata, painted light, red sand, Simpson Desert, Winton
The Red Desert Project installed 2.5 billion grains of red desert sand on the floor of an urban gallery for city-dwellers to walk barefoot and be ‘out there’ in the emptiness. This immersive exhibition was integral to my studio-based Master of Fine Arts degree at COFA, UNSW. The images are video stills from HD video projections. Left: Moonlight Sonata (Simpson Desert, SA); Centre: Gibson’s Compass (Simpson Desert, SA); Right: Alchemy of the Sun (Lake Disappointment, Little Sandy Desert, WA) > See MFA14
2014-06-02 in Abandon, Absurd, Firenze, Invisible, Landscape, mapism, moonstruck, Music, Perspective, Place, Sand, Scale, Science, Shadows, Surreal, Video Stills
Tagged 'out there', 'The Red Desert Project, billion grains of sand, emptiness, Lake disappointment, Little Sandy Desert, materiality, moonlight, moonlight sonata, red, red sand, Simpson Desert, urban dwellers
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.
This image is part of my Optika Series of experiments with colour. This work involves the film lighting filters red and green.
Posted in Absurd, cubism, Fracture, mapism, Shadows, Video Stills
Tagged complementary, cubism, shadows
Video still from my Ground Series in Europe. Copenhagen at midnight is dark, chilly and icy. The perspective lines lead the viewer into the void
Posted in Abandon, Shadows, Video Stills
I’m currently working on fragmentation of the landscape.
The projector is an Epson EMP-TW700 projector onto white cubes, ramps, perforated wood and abandonned walking boots found in the Cawnpore Hills, near Winton QLD, 2007.
Posted in cubism, Video Stills
There is more mystery in the shadow of a ‘woman’ walking on a sunny day, than in all the religions of the world….. Giorgio de Chirico
Posted in Video Stills
Black Crow Totem, Innamincka 2009. Video Still. Cinematographer: Julia Featherstone
I’m currently editing my HD video footage Black Crows, taken near our campsite at Burkes Grave, Innamincka, Simpson Desert, Saturday 18th July,2009, late afternoon.
I loved driving out alone among the Jump Ups, gibbers and crows, in our new Turbo Charged Land Cruiser. The Cruiser lived up to its name, cruising along like a small light car… it was soooooo easy to handle, with all that torque!!!!! Our old 1991 Cruiser (just traded in) drove like a bull-dozer, and more…….!!
Julia Featherstone 
