The Screen Test (Americana/Australiana) project is a collection of works that re-makes selected fragments of film spanning cinema history. Through a process of selectively slowing and stilling this form, of what Laura Mulvey calls Delayed Cinema, opens up new possibilities for interpreting and understanding cinema and the photographic. The aesthetic qualities and repetition of the scene or shot are re-created and re-performed, allowing an alternate form of cinema to take place. This alternate cinema takes on the characteristic of the Hollywood screen test and thus we can see each piece as the artist performing the screen test for each film. However, over time the screen test becomes the site for shifting the aesthetic elements within the film and shaping the narrative as a form of aesthetic building block. The viewing of each fragment allows for a new reading of film that suspends or subverts the temporal narrative and allows the contained segment to exist outside of the film opening up the possibility of constructing and emphasizing new iconic images and meanings. Each video piece is supplemented with a photographic still in tableaux form that further explores the aesthetic material of the film or shot raising the aesthetic components of the film ( props, locations etc) to the level of fetishism that may have been missed in the original version. This photographic rendering of the film fragment rethinks the possibilities of photographic tableaux and its relation to the iconic and indexical of photomedia art practice. Similarly, each photographic work is informed by theories of film analysis and psychology that has examined the primacy of the film still with Freudian notions of the primal scene and the uncanny. We are after all bringing to life the graveyard of cinema history. These photographic qualities of the mis en scene and the indexical of metonymy allow a heightened aesthetic experience, which transforms itself into an aberration of the director’s intended meaning, thereby reconstructing this meaning within the context of camp humour and irony. The work also acts as a playful and absurd interpretation of the cult of celebrity within cinema and the art world, which frees up of the interpretation of the film’s meaning and becomes the site for contemporary re-readings of film culture. The juxtaposition of the American Hollywood film and its emphasis on studio lighting, props, character and dialogue against the outdoor location of the Australian films conflates the two cultural imperatives, allowing for the examination of cultural myth through cinema. American cinema is revealed as the dominant culture whose imperialism dogs Australian film and fosters a culture of low self-esteem. Further, the Americana works become the site for cultural examinations of gender, narcissism and war - both real and imagined – and Hollywood is explored in terms of its social imaginings and how they play into real life events. The Australiana component explores the mythology of the Australian landscape with an emphasis on the culture of masculinity and self-destructive violence. However, each work is the result of a conflation of both cultures and other films, or parts of the same film, shifted within the fragment. The production of each photographic and video piece requires the taking on of the role of director, cinematographer, actor and producer. Through the use of interactive technologies such as DVD and the Internet not only am I able to experience a new subjective relationship with the intricacies of cinema but also by recreating these cinematic fragments I am able to bring into being and transform the spectre of cinema into the realm of contemporary art practice.

The Screen Test (Americana/Australiana) project is a collection of works that re-makes selected fragments of film spanning cinema history. Through a process of selectively slowing and stilling this form, of what Laura Mulvey calls Delayed Cinema, opens up new possibilities for interpreting and understanding cinema and the photographic. The aesthetic qualities and repetition of the scene or shot are re-created and re-performed, allowing an alternate form of cinema to take place. This alternate cinema takes on the characteristic of the Hollywood screen test and thus we can see each piece as the artist performing the screen test for each film. However, over time the screen test becomes the site for shifting the aesthetic elements within the film and shaping the narrative as a form of aesthetic building block. The viewing of each fragment allows for a new reading of film that suspends or subverts the temporal narrative and allows the contained segment to exist outside of the film opening up the possibility of constructing and emphasizing new iconic images and meanings. Each video piece is supplemented with a photographic still in tableaux form that further explores the aesthetic material of the film or shot raising the aesthetic components of the film ( props, locations etc) to the level of fetishism that may have been missed in the original version. This photographic rendering of the film fragment rethinks the possibilities of photographic tableaux and its relation to the iconic and indexical of photomedia art practice. Similarly, each photographic work is informed by theories of film analysis and psychology that has examined the primacy of the film still with Freudian notions of the primal scene and the uncanny. We are after all bringing to life the graveyard of cinema history. These photographic qualities of the mis en scene and the indexical of metonymy allow a heightened aesthetic experience, which transforms itself into an aberration of the director’s intended meaning, thereby reconstructing this meaning within the context of camp humour and irony. The work also acts as a playful and absurd interpretation of the cult of celebrity within cinema and the art world, which frees up of the interpretation of the film’s meaning and becomes the site for contemporary re-readings of film culture. The juxtaposition of the American Hollywood film and its emphasis on studio lighting, props, character and dialogue against the outdoor location of the Australian films conflates the two cultural imperatives, allowing for the examination of cultural myth through cinema. American cinema is revealed as the dominant culture whose imperialism dogs Australian film and fosters a culture of low self-esteem. Further, the Americana works become the site for cultural examinations of gender, narcissism and war - both real and imagined – and Hollywood is explored in terms of its social imaginings and how they play into real life events. The Australiana component explores the mythology of the Australian landscape with an emphasis on the culture of masculinity and self-destructive violence. However, each work is the result of a conflation of both cultures and other films, or parts of the same film, shifted within the fragment. The production of each photographic and video piece requires the taking on of the role of director, cinematographer, actor and producer. Through the use of interactive technologies such as DVD and the Internet not only am I able to experience a new subjective relationship with the intricacies of cinema but also by recreating these cinematic fragments I am able to bring into being and transform the spectre of cinema into the realm of contemporary art practice.

Abstract In this Research paper and through my Studio practice, I search for what binds me and separates me from my children. I investigate abjection theories through Julia Kristeva and Georges Bataille and focus on a particular form I call the maternal abject. This occurs at the time an infant separates from its mother, acquires language and maps its own body. I am proposing that the mapping of the body is the point at which an individual perceives social structures and learns about prohibitions and taboos, hence the abject. I also investigate the relationship between the maternal abject and the artistic process through the writings of Kristeva. Abjection is illustrated through the works of Mona Hatoum, Fiona Hall, Hieronymus Bosch, and Paul Quinn. The maternal abject is illustrated through the works of Mary Kelly, Cindy Sherman, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois. A possible reading of the maternal abject is given through the works of Gregory Crewdson, Joel-Peter Witkin and Francis Bacon. The studio work is in two parts. The first part is a series of layered photomedia images. The layers consist of a naked female body, which has been merged with Renaissance like Madonna and Child images. Texture, such as stones and spikes, is embedded to signify the fragility and strength of the body. Children are also present and are merged with the adult female body. All images are cradled in a darkened atmosphere in order to draw the viewer inside the images. The second part is a bassinet, which has been drilled and pierced by thousands of pearl-headed steel pins. This piece signifies the dichotomy of the motherhood experience, which on the one hand is rewarding and fulfilling and on the other an abject and isolating experience of no apparent economic value. The two parts interact so that the bassinet piece with its threatening exterior acts as an aggressor towards the photomedia images.

Multidimensional aesthetics in photomedia practice shift the emphasis away from the culturally dominating singularity of the camera's eye-piece towards a supple interplay of semi-transparent image planes and shifting positions. Using various image-capture devices that can produce digital, film, still or moving pictures, I create bodies of work that invite the viewer to see many perspectives simultaneously. The challenge is to implement the effectiveness of the technologies and simultaneously dislodge those principles and values fundamental to their imperialist cultural backgrounds. My practice investigates a diplomatic negotiability of aesthetic language to accommodate conceptual and cultural difference/s. Located on the print surface or in animated sequences are symbolic representations that disclose histories, cultures, times and places in subtle and ambiguous ways. The interplay of allure and resistance, repetition and change, are strategies that reveal the delicate and paradoxical nature of the multidimensional psyche.

Abstract In this Research paper and through my Studio practice, I search for what binds me and separates me from my children. I investigate abjection theories through Julia Kristeva and Georges Bataille and focus on a particular form I call the maternal abject. This occurs at the time an infant separates from its mother, acquires language and maps its own body. I am proposing that the mapping of the body is the point at which an individual perceives social structures and learns about prohibitions and taboos, hence the abject. I also investigate the relationship between the maternal abject and the artistic process through the writings of Kristeva. Abjection is illustrated through the works of Mona Hatoum, Fiona Hall, Hieronymus Bosch, and Paul Quinn. The maternal abject is illustrated through the works of Mary Kelly, Cindy Sherman, Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois. A possible reading of the maternal abject is given through the works of Gregory Crewdson, Joel-Peter Witkin and Francis Bacon. The studio work is in two parts. The first part is a series of layered photomedia images. The layers consist of a naked female body, which has been merged with Renaissance like Madonna and Child images. Texture, such as stones and spikes, is embedded to signify the fragility and strength of the body. Children are also present and are merged with the adult female body. All images are cradled in a darkened atmosphere in order to draw the viewer inside the images. The second part is a bassinet, which has been drilled and pierced by thousands of pearl-headed steel pins. This piece signifies the dichotomy of the motherhood experience, which on the one hand is rewarding and fulfilling and on the other an abject and isolating experience of no apparent economic value. The two parts interact so that the bassinet piece with its threatening exterior acts as an aggressor towards the photomedia images.